Red lipstick has always been for the bold and the beautiful! Over the years, the connotations behind this daring lip color have changed, but a woman’s choice to wear red lipstick has always been defiant, empowering and gosh darn beautiful!
The first red lipstick can be traced back almost 5000 years ago when it used to be made from crushed gemstones and worn by the women of Mesopotamia. Back then, lipstick wasn’t available in the classic molded shapes but rather resembled more of a compact. It took Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi in the Islamic Golden age for lipstick to become available in the iconic molded shape we are so used to now.
From the beginning, the color Red, when worn on the lips, has had connotations of prostitution. Despite being worn by various aristocrats over the years, including Egyptian royalty and Queen Elizabeth, red lipstick has always been met with a few frowny faces.
The legend of the red lipstick is partly down to how the Grecian women would use the color to symbolise that they were offering certain services. This subtle nod was what would help them avoid any punishment, as their backward lawmakers wanted them to be punished if caught ‘posing’ as ladies. Therefore they had to slather on their makeup to indicate their ‘lack of class.’
In the 1700s, women started to show their defiance against the patriarch when a law came into place stating that if a woman wore red lipstick the day before her wedding, the marriage could be annulled. This led many to wear it out of choice. The strange association with the patriarchy made with red lipstick wasn’t even uprooted when Queen Elizabeth I started to wear it as part of her pale complexion and bold lip statement.
By the 1920s, it became fashionable to wear red lipstick, and soon, women started to wear it as a symbol of their independence. To this day, a bold red lip exudes dominance, power, and of course, sex appeal.
Next time you put that red lip on, think of all the women before you who were punished, defied the law and celebrated their independence with the color of their lips. So embrace the power of the red lip for you and all the women who wanted to wear it and couldn’t.
Although where there’s a will there’s always a red lipstick way 💄
