The history of dyeing lips red. History of lipstick. Fats and polymers

Marilyn Monroe

In this article we will tell you about how and with what women have painted their lips for centuries in different countries of the world, as well as what lipstick is today.

Lipstick is a product for coloring lips, the word “lipstick” comes from the Latin “pomum” - apple

The history of lipstick from Ancient Egypt to the 20th century

Statue of Rahotep and Nofret
Ancient Egypt

The ancient Egyptians were real masters in the construction of pyramids, in medicine, and also in makeup. Lipstick was also a mandatory element of makeup for women in Ancient Egypt. If the eyes were painted based on the fact that the eyes are the mirror of the soul, and through the eyes evil spirits can penetrate the body and take possession of a person, then nothing is known about the religious purpose of lipstick in Ancient Egypt.

Bust of Nefertiti

Lipstick was applied to the lips to give them shine. Egyptians used a mixture of fat and red ocher as lipstick. Perhaps, in hot climates, such lipstick could also serve as protection for the lips.

Ocher is a pigment of natural origin, consisting of iron oxide hydrate with an admixture of clay (yellow ocher) or a mixture of anhydrous iron oxide and clay (red ocher).

Ocher

Ocher is one of the most ancient paints. And not only in makeup. Primitive people, when painting on the walls of caves, used ocher as a yellow-red paint. Ancient tribes painted their faces and also used ocher as a paint. Even today, some African tribes, when painting their faces before performing certain rituals or before hunting, also cannot do without ocher.

Caesar and Cleopatra

Women of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome also painted their lips. However, unlike the Egyptians, their makeup could not be very bright. It was believed that women housewives, mothers and wives, should be modest. In Ancient Greece, if anyone was allowed to wear bright makeup, it was women who accompanied men at feasts and theaters.

In Ancient Rome, bright makeup, deviating from generally accepted rules, could be afforded by women of noble origin and, of course, empresses.

Ocher was also used as a paint. Or, in Ancient Greece, vermilion pigment. This is powdered cinnabar.

Cinnabar is mercury sulfide, a harbinger of poisonous cosmetics of the 16th-18th centuries.

Cinnabar

Cinnabar is a Greek word, possibly of Persian origin, which means "dragon's blood".

Cameo depicting the Roman Empress Messalina with her children

In Ancient Rome, red lead, dye moss, and sanguine could also be used as red paint. Sanguine is sticks made of kaolin (white clay) and iron oxides, in other words, red chalk. Dye moss is a plant from the lichen class that can produce red, purple and blue dye.

By the way, in Ancient Rome, according to some sources, men could also paint their lips.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, the church fought against lipstick. All cosmetics were condemned by the church as “the paints of the devil.” In those days, it was believed that wearing makeup meant deceiving, and lying was one of the deadly sins. And not only did they not paint their faces at all in the Middle Ages (both lipstick and blush were prohibited), but in those days it was also possible to create a high forehead by plucking the hair above the forehead. From a modern point of view, a terrible sight.

Jan van Eyck
Portrait of Margaret Van Eyck, 1439

In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, women's lips again became bright scarlet. The fashion for makeup and, of course, lipstick in France is dictated by the queen, who comes from the influential Italian Florentine family, Catherine de Medici, and in England - Elizabeth I.

Portrait of Catherine de Medici

From the 16th century and later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, bright scarlet lipstick and pink blush would serve to emphasize the snowy whiteness of skin covered with more than one layer of white.

Elizabeth I

The same applies to traditional Japanese geisha makeup. Red lipstick emphasizes the whiteness of the skin.

Japanese painting
Beauty with a Fan, 1927

In the 16th - 18th centuries, lipstick was still made from ocher, poisonous mercury sulfide - vermilion, cochineal.

Cochineal is a bright red dye that is obtained from insects of the hemiptera order called cochineal.

