Note 70 — Chapter I · PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND DRESS OF THE MUSLIM EGYPTIANS.

The depilatory most commonly used by the Egyptian women is a kind of resin, called libán shámee, applied in a melted state: but this, they pretend, is not always necessary: by applying the blood of a bat to the skin of a newly-born female infant, on the parts where they wish no hair to grow, they assert that they accomplish this desire. A female upon whom this application has been made is termed “muwatwatah”; from “watwát,” a bat. Some women pluck out the hair after merely rubbing the part with the ashes of charcoal.