Yan Shigu

In the film, Yang Guifei's makeup, at first glance, seems not much different from modern women's makeup. However, upon closer inspection, there are some distinctive features—her eyebrows are dark blue-black. According to the Western Capital Miscellaneous Records, during the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao ordered the palace ladies to draw dark blue-black eyebrows, which were fine and light in color. This style remained popular until the Tang and Song dynasties. In Bai Juyi's poem The White-Haired Woman of Shangyang, he writes: "The dark blue-black eyebrows are long and fine, the fashion of the late Tianbao era." The color of the Empress's eyebrows in the film may be more historically accurate. The Tang Dynasty was the period with the richest variety of eyebrow styles in Chinese history. In the early Tang Dynasty, women preferred willow-leaf eyebrows and crescent eyebrows, shaped like a new moon. During the reigns of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu Zetian, broad eyebrows became fashionable, characterized by their length, width, and thickness, making them very prominent on the face. The shape and drawing method of broad eyebrows varied over time. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty (the period when Yang Guifei lived), popular eyebrow styles included moth eyebrows, distant…