"Before the girl got married, the woman with a twisted face would come. The leather-covered woman is holding a cloth bag with a long twine in it. The process of twisting the face is like this: first put flour on the girl's face, then bite one end of the rope with your mouth and tighten the rope with your hands, and you can get busy. First the chin, then the face and forehead, a little twisted. After twisting, the girl's face became rosy and her skin became particularly delicate. " Popo, 85, recalled.
Face wringing is an ancient beauty method, which uses thread to remove hair from women's faces. Also called face-wringing, face-opening and face-opening. In the early days, the facial distortion before marriage was to make the bride's face smooth and beautiful, so that the groom fell in love at first sight. This is a traditional ceremony for women in old China before they get married. In China, from north to south, women have the custom of wringing their faces, which is regarded as a rite of passage. A woman opens her face once in her life, and then she doesn't open it after divorce and remarriage. The face grinder uses a thin twine, which is pulled by one hand in the middle and tied at both ends to the thumb and forefinger of the other hand, or bitten by the mouth in the middle, and two gloves wrap the two ends to form a cross triangle. The twine is twisted on the woman's face to remove hair. In addition, eyebrows and sideburns should also be trimmed.
According to the records in the book, there is a legend about the origin of the face-opening: Because Emperor Yang Di robbed the common people, a family pulled out all the hair on the married daughter's face and carried it to the groom's house disguised as a city god empress to avoid inspection by officers and men. Later, everyone followed suit and became a custom.
"Because our hair is colored, if we tear it off, our faces will be bright and clean. There is another advantage of twisting your face. Without the barrier of hair, girls can stick to the skin in the future and play a role in beauty. " The old man said.
According to the old man, when twisting her face, the girl who twisted her face will also take the opportunity to say some auspicious words and teach the bride some truths that the daughter-in-law should understand. Over time, she will organize and form a fixed rhyming ballad: "Give a pair of chopsticks, and you will fall from the sky. Fortunately, after decontamination, you will be safe for a hundred years. Clean forehead, married people will not be hungry, labor is not afraid of fatigue, filial piety and love; Second, polish your eyes, eliminate disasters and solve problems, and husband and wife hold hands until they are old; Third, clean and auspicious nose, keep the family safe, have a baby early, and the husband and wife are harmonious; Four mouths are clean, and the export is auspicious. I went to my husband's house in a sedan chair and enjoyed a reunion tonight. Five clean dough, crystal clear as jade and muscle, pure white and tender girl, give you thousands of years of wealth; The neck behind the ear is clean and innocent everywhere, and the whole family is happy for a lifetime. "
Nowadays, with the appearance of various beauty products, facial beauty methods have gradually disappeared. However, in the eyes of many older people, face wringing is not only a job, but also a good memory related to the most important happy event in their lives.