For thousands of years women and men have been wearing lipstick. Thank goodness, it has evolved through the years! Here are a few fun facts that I discovered while researching some information for my CIDESCO thesis:
1) The average amount of money that a woman spends on makeup in her lifetime is about $15,000. $1780 of that goes towards lipstick.
2) One of the most expensive lipsticks in the world is Guerlain’s KissKiss Gold and Diamonds Lipstick, which will set you back $62,000. While their original KissKiss lipstick costs only $34, what you’re really paying for here is the bling. The tube is made from 110 grams of 18k gold and encrusted with 199 diamonds. You get your pick of 15 exclusive shades, and it’s refillable.
3) Not surprisingly, men and women in Ancient Egypt both wore lipstick as a symbol of their status. They applied it almost daily with wet sticks of wood, and favored colors such as magenta, blue-black, and orange.
4) Meanwhile, in Ancient Greece, lipstick fell out of fashion among high-class citizens, and was instead used to identify prostitutes. In fact, it was the law that prostitutes couldn’t go out without wearing lipstick, lest they “deceive” men.
5) Elizabeth Taylor famously said, “Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together,” Unless, of course, you were a woman on one of her movie sets—the actress allegedly demanded that no one else could wear red lipstick on set.
6) Another great fact, is that while all other cosmetics were rationed in Great Britain during WWII, lipstick was kept in production because Winston Churchill felt it boosted morale.
7) Meanwhile, aside looking at lipstick as moral booster, a peak at the ingredients will reveal that lipstick was made from toxic ingredients, animal fat, sheep sweat, and ox marrow. But which ingredient has stayed the same through the years? Fish scales. This ingredient helps lipsticks today boost in shine.
8) According to a study conducted by the University of Manchester, men look at women wearing lipstick longer than women with bare lips. They were most entranced by red lipstick, staring at it for an average of 7.3 seconds, while their gaze usually lingers on women with pink lipstick for an average of 6.7 seconds. They only glanced at women with bare lips for an average of 2.2 seconds.
9) Swiping on some lipstick can be a huge confidence booster and mood transformer, but in England in the 1500s, people believed that lipstick actually had magical powers. Queen Elizabeth was reportedly a huge believer in the healing powers of lipstick, and was said to have had half an inch of lipstick on at the time of her death.
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