Red lipstick requires special attention, both from the one applying it, the one wearing it, and the one admiring it. It speaks of a mature woman aware of her attributes, happy to be natural (on pumped lips, it looks like a bad joke), happy to be – an adult
Written by Jelena Popović Volarić
A few months ago, with trembling hands, I completed a 15-minute application of red lipstick on my not-so-model-like, pouty lips with a rather uneven edge and happily concluded: ‘Where are the fanfares, I am an adult!’ No one but my reflection in the mirror witnessed this internal celebration of my initiation into the mature age of a real woman (I wouldn’t dream of sharing my awkward attempts at self-beautification with my household, not out of discomfort and the need to remain femme mystique, as my grandmother taught me, but because my husband would drown me in jokes about my clumsiness), but I truly – shone with happiness.
Only women who are confident enough can wear red lipstick so that it does not end up ‘wearing’ them
Even the shade was satisfactory. Coco Chanel, my old imaginary friend whom I affectionately call the Arrogant Bitch, and to some of you may be better known as the famous designer, nodded her head in silent approval as I passed by her. ‘That’s – it,’ her gaze told me. ‘You’re not overly pretty, bulging-eyed, but as soon as your lips are outlined in red, you can pass for a woman…’ I wondered how long it would take me to ‘ruin’ my newly acquired elegance. How does one eat with lips mummified in lipstick? How does one smoke? How does one talk at the speed of light, which is the only sport I adore? How does one… hmm… kiss?
A means of humiliation?
Indeed, from a feminist standpoint, red lipstick is completely unacceptable. It is, in fact, just another means of humiliating the female gender. We freed ourselves from the corset that constrained us around the time red lipstick was banned by law. The internet says that in 1770, the British Parliament banned lipstick and explained that any woman who uses makeup of any kind to ‘entice’ men into marriage could be convicted as a witch. The so-called consent through makeup, as we would say today. I know many men who would appreciate that law these days. They constantly complain about how in Croatian clubs you can come across girls who are ‘so made up’ that you don’t recognize them in the morning when you wake up next to them.’ I am the other example. The girl who eats her lip gloss on the way to the club. The girl who didn’t know how to apply eyeliner until she met her first professional makeup artist. The girl whose mascara, no matter how waterproof, notoriously smudges (no, even three-time Taft doesn’t help). The girl, therefore, who could only dream of red lipstick. However, despite the fact that feminists, my idols (the word idol in the feminine form is quite stupid, I know, but it is in their honor) screamed that red lipstick has returned us to the era of witch hunts because living with makeup on your face that you constantly have to care for like a baby is indeed an unnecessary complication, women with red lipstick – Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Gwen Stefani, Dita von Teese, Katherine Hepburn, Coco Chanel – always seemed to me anything but humiliated. As one of my friends says: ‘Only women who are confident enough can wear red lipstick so that it does not end up ‘wearing’ them.’
A mark on the shirt
Their lips spoke of an awakened sex appeal from which they have no need to flee, of a desire for attention they are not ashamed of, of precision and patience, because that is indeed the only way to apply it without ending up looking like a clown or an aging night friend. I envied them in my childish impulsiveness. Feminists warned that women with it on their lips cannot end the night in a passionate embrace – what after the kiss? But it seems to me that they have somewhat twisted the theory of female power – if we dress and beautify ourselves only for ourselves, why should we care whether our makeup creates problems for him or his shirt at any given moment?!
Girls from this year’s Oscars, for example, with red lipstick looked like true beauties from the turn of the century
Speaking of shirts: the image of the betrayed housewife finding scandalous traces of our Red Seducer on her husband’s clothes that she just wanted to put in the wash is etched into our memory drawer called pop culture, but few know that the cosmetics industry has long tried to create a product that would be a protective layer on your lips that any painter would be proud of, so that when you kiss a forbidden man, it does not remain as a treacherous mark on his shirt! That message is again questionable for angry fighters for women’s rights – does it mean, in fact, that every woman who, as Coco (taught) us, does not leave the house without ‘putting her face on’ (in other words, putting on makeup and making herself attractive) must not only waste time beautifying herself for the hunt for men but also use permanent fixation products and pretend that the mask is her real face?
From Cleopatra onwards
Maybe, but I repeat, I am convinced that the only correct approach to the Red Deity is to apply it only for oneself. I sincerely hope that for those reasons, ancient Egyptian women did it too, who belong to the oldest civilization in which the use of red lipstick has been proven. Their lipstick was, indeed, literally poisonous, which did not prevent Cleopatra from beautifying her lips with a highly toxic bromine-based pigment. Mesopotamia (three thousand years before Christ!) and Andalusia (around the 1st century, where lipstick in its current stick form was supposedly invented), are just the most well-known cultures that record intentionally induced redness of the lips. The Middle Ages, surprisingly, were quite indifferent to makeup until we reached the aforementioned witch hunts, which completely destroyed the culture of decorative cosmetics. It seems that women only gave up red lipstick under the threat of death. With the invention of film, lipstick returned with a bang to women’s hearts and cosmetic bags: stars of black-and-white films needed something to highlight their lips, and thus the era that is still one of the most inspiring periods in fashion history occurred: the twenties.
Adult women
But the greatest love story between women and red lipstick is the one that happened during World War II when all American movie stars wore red lipstick in a specific, strong, technicolor hue to highlight happiness and optimism, which women around the world embraced. The witch hunt has long been forgotten: we needed factories as a workforce while men fought battles in the trenches, and no one dared to object to more relaxed clothing and stronger makeup. I would dare to say that even today, in times of severe financial crisis, we are returning to that trend: the goth look from the nineties and lip glosses that further enhanced the silicones of the two-thousands have been discarded as exaggeration, so the most attractive girls from this year’s Oscars, for example, looked like true beauties from the turn of the century: calm, composed, without the need for exaggeration, without teenage outbursts – like true, adult women.
Coco is right
And so somehow the circle closes – whether we want it or not, while we ‘enhance’ our cheeks with blush in a subconscious desire to prolong childhood, we actually visually remain a blushing child after playing tag or gumi-gum in the neighbor’s yard. Red lipstick? It requires a steady hand and a confident heart, it requires special attention, both from the one applying it, the one wearing it, and the one admiring it. It speaks of a mature woman aware of her attributes, happy to be natural (on pumped lips, it looks like a bad joke), happy to be – an adult. Recently, I received Chanel’s Rouge Allure 75 as a gift. It is as full as a ripe cherry, attractive as a heart drawn on the lips of a Japanese concubine. Living with it is harder than living with ordinary lip gloss, but I like that responsibility. I may not agree with the Arrogant Bitch named Coco in the saying that a woman can never be too thin, but when I see her smiling at my reflection in the mirror while I match all my clothes to the Majesty Chanel number 75, I must admit that I understand her. Some things on this planet are indeed invented for women to enjoy uncompromisingly.
