Ancient
Rituals

In response to the fast-paced world, we're digging deep into history's archives to unearth the slow, ritualistic practices of beauty — and the brands reviving them.

By @holy.grail· Filed 26.06.24· Three relics· Reading 5 min

Mythology and lore take over beauty — ancient ingredients, reimagined as feeling.

Fig. ii. — A relic, dissolved and remade.

A painted Ancient Egyptian relief depicting figures and offerings — Fig. iii. — Pigment on relief, c. 2500 BC — aromatic plants pressed for cosmetics, medicine and ritual.

Essential oils & the oldest beauty ingredient on earth

4,500 years ago, Ancient Egyptians were pressing aromatic plants into oils for cosmetics, medicine and ritual. Essential oils are one of the oldest beauty ingredients on earth — and the world is catching on again.

Slow, ritualistic practices that nourish something deep and primal are answering a grounding need for luxurious self-care.

$18.5B → 2× The global essential oils market today — projected to nearly double by 2032.

01 — The RitualEgypt, 1st c. BC

39BC Silk Veil oil body cleanser and Denarii packaging — Fig. iv. — 39BC, Vol. I: Alexandria — the milk-bath, reissued.

Cleopatra Milk Baths

Cleopatra's daily ritual was to bathe in warm donkey's milk — a deliberate, unhurried practice.

The lactic acid in milk is an alpha hydroxy acid, cleansing the skin down to its deepest layers. This ritual, and dozens like it across cultures and centuries, are the ones we're returning to now.

The reissuei

i 39BCFig Milk Oil Body Cleanser — Vol. I: Alexandria Link pending

39BC, by Sharmadean Reid — a study in beauty as pleasure, bathing as ceremony. A concentrated oil that transforms into a silken milk veil on contact with water.

02 — The RitualPersia, 10th c.

Persian miniature of a seated figure raising a single rose to his face — Fig. v. — Persian miniature — a courtier with a single rose.

Ark Gulab: Rose Water

A thousand years of Persian tradition, distilled into a single ingredient. Before serums, acids and 12-step routines, there was rose water.

Physician Avicenna, a fixture in 10th-century Persian courts, first steam-distilled the essence of roses into something transformative. Now, it's having its long overdue renaissance.

Sifali frosted glass rose water mist on a sunlit vanity with a round mirror

The reissuei

i SifaliGül Rose Water Mist Link pending

A hydrating, soothing facial mist drawn from Turkish tradition. 100% Rosa Damascena, no added fragrance — balancing the skin's pH while it calms and hydrates.

03 — The WorldFragrance

Lore

Lore: storytelling, back story, mythology passed down. A deliberate name for a fragrance brand that uses poetry, imagery and feeling as its creative brief.

Developed with French master perfumer Jérôme Epinette, each scent is less a formula and more a world. A cabin somewhere that doesn't exist. Ancient ingredients, reimagined as feeling.

The worldi

i LoreA fragrance, a world Link pending

With Jérôme Epinette — Versailles seen through the looking glass. Send links and these go live.

✦

An archive of the mood.

Lived-in, smudged, unfiltered — the slow rituals, filed for the next era of beauty culture.

Ancient Rituals · compiled by @holy.grail · Vol. 03 / 2026