Kissable Red Lips

“When a man and a woman were attracted to each other, their lips will turn red.”
(David B. Givens, PhD- Director of Center of Non-Verbal Studies, US)

Purportedly, this is the main inspirations of why lipstick has become so popular these days. Almost every woman in this globe has ever wear lipstick at least once in her life. According to 2002 survey only, women in US have spent up to 3 billions dollar a year just to buy lipsticks. This is a giant business, girl!

Lip color has become a woman’s best friend since thousands years ago. The very first lip color was found inside a 5000 years old coffin in Ur (now Iraq). Coloring lips is not a brand new thing. Even women in ancient Egypt wanted their lips to be colored first before burial. They expected this lip color will help them look brighter and prettier in their life after death. As you all may guess, Cleopatra was also colored her lips red. This lip color is made from a mix of henna and maroon carmine bugs.

In Europe, lip color suddenly became a huge trend on 17th century. Aristocrats and barguests always colored their lips before leaving their houses. This trend has urged some religious communities to announce that this new habit was forbidden. They said that this lip color has covered the real beauty of a woman instead.

Despite of this controversy, the use of lip color has been widely expanding. At the beginning of 20th century, a French cosmetic company, Guerlain, has successfully invented a new shape of lip color. Stick. That’s why we call it lipstick. Then, on 1915, an entrepreneur from US, Maurice Levy, created the first lipstick tube made from metal. And the first waterproof lipstick was made by a cosmetic company, Max Factor, on 1940.

Along with this fast expansion, come the side effects. The first natural ingredients of lipstick have been changed with chemical materials which are more dangerous. The mix of henna and carmine bugs which used by Cleopatra is good but only last for a few hours before finally expired. The company started to use chemical materials in order to make lipstick last longer. Unfortunately, they choose to use dangerous materials such as tin and mercury. So, about a century ago, lipstick means beautiful but also means death.

Thank God, the modern lipsticks these days are better than the old days. The main compositions of a modern lipstick are oil, wax and dye. So we can be saved from those hazard materials of course.

The trend of lipstick color is also different in the past 40 years. In 60’s women love nude colors that look pale and shiny. While purple is the color of 70’s and 80’s. In 90’s the main color is brown matte. What color do you think will be the most favorable on 2010?

Do you know?

You still lick your lips while using lipstick. And the research found that a woman can swallow up to 4 kg lipsticks along her life. Wow!