Cochineal

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. men and children also painted their lips with lipstick

By the way, in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, makeup was applied not only by women, but also by men. Like ladies, gentlemen used white and rouge, and also painted their lips. Children's lips were also painted. However, in those days there was no separate fashion or even clothing for children. Children wore the same thing as adults, of course, only in a smaller size. Girls began to wear the same corsets at the age of 10-12 years. The only thing is that men's and children's lipstick differed in color from women's. It wasn't that bright.

Portrait of Madame de Pompadour
Favorite of the French King Louis XV
Artist Francois Boucher

The 19th century was once again a time of modesty. The French luxury of balls and palaces ended with the revolution. And fashion is increasingly being dictated by England, which has been more modest in its outfits and makeup since the 18th century. And the bourgeoisie, the new influential layer of society in the 19th century, people who made money, had a different attitude towards luxury. They believed that money should be treated sparingly and used in business, not for paint.

Photograph of Queen Victoria of England with her daughter, 1845

The English queen of the 19th century, Queen Victoria, considered makeup a manifestation of vulgarity. In the 19th century, the idea emerged that bright red lipstick, and makeup in general, was acceptable only for actresses and singers. But not for decent ladies. Young girls, in order to make their lips brighter, could only bite them.

Also, from the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries, many medical works appeared on the dangers of cosmetics, which during the 16th-18th centuries were made from mercury and lead.

Red lipstick

“Red is the color of life, the color of blood.
I love red."
Coco Chanel

Today you can buy lipstick in almost any color - from scarlet to pink, orange and even black. But over the centuries, the color of lipstick has always remained bright red.

Coco Chanel

Red, black and white are the three main colors in the history of the relationship between colors and humans. It was red, black and white that became the first colors that primitive people began to use as paints, both for painting on cave walls and for face painting. And the American Indians generally painted not only their faces, but also their bodies with ocher, for which they received their nickname from the Europeans - the Redskins.

Altamira Cave, Spain
Drawing of primitive people

The color red has versatile symbolism. On the one hand, it is the color of life. After all, the color of our “life juice,” that is, blood, is red. This is the color of the sun - red sun. Red was often synonymous with beauty -. The traditional color of wedding clothes for girls of many nations is also red. For example, in Rus' people got married in a red sundress. On the other hand, red is the color of danger and anxiety.

Sophia Loren

The physical properties of red are also interesting. Of all the colors in the spectrum that humans perceive, red has the longest wavelength. Thus, it causes a stronger subconscious reaction - the color red is always noticeable.

And red lips and cheeks are a sign of health and youth. As people say, blood comes with milk.

Red lipstick as a symbol of the fight for women's rights

Still from the 1965 film “The Great Race”
The main character of the film is a journalist and feminist

So, in 1912, all the participants came out to the march in New York for the right to vote with lips painted with bright scarlet lipstick.

Still from the 1965 film “The Great Race”

And in 1915, the first convenient lipstick appeared - lipstick in a round case with levers on the sides. Before this, throughout its history, lipstick was in the form of paint, which was applied with a brush. And already in the 1920s, fashionable girls with short haircuts leading an active lifestyle could not imagine their appearance without red lipstick.

1920s Short Haircut

Almost the entire twentieth century: in the 1930s, and in the 1950s, and in the 1960s, and in the 1970s, lipstick did not go out of fashion. It becomes an item that can be found in almost any woman’s purse. Even during the war years of the 1940s, lipstick was still produced and sold. And in the USA, with the participation of Elizabeth Arden, the founder of the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics brand, during the war years a red lipstick was developed to match the color of the uniform of the Women's Marine Corps Reserve Corps.

Marilyn Monroe

And only in the 1990s did lipstick give way to lip gloss for a while. However, lip gloss is nothing more than a derivative of lipstick. The first lip gloss appeared quite a long time ago - back in 1932. However, already at the beginning of the 21st century, the fashion for lipstick is returning again.

What is lipstick made from today?

