"Women of quality inclosed their hair with a band of gold, from which a flower drooped over the forehead, while the hair fell in long plaits to the bosom, and behind streamed down the back to the waist. The side hair was secured by combs made of polished wood or by a gold pin, and perhaps was sometimes adorned, like the brow, with a favourite flower. The toilet was furnished with a brazen mirror, polished to such a degree as to reflect every lineament of the face, and the belles of Egypt, as ladies of the present day may imagine, spent no small portion of their time with this faithful counsellor. The boudoirs were not devoid of an air of luxury and refinement particularly congenial to a modern imagination. A stand near the unglazed window supported vases of flowers, which filled the room with delicious odours; a soft carpet overspread the floor; two or three richly-carved chairs and an embroidered fauteuil afforded easy and inviting seats; and the lotus and papyrus were frescoed on the walls. Besides the brazen mirror, other accessories of the toilet were arranged on the ebony table, and boxes and caskets grotesquely carved, some containing jewels, others furnished with oils and ointments, took their place with quaintly-cut smelling bottles, wooden combs, silver or bronze bodkins, and lastly, pins and needles.
"Seated at this shrine, the Egyptian beauty, with her dark glance fixed on the brazen mirror, sought to heighten those charms which are always most potent in their native simplicity. A touch of collyrium gave illusive magnitude to her voluptuous eyes; another cosmetic stained their lids; a delicate brush pencilled her brows--sometimes, alas! imparted a deceitful bloom to her cheeks; and her taper fingers were coloured with the juice of henna. Precious ointments were poured on her hair, and enveloped her in an atmosphere of perfume, while the jeweller's and milliner's arts combined to decorate her person."
In Sir Gardner Wilkinson's admirable work on ancient Egypt, to which I am indebted for some valuable information, there is a plate representing a lady in a bath with her attendants, drawn from a sculpture in a tomb at Thebes, whence we may derive some faint idea of the elaborate character of an Egyptian toilet.