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Lipstick

Cosmetic for coloring the lip

  • 15 min read
  • 6 chapters

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Lipstick has been prominent in several women's fashion trends, often associated with women's sexuality. The color of lipstick has aesthetic and cultural significance, as different colors carry different connotations. Red lipstick has historically been associated with sensuality or women's independence, while black lipstick is worn by both men and women in alternative subcultures, especially punk and goth. Celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna, and Taylor Swift have contributed to the popularity and iconic images of lipstick in fashion and mainstream media.

History

Early history

Ancient Sumerian and Indus Valley men and women were possibly the first to invent and wear lipstick, about 5,000 years ago. Sumerians crushed gemstones and used them to decorate their faces, mainly on the lips and around the eyes. Women in the ancient Indus Valley civilization have used rectangular pieces of ochre with beveled ends as lipstick. The Kama Sutra describes lip coloring made of red lac and beeswax and the method how it was used. Ancient Egyptians wore lipstick to show social status rather than gender. They extracted the red dye from fucus-algin, 0.01 % iodine, and some bromine mannite, but this dye resulted in serious illness. Lipsticks with shimmering effects were initially made using a pearlescent substance found in fish scales.

The Chinese made lipsticks that were made from beeswax more than 1,000 years ago to protect the delicate skin of the lips. During the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), scented oils were added to them, which gave the mouth an enticing factor.

In Australia, Aboriginal girls would paint their mouths red with ochre for puberty rituals.

United Kingdom and France

Lip colouring started to gain some popularity in 16th-century England. During the time of Queen Elizabeth I bright red lips and a stark white face became fashionable. At that time, lipstick was made from a blend of beeswax and red stains from plants. Only upper-class women and male actors wore makeup. Throughout most of the 19th century, the obvious use of cosmetics was not considered acceptable in Britain for respectable women, and it was associated with marginalised groups such as actors and prostitutes. It was considered brazen and uncouth to wear makeup. In the 1850s, reports were being published warning women of the dangers of using lead and vermilion in cosmetics applied to the face. The first lipstick was created by Parisian Maison Guerlain in 1870. The invention of waxy lip cosmetics as sticks was inspired by candlemaking techniques, leading Guerlain to manufacture lipstick on a wider scale by the late 19th century. An employee of Aime and Gabriel Guerlain was walking in a street and happened upon the store of a candlemaker, whose wax and colored pigments gave him a eureka moment. Seeing the candlemaker's tools gave the Guerlain employee the “mad” idea of creating a waxy lip cosmetic as a stick. By the end of the 19th century, Guerlain began to manufacture lipstick on a wider scale. The first commercial lipstick was invented in 1884, by them in Paris, France. It was covered in silk paper and made from deer tallow, castor oil, and beeswax. Before this, lipstick had been created at home.

Complete acceptance of the undisguised use of cosmetics in England appears to have arrived for the fashionable Londoner at least by 1921.

United States

In the 19th century, lipstick was colored with carmine dye. Carmine dye was extracted from cochineal, scale insects native to Mexico and Central America which live on cactus plants. Cochineal insects produce carminic acid to deter predation by other insects. Carminic acid, which forms 17% to 24% of the weight of the dried insects, can be extracted from the insects' bodies and eggs. Mixed with aluminum or calcium salts, it makes carmine dye (also known as cochineal).

This lipstick did not come in a tube; it was applied with a brush. Carmine dye was expensive, and the look of carmine colored lipstick was considered unnatural and theatrical, so lipstick was frowned upon for everyday wear. Only actors and actresses could get away with wearing lipstick. In 1880, few stage actresses wore lipstick in public. The famous actress, Sarah Bernhardt, began wearing lipstick and rouge in public. Before the late 19th century, women only applied makeup at home. Bernhardt often applied carmine dye to her lips in public.

In the early 1890s, carmine was mixed with an oil and wax base. The mixture gave a natural look and it was more acceptable among women. At that time, lipstick was not sold in screw up metal tube; it was sold in paper tubes, tinted papers, or in small pots. The Sears Roebuck catalog first offered rouge for lips and cheeks by the late 1890s.

By 1912, fashionable American women had come to consider lipstick acceptable, though an article in the New York Times advised on the need to apply it cautiously.

By 1915, lipstick was sold in metal cylinder containers. 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, although lipsticks in push-up metal containers had been available in Europe since 1911. In 1923, the first swivel-up tube was patented by James Bruce Mason Jr. in Nashville, Tennessee. As women started to wear lipstick for photographs, photography made lipstick acceptable among women. Elizabeth Arden and Estee Lauder began selling lipstick in their salons.

During the Second World War, metal lipstick tubes were replaced by plastic and paper tubes. Lipstick was scarce during that time because some of the essential ingredients of lipstick, petroleum and castor oil, were unavailable. World War II allowed women to work in engineering and scientific research, and in the late 1940s, Hazel Bishop, an organic chemist in New York and New Jersey, created the first long lasting lipstick, called No-Smear lipstick. With the help of Raymond Specter, an advertiser, Bishop's lipstick business thrived.

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