Main ingredients of lipstick:

1. Wax - it gives it shape
2. Pigments - they give color
3. Fragrances - they make the smell pleasant
4. Vegetable oils are the basis of lipstick in the twentieth century.
5. Silicone oils - make lipstick long-lasting, the basis of lipstick in the 21st century.
6. Various additives - for example, vitamins, pearlescent additives, lanolin, which gives lips elasticity, etc.

And by the way, we eat everything listed above. In the literal sense of the word. Not only women, but also men eat lipstick when kissing.

According to French scientists, men eat up to 3 kg of lipstick in their lifetime, and women - up to 8 kg.

In the twentieth century, lipstick was most often made from vegetable oil, for example, castor, wax and, of course, pigments that gave it color. Over the years, such lipstick acquired a bitter smell as the vegetable oil deteriorated. If you have old lipsticks at home, from the 70s or 80s, take a sniff and you will smell the smell of vegetable oil spoiled by time.

Elizabeth Taylor

The first pigment used in the production of lipsticks was carmine or good old cochineal - a dye obtained from carminic acid produced by female cochineal insects. Today, pigments are most often of artificial origin.

Lipstick popular in the 1920s and 1930s

Fragrances are also added to lipstick - a mixture of synthetic and semi-synthetic compositions, in order to give the lipstick a pleasant smell.

In the 1990s, a revolution took place in the production of lipsticks. For a long time, they tried to make lipsticks long-lasting, and only at the end of the 20th century this was achieved. In the 1990s, lipsticks began to be made from wax, pigments and silicone oil. The first such lipstick was released by Revlon. The same company was the first to offer color combinations of lipstick and nail polish. However, this product also had its drawbacks - it was only a matte lipstick and it dried out the lips, since the silicone oil evaporated immediately after application.

In 2000, Max Factor attempted to create long-lasting lipstick. They created a double-sided lipstick. First, one coat of evaporating silicone oil was applied, then a second coat of gloss with silicone oil that did not evaporate. But you must admit, double-sided lipstick, which should be applied in the correct order, layer by layer, is something very difficult.

Silicone oils are liquid organosilicon polymers, that is, silicon analogues of organic compounds, where some carbon atoms are replaced by silicon atoms.

And finally, Japanese chemists have found a way to combine volatile and non-volatile silicone oils in one lipstick. Thus, the lipstick turned out to be long-lasting and did not dry out the lips. The Japanese received an emulsion of silicone oils. An emulsion is a mixture of immiscible liquids. In addition to pigment, wax, fragrance, and silicone oils, it became possible to add various additional substances to such lipstick. For example, vitamin E or good old vegetable oils that moisturize your lips.

The Roman physician and philosopher Claudius Galen was an ardent opponent of lip paint. And all because then poisonous pigments were added to it - red lead and cinnabar. Modern doctors have not yet included lipstick in the list of prohibited goods, but even today the choice of this cosmetic product can result in unpleasant consequences - from a ruined evening to allergies.

The prototype of modern lipstick began to be used in Mesopotamia approximately 5,000 years ago. Lip paint was also known in Ancient Egypt - it was made from red pigment, beeswax and animal fat. From Egypt, lipstick came to Ancient Greece, and then to Rome. In the 14th century, the Catholic Church banned cosmetics: the ideal of beauty was the Virgin Mary, immaculate and without makeup.

At the end of the 19th century, French perfumers introduced a pencil-shaped lipstick wrapped in silk paper. Later, lipstick appeared in a case with a piston mechanism - it allowed you to use the lipstick completely, and the case had replaceable blocks. Modern lipstick as we know it appeared in 1920, when Elena Rubinstein released it in a tube. In the thirties, Hazel Bishop created another revolutionary innovation - kiss-proof lipstick.

Helena Rubinstein Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Secret ingredient

Today's selection of lipsticks would impress even a sophisticated fashionista from the beginning of the last century: matte, satin, glossy, long-lasting, volume-enhancing, visually whitening teeth. At the same time, modern lipsticks have long ceased to be exclusively decorative. Manufacturers of even the most affordable products give them hygienic properties - moisturizing or nourishing. What is included in modern lipstick? It is based on waxes, fats and oils.

