Dioscorides also gives directions for making animal fats suitable for the reception of perfumes. Beef-tallow, deer-fat, or the marrow of animals was freed from all membranes, melted together with a little salt in an entirely new vessel, and then poured into clean water, where it was washed by rubbing with the hands, the water being frequently renewed. Then it was boiled with equal parts of sweet-scented wine, and after taking it from the fire it was allowed to stand over night. The next day the cold fat was again boiled in a new vessel, with sweet-scented wine, this operation being repeated until the fat had lost every trace of disagreeable odor, when it was brought in contact with the perfumes. The consumption of perfume-substances by the ancient Romans must have been enormous. The trade of the ointment makers (_ungentarii_) was so extensive that the large street _Seplasia_ in old Capua was entirely taken up by it, and the business must have paid well since the prices realized were very high. However, in ancient times the business cannot have been very agreeable, at least not in Greece, as shown by a passage in Plutarch's Life of Pericles: "We take pleasure in ointments and purple, but consider the dyers and ointment makers bondsmen and mechanics." Red and white paints, in the form of powder as well as of paste, were extensively used by the Roman ladies. Chalk and white lead served for white paint, and minium and carmine for red. Lovers preferred white paints, a pale color being more becoming to them:-- "Palleat omnis amans; hic est color aptus amanti."--(_Ovid._) For black paints for the eyebrows roasted ant eggs or soot were used. The Roman ladies paid as much attention to their natural, and also false, hair as the fair ones of to-day. They curled their hair with heated iron instruments, and perfumed them with fragrant oil. If from age, sorrow, or other reasons, the hair was no longer black, it was dyed, and it seems that a considerable number of hair-dyes were known in Rome, amongst them some which are still employed to-day, such as green nutshells and acetate of lead. After the Romans had seen the blonde German maidens, blonde and red hair became the fashion. To dye the hair blonde sharp alkaline soaps were chiefly used. However, this or some other hair-dye seems to have been very injurious, as it caused the hair to come out. The satirists ridiculed this as well as the wigs, which were worn by men and women to hide baldness, or on account of the color which could not be attained by dyes. Depilatories were also known to the Romans, the agents employed being called _psilothrum_ and _dropax_. They were of vegetable origin, but it is not exactly known from which plants they were derived.