Tuesday, January 17, 2012

There could never be a more obvious name for a product.

Lipstick.
And while I’ve never been the kind of girl to obsess over it ( I’m more of a sheer gloss kind of gal) I figured it would be almost the same as nail polish, why I have no idea, yea I was totally wrong. So here it is because my very amazing and beautiful lipstick connoisseur , Ms. Gladys Salcedo asked,
Lipstick, where did that come from?
The first women to wear lipstick were ancient Mesopotamian women who would totally crush up semi valuable stones and would use them to decorate their lips. Ancient Egyptians also used lipsticks, but they were made from weird junk like iodine and bromine, which made them sick, lame. Cleopatra was said to use lipstick made from crushed up beetles and ants which gave her a deep red hue. The first time we saw anything close to modern day lipstick was in the Islamic golden age when abulcasis invented solid perfumed rolls for your lips and pressed ‘em in lil molds… In medieval Europe they even banned lipstick cause they said it was the incarnation of Satan and was only for prostitutes. Ooopsies. (Geeze since when did being pretty mean you were a prostitute.)
In 16th century England the queen made it fashionable to wear a super bright red lip and white powdery face.( I will still never understand why looking like a ghost was fashionable and not super scary)  By this time it’s being made from beeswax and stains from plants. Still it was seen as a lower class thing. Most sophisticated women saw it as something totally not classy (dude the queen was wearing it!! You calling her a hoe! Off with your unlipsticked head!)  The first lipstick to be sold commercially comes from Paris France in 1884, before that you totally had to make your own at home.
It didn’t become fashionable and acceptable until recently around 1912. The first swivel lipstick came around in 1923 and still no smear lipstick came along in 1940. The latest change to lipstick has come in the early 90s with lip stain, or liquid color, which seems to last longer.
So there you have it from Crushed Jewels to Prostitutes. Lipstick. Cause the right shade can totally make you look 10 times hotter.
need to know more : lipstick

1 comment:

  1. i bet the white powdery face was popular for the same reason being fat used to be popular long ago: it was a sign of wealth. the lighter your skin, the less you had to be in the sun, working or walking around like a commoner without a servant to hold an umbrella to shade you. and if you were the queen you had to be the lightest of all!

    but i could also be completely wrong. i think you should look this up! ooh oh! and the giant freaking wigs they wore too! WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?!

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