Wax

Wax provides the strength and plasticity of lipstick and sets its shape. It allows the lipstick to glide on easily on the lips. Initially, manufacturers used natural beeswax, but, like honey, it is a strong allergen, so today high-quality lipstick is most often made from natural waxes of plant origin.

Vegetable oil

The main oil for the production of lipstick is castor. It provides color shine. In addition, the lipstick may contain lanolin, petroleum jelly, coconut, olive and mineral oils. And not so long ago, manufacturers began to use avocado oil - it softens the epidermis and supplies cells with valuable nutrients.

Fats and polymers

Fats give lipstick its hardness, and the film they create

left on the lips, protects delicate skin from chapping and moisture loss. To extend the life of lipstick, anti-oxidants and preservatives must be added to the fat base.

A thin film of polymers and silicate derivatives, which are also included in modern lipstick, also protects lips from loss of moisture. They also provide shine and durability to the lipstick.

Toulouse-Lautrec. Woman taking care of her face. 1889 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Dyes

One of the most common dyes in the production of lipsticks is carmine. It is also used in the meat processing, dairy, confectionery, fish processing industries, and the production of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

Carmine is registered as a food additive E120. And they get it from dried red-brown insects - false scale insects, which live in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

A powder is obtained from dried and crushed insects, treated with a solution of ammonia or sodium carbonate, and then filtered. The complexity of the process makes carmine more expensive than other dyes. The color of carmine can vary from gray to purple-violet.

Supplements

Among the useful additives in lipstick, vitamins A, C and E are most often used. They have an anti-inflammatory effect, protect lips from the negative influence of external factors, contain sunscreen filters and help maintain youthful skin. The lipstick fragrance hides the smell of raw materials.

Color or benefit?

It's no secret that most women are guided by color when choosing lipstick. Despite the importance of shade, it is still better to choose lipstick based on its hygienic properties in order to provide comprehensive lip care. For example, the more wax and oils in the lipstick, the better it will soften and moisturize.

Accordingly, waxes and natural oils should be at the beginning of the list of ingredients - this means that there are proportionally more of them in the product. When studying information about the composition of lipstick, you should also pay attention to the expiration date. Depending on the manufacturer and the degree of naturalness, lipstick can be stored from six months to 5 years. Obviously expired lipstick can be distinguished even visually: it changes consistency and acquires an unpleasant odor.

How will we apply it?

Long lasting, satin, matte

Based on their decorative properties, lipsticks are divided into long-lasting, satin and matte.

Wax and water-repellent components allow the long-lasting lipstick to stay on the lips for a long time without losing its decorative qualities. The only thing this lipstick is afraid of is contact with fatty foods. Before applying long-lasting lipstick, you need to remove moisture and oil from your lips by blotting them with a napkin. Accordingly, such lipstick should be washed off with cosmetic milk or cream.

Matte lipstick contains a large amount of wax and powder. Thanks to the latter, it is devoid of shine, but its color can confidently be called deeper than shimmering ones.

Makeup experts advise choosing a matte lipstick for full, plump lips. It does not decorate women with thin lips.

Satin lipstick, which is distinguished by its radiant light and shine, will help to visually increase the volume of your lips. It applies easily and evenly to the lips, has a moisturizing effect, and makes the skin of the lips smoother.

Color palette

After assessing the hygienic and decorative properties of the lipstick, you can move on to choosing a color. When choosing lipstick colors, you should remember the features of your appearance.

So, large lips will be ennobled by lipstick in calm tones, such as bronze, purple or brown. And you can visually enlarge narrow lips with the help of light lipsticks.

When choosing a shade, you should not rely only on the first impression of the color - lipstick, as a rule, looks different on the lips. To imagine exactly how it will look, you should apply it from a sampler onto your fingertips.

Many people test lipstick on their wrist, but the color turns out different, because the skin on the wrist is lighter than on the lips. And on the fingertips, the skin most closely matches the color and texture of the skin of the lips.

