Girls in southeastern Turkey used to use breast milk and tattoo soot to seduce boys. Tattoos are still on their bodies today, but the custom is slowly disappearing.
A tattoo on the back of the hand of Mrs Hedla Gocmen as she holds her niece's crib at her house in the village of Dikmen near the town of Kiziltepe in southeastern Mardin province, Turkey. Tattooing is a tatkuinkcom traditional beauty treatment for many women in this area.
Mixing soot and breast milk
they used a simple needle to tattoo the mixture onto hands and feet, or onto breasts and entire faces.
The tattoo designs are designed by these women themselves, inspired by the surrounding things, such as the Sun, the Moon or objects like combs.
"I fell in love with a man who later became my husband. I wanted him to see me as beautiful," recalls 84-year-old Ayse Yusufoglu. "Although the needle is very painful, we, 10 and 16-year-old girls, still tattoo each other."
They take soot from the bottom of a pot that is cooked with forest wood
Milk must be the milk of mothers who are breastfeeding. "The milk of a nursing mother will give a light green tattoo," said Hulu Aydoglu, 87. "And the milk of a mother who is nursing a son will give the womens skull sweatshirt tattoo a darker color."
However, this custom of tattooing is being lost. Some people think the cause is related to religion because there are opinions that women tattoo is a sin, but the reality is that young Turkish girls today are no longer interested in this method. traditional beauty of mothers and fathers.