I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

The mass popularity of red lipstick dates back to the early days of motion pictures when silent movies shot in grainy black and white film meant that facial features had to be exaggerated to make them more easily discernible in that monochrome landscape. The resulting pale white face with dark eyes and lips floating in the middle was emulated in the movie posters, and a fashion for pale powered skin and red lips followed suit.



The company that produced film make up, Coty, was founded by a Mr Maksymilian Faktorowicz, a Polish beautician who emigrated to the US and began a career as a make up artist in the movies. He later changed his name to one that rolls off the tongue a little easier, and so Max Factor became the name of his new line after he realized the demand for affordable mass produced makeup that the movies had prompted in the public. Max sold make up inspired by the screen heroines of the time, aided by celebrity endorsement. The two best selling Max Factor make-up products were dark red lipstick and Pan Stik foundation, both used on silent movie sets in the early days of cinema and still sold today.

During WW2 makeup became more creative, but red lipstick had lost none of it's popularity. When supplies of silk for stockings was diverted to the making of parachues, women used gravy browning as a sort of fake tan stocking, and charcoal pencil was drawn in a line up the back of the leg to emulate the seamed stockings sold at the time (before nylon). Likewise flour was used as powder, charcoal for eyeshadow, and for lipstick, cochineal colouring usually used in baking was used to stain the lips and was topped off with wax or petroleum jelly to finish the look. Women were encouraged to look their glamorous best as a morale boosting exercise, and in a world of little soap or shampoo there were at least rations of lipstick - though not enough. It was a hot ticket black market item.

Red lipsticks popularity was further boosted when Elizabeth Arden was asked to design and provide makeup, especially lipstick, to the American Marine Corps Womens Reserve. She came up with three shades of red lipstick to suit the coloring of most women and to highlight the uniform, and the posters did nothing to hurt sales to the civilian market.



The betwitching properties of lipstick are such that studies show that men will estimate a woman as being more attractive with it on than without. Waitresses are tipped more, and an Italian study shows that women students who wear makeup have higher self esteem and gain higher grades, (though rather than makeup having magical cognitive enhancement abilities, it's probably innate self esteem that makes them invest the time in themselves to begin with*).

It's been well demonstrated that women are seen as most attractive (to both men and to other women) during the fertile period of the menstrual cycle, and it's around ovulation that the shift in the balance of hormones increases vascular flow, making skin more sensitive and the genitals more responsive to arousal. It also has the effect of making you look more robustly healthy, making your skin pinker and your lips redder - a signal to potential mates that other areas of the body are feeling a little flushed and sensitive to the touch, too. Lipstick either invents or enhances this same signal, the secret to it's success.





*Because they're worth it.

New Home wrote: »

And his brother was a Prohibition era gangster with strong connections with the Mafia.

Oh, didn't know that. As if his life wasn't interesting enough!

I remember reading that when the Allies liberated Auschwitz, the first thing that those poor ragged and starving women prisoners asked for - was not food or clothing, but lipstick. It's interesting to consider if there was perhaps some basic compulsion to reclaim their femininity, having been robbed of their identity.

New Home wrote: »

IIRC, Max used his brother's "business partners" to win lucrative contracts with various Hollywood film studios.

Gosh, it's less and less an admirable rags to riches story of a poor immigrant who became a household name, and more of an intimidation and strong arm situation.

How very disappointing.

New Home wrote: »

And just to be a total cynic, I'd say it was also down to the fact that male Italian teachers may have felt compelled to give prettier girls higher marks.

I think it was a Harvard study that came to similar conclusions, not that they'd be any more immune to pretty girls. Good looking people are always given more credit than the plain.