Selection rules

Skin and hair color plays a big role when choosing a lipstick shade. For fair-haired people, lipsticks in berry and mauve colors, as well as cappuccino shades, are suitable. Owners of golden hair can safely choose delicate peach and coral tones.

Red-haired people should use cinnamon-colored lipstick, and also choose terracotta shades, which, by the way, are also suitable for dark-skinned ladies with blond hair.

Lipstick - forever!

The tradition of painting your body has come to us since ancient times. Scientists, while analyzing excavations, discover that the tradition of painting lips dates back to time immemorial. However, the ancient Egyptians are considered the founders of the invention of lipstick. It is known that the Egyptians took lipstick with them even on their last journey. Lipstick in those days served rather to make lips smaller and they were of a dark shade. In ancient times, both women and men tinted their lips.
In the Middle Ages there was practically no mention of lipsticks. Painting your lips was not accepted and even shameful. And only in the second half of the 17th century did lipstick appear on the lips of the French nobility. Moreover, as in ancient Egypt, it was used by both men and women. The composition of that lipstick included natural mineral dyes, vegetable oils and wax. At the beginning of the 20th century, lipstick was used only by women of easy virtue. Other women preferred not to wear makeup, so as not to be considered immoral.

Something more or less similar to lipstick in our minds was presented at an exhibition in Amsterdam in 1903. This exhibition is considered the beginning of the revival of this product. She was highly appreciated by the then famous actress Sarah Bernhardt.
In 1915, lipstick in convenient tubes first appeared on sale in the United States. At the same time, cinema became popular, and theatricality, which is impossible without makeup, came into fashion. Ladies yearning for cosmetics began to actively use cosmetics. During these same years, the now popular Max Factor brand was founded.

Fashion for lip shapes and lipsticks is constantly changing. In the 20s, bright, thin lips were in fashion. This trend lasted until the 40s. After the war, a different type of appearance with more sensual lips became popular. This trend has continued to this day! Today there is another good trend - studying abroad. Studying English in England is especially useful. It's an incredibly exciting process when you learn a language directly from native speakers. Find out more about this on the website www.esperanto.ru. Interestingly, in England the process of learning the language does not end even after lessons!

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Lipstick (French pommade, Italian pomata and Latin pomum - apple) is a cosmetic product for coloring and moisturizing lips.

Lipstick was first used in Mesopotamia approximately 5,000 years ago. Lip paint was already known in Ancient Egypt. There it was made from red pigment, beeswax and animal fat. Egyptian women preferred dark shades of lipstick.

The trend of Ancient Egypt was thin, elegant lips of a blood-red color, like the beauty of that time, Nefertiti. Lip dye was made by mixing bromine, iodine and red algae. Sometimes a special pigment, carmine, was added to this “lipstick,” which was obtained from the dried cochineal insect.

Cleopatra also loved lipstick - she used a mixture of red ocher and hematite. Egyptian women used lipstick not only during life - when burying the dead, lipstick was placed next to other accessories.

From Egypt, lipstick came to Ancient Greece, and then to Rome. However, in these countries there were both supporters and opponents of lip paint. One of the main opponents was the famous Claudius Galen. Galen was not at all an opponent of cosmetics - he was only trying to warn women against using dangerous cosmetics. This was due to the fact that in those days pigments that were poisonous (red lead, cinnabar) were added to lipstick. However, women continued to use lipstick.

The Christian Church also had a negative attitude towards any changes in appearance. In the 14th century, the Catholic Church banned cosmetics: a papal bull declared that women wearing makeup distorted the image of the Virgin Mary. In that period, the Inquisition had the right to arrest women who painted their lips for sacrilege.

Back in the second half of the 18th century, the French made lipstick exclusively from natural ingredients. Moreover, only male representatives could use it. At the court of Louis XVI, lipstick was especially worn by flirtatious and loving men, who tried to highlight their lips so that they would not merge with their mustache and beard.

