September 24 2007

Text By Greg Fallis

Women...and sometimes men...have been coloring their lips for more than five thousand years. The ancient Egyptians made lip gloss out of thin wax mixed with pulverized dried carmine beetles and the pearlescence of fish scales. I'm sure it was more attractive than it sounds.

In the mid-17th century a British pastor named Thomas Hall wrote a pamphlet entitled The Loathsomeness of Long Haire in which he declared that the use of cosmetics was...you guessed it: the devil's work. This was 350 years before the devil wore Prada. Hall claimed that women who painted their lips intended to "ensnare others and to kindle a fire and flame of lust in the hearts of those who cast their eyes upon them." I don't know about the devil's part in all that, but Hall was right on the mark. And the fire and flame is still there, still burning.

Red lipstick...scarlet lipstick, crimson lipstick...is undeniably provocative. There is something almost louche about it, an aura of naughty sensuality. Historians may claim that Elizabeth I of England was sought after by so many heads of state because her dowry included the nation of England. Me, I think it was that red, red lipstick.