Lipstick

HISTORY

Red has been universally a protective color since time immemorial to stop evil forces. As one of man's most dangerous zones was thought to be his mouth, lips were originally painted red to stop evil forces entering the body and taking possession of it.

In the ancient Babylonian Epic of Creation it is told that the god Marduk smeared red ochre on his lips before engaging in deadly battle against the dragon Tiamat.

In ancient Greece, red lipstick was a sign that a woman was a prostitute.

In ancient Rome, lipstick was a mark of social rank and was seen as a sign of status for both men and women.

70,000 beetles were necessary to yield the one pound of the carmine dye used by Cleopatra to paint her lips.

Around the turn of the thirteenth century, regal Italian women wore pink lipstick to show they could afford synthetic makeup.

Crimson-stained lips were popular during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England and the queen herself painted on cochineal blended with gum arabic, egg white and fig milk.

The names of 16th century lipsticks included ape’s laugh, chimney-sweep and dying monkey.

The eighteenth century English church denounced lip painting as altering God's most precious gift. In 1770 the English Parliament passed a law stating, “women found guilty of seducing men into marriage by a cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft.”

French cosmetics company Guerlain introduced the first commercially successful lipstick, a pomade of grapefruit mixed with butter and wax in 1880. Until then lip color had been made in the home.

By 1915, lipstick was being sold in America in cylinder metal containers, which had been invented by Maurice Levy. Women had to slide a tiny lever at the side of the tube with the edge of their fingernail to move the lipstick up to the top of the case.

Red lipstick was one of the few things not to be rationed during World War II in the UK, as Churchill believed it boosted morale.

 The U.S. chemist and entrepreneur Hazel Bishop invented the first long-lasting lipstick in the Forties. Marketed as ‘kiss-proof’, its slogan was: "Stays on you . . . not on him."

The government of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia introduced in 1996 a ban against excessive use of lipstick, claiming "such practices were a prelude to illicit sex."

FUN LIPSTICK FACTS

Lipstick can still contain lead, but no more than 20 parts per million; arsenic, but no more than three parts per million; and mercury, but no more than one part per million.

By Idhren - originally posted to Flickr as Lipstick face,Wikipedia commons

Fish scales are used in lipstick to make it shimmer and reflect light.

Known as the "lipstick effect," lipstick sales tend to increase during economic recessions—as well as on rainy days.

The average woman uses her height in lipstick every five years.

Sources Europress Encyclopedia, Allure.com