Women gained the right to use lipstick only at the beginning of this century. Moreover, this became available only to girls of easy virtue. As for decent and decent people, in those days they were not allowed to wear lipstick.

The use of lipstick was revived for the second time in 1803, when the World Exhibition was held in Amsterdam, at which a new product in the cosmetic industry was presented - a product made from deer fat. He was awarded the highest marks.

In 1883, at the World Exhibition in Amsterdam, French perfumers presented a shaped lipstick wrapped in silk.

The famous actress Sarah Bernhardt contributed to the popularization of lipstick. She literally idolized this “great discovery of the 19th century” and gave it her name “stylo d’Amore” (“Wand of Love”).

The authorship of the lipstick in the tube belongs to GUERLAIN. The appearance of the first lipstick in metal packaging (in the USA, 1915) gave rise to the “lipstick boom”, because it became convenient to use lipstick.

The first lipstick was Ne m’oubliez pas (“Unforgettable”), created on the basis of pink wax. It was sold in a case with a piston mechanism, which was very convenient because it allowed you to use the lipstick completely, until the very end. The case had replaceable blocks. Max Factor introduced women to a new product - lip gloss, and Elizabeth Arden established the Beauty Institute, which taught women the mysteries of using decorative cosmetics.

In 1920, Elena Rubinstein released a tube of lipstick called Valaz Lip-Listre; lipstick from Rubinstein became an almost revolutionary phenomenon - if previously only women with high incomes could afford this cosmetic product, then Valaz Lip-Listre became an extremely affordable product, the cost of which did not exceed a few dollars. In the thirties, Hazel Bishop, founder of the cosmetics brand of the same name, created another revolutionary new product - kiss-resistant lipstick.

In the era of prosperity of cinema, female deities appeared. Their image was admired and became an ideal to follow, to which Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo strove at all costs. Theatrics quickly became fashionable, which gave the green light for the development of the cosmetics industry, in particular lipstick. Its application has now become a real art, with its own styles.

The most popular of them can be called “Rosebud lips” (“Rosebud”) from Max Factor, “Bee stung lips” (“Bitten by a bee”) or “Vampire lips,” in which the lipstick was not absorbed into the foundation, as well as “Cupid’s bow lips,” a shape with clearly defined corners of the mouth.

A little later, the “Cupid’s bow” lipstick appeared, created by Helena Rubinstein. She supposedly allowed her to give her lips the desired shape. This lipstick was very popular until Joan Crawford wanted to make her lips more voluminous. She was able to completely make her wish come true with just one stroke of “Hunter’s bow lips”.

Since then, women have taken on board the fact that lipstick can help them attract attention to their person and make a good impression. In the 1930s, advertisements for Elizabeth Arden products were published. It said that painted lips are a clear key to success in finding a job.

In the post-war period, a real cosmetic boom began in Paris in 1947. Everywhere there was an advertisement for Rougebeze lipstick, which, as the video said, “allowed you to kiss.”

For film actresses, the durability of lipstick was also of great importance. For the invention of long-lasting lipstick, Max's son, Mr. Factor- Jr., recruited volunteers to conduct his tests. However, they soon got tired of kissing. As a result, a rubber model was created for these purposes - the “Kissing machine”. Famous actresses participated in the advertising of the invented lipstick: Bette Davis and Elizabeth Taylor, who willingly posed in various photo shoots.

That period can be safely described as a mini-revolution in women’s attitude to cosmetics. Since then, in almost any lady's handbag one could find a treasured case with lipstick, the choice of shades of which has become simply enormous. From now on, putting on lipstick to go out into the garden or go grocery shopping at the nearest store has become natural.

In 1949, the first machines were designed in the USA to produce lipstick in its today's form - in metal or plastic tube.

Since the global financial crisis of 1929, there has been something called the “lipstick effect” in economics. In difficult times, consumers try to save money and stop spending money on large and expensive things. Sales are declining, the number of homes sold is falling, and fewer and fewer household appliances and furniture are being purchased. But people continue to buy cosmetics, as a small and budget-friendly product. Thus, US industrial production halved in 1929-33, and the profits of cosmetic companies, on the contrary, increased.

Lipstick owes its popularity to such famous movie stars as Gloria Svenson, Asta Nielsen, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Lara Turner. Women tried to imitate them, and, as a result, purchased lipstick.

There is an interesting fact in the history of lipstick that at the end of the 17th century the English parliament decided: if a man got married, and after the wedding he noticed that his chosen one was not as beautiful as she was before the marriage, when she could wear makeup, then he can divorce her, without chances for reconciliation.

Over the many centuries of lipstick's existence, it has gone through many transformations. It is hardly possible to surprise modern women with something new, but the beauty industry does not stand still. Lipstick is constantly being improved, its composition and texture are improving, bright colors and shine are appearing, and perhaps some new, previously unknown variations of lipstick will appear soon.

Scarlet lip color was not always considered a trend. Moreover, there were times when red lipstick was illegal.

Ancient civilizations

People first started talking about red lipstick back in 3500 BC. Historians consider the ancient Sumerians to be its inventors, since they were credited with the first discoveries in the field of beauty. Others claim that red lipstick originated in ancient Egypt, when both men and women painted their lips using a mixture of red ocher, carmine and wax.

Historians discovered interesting facts about red lipstick while studying the culture of Ancient Greece. In those days, society, to put it mildly, did not welcome a red tint on women’s lips: only courtesans could afford a bright color. Moreover, the latter were required to paint their lips red to indicate their social status.

In Ancient Rome, attitudes towards red lipstick improved (at least the law did not prohibit it). Scarlet color was used by both women and men, ignoring the fact that the composition of the lipstick was toxic. In this way they indicated their status in society.

Medieval period

Red lipstick gained popularity, absolutely everyone began to use it. Rich women wore a bright pink color on their lips, which indicated their wealth, while poor women wore an earthy shade of red.

It's time for the Renaissance

At the beginning of the 16th century, clergy condemned the presence of red lipstick in the beauty arsenal of girls, calling it a manifestation of the devil. But this did not stop Queen Elizabeth I of England from painting her lips a bright crimson color, so bright lipstick quickly became a real beauty trend of that time.

A hundred years later, the attitude towards red lipstick had not changed: pastors still urged people to give up cosmetics, but their sermons did not have the desired impact. English ladies, along with socially respected gentlemen, continued to use lipstick with red pigment.

Age of Enlightenment

The attitude of the ruling stratum of society towards red lips has noticeably worsened. The British government passed a law that officially banned lipstick and accused its owner of witchcraft. A similar trend was observed in America. Some states have introduced formal annulment proceedings if a woman wears red lipstick without the man's consent.

The beginning of the 19th century was marked by the birth of the absolute trend for red lipstick. In 1860, the French brand Guerlain first launched the production of lipstick, which contained grapefruit extract mixed with butter and beeswax. Theater actress Sarah Bernhardt dared to appear in public with bright lip color, which caused a storm of disapproving reviews. The free use of lipstick was still not welcomed in society, but Bernard’s act became a turning point in the history of cosmetics.

20th century

Society has finally begun to accept bright lipstick. According to artist Madeleine Marsh, author of a book on female beauty from the Victorian era to the present day (Compacts and Cosmetics), the first and most famous turning point for red lipstick was the 1912 protest organized by the suffragettes: women painted their lips bright red and took to the streets of New York. After this, red lipstick became a real symbol of rebellion against the infringement of women's civil rights.

During World War II, cosmetics manufacturers created advertising campaigns featuring red lipstick shades that encouraged women to “do their civic duty.” Thus, in the post-war period, bright lipstick was already an integral part of the style of every American woman.

And although the 1970s saw a decline in the popularity of red in favor of more natural shades, with the advent of the disco-glamour era, cherry-toned lipstick returned to fashion. Today, red on the lips is one of the most powerful symbols of female beauty and sexuality. Despite his difficult past, he has survived to this day and has become a constant favorite among women.