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Musings from Moyieboy ... |
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Lipstick on a stick |
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April 24, 2017 |
By Ken Carpenter
When I was a kid, back when everything seemed
old, one thing that didn’t were women’s lips.
You couldn’t see the old even if it was there
because all of them were liberally painted with
lipstick.
At least it seemed that way to my untrained eye.
I think it is probably more likely that my eyes
were just drawn to the bright colors, almost
always as red as Bozo the Clown’s nose, rather
than run of the mill neutral lips.
For some reason, red lips were as intimidating
as they were intriguing to me. In fact they
still are, maybe because of my lifelong
infatuation with vampires and zombies.
A study conducted by the University of
Manchester showed that men look at women with
lipstick on 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 lingered 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, which seems to back up
my childhood bias against bare lips.
Red has been a protective color against
malevolent forces since the dawn of man. One of
man's most susceptible zones to evil was thought
to be his mouth, so lips were originally painted
red to stop wicked forces from entering the body
and taking possession of it.
Funny, I was always under the impression that
red should be associated with devilish
tendencies. I guess that shows what I know, but
red lips still seem to be on the malicious side
to me.
Lipstick has been popular, for different
reasons, for over 5,000 years. In fact, it used
to be applied with wet sticks, though that is
sadly not why it is called lipstick. It comes in
round sticks, plain and simple.
What’s not plain and simple is the vast variety
of materials used to make lipstick.
It seems that every kind of animal part, many
bugs and lots of toxic substances have been used
to coat lips since lip coating first began.
Needless to say, hundreds of other things have
and are still used to make lipstick, and fish
scales are still used to provide that special
sheen.
In ancient Mesopotamia, the rich used to grind
up jewels and color their lips with the dust.
Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but kissing
crusty lips does not sound like a sport I would
like to indulge in. Even if the face behind the
lips were gorgeous and willing, a guy would have
to consider the damage ground in jewel dust
could do to his smoochers.
Maybe kissing was only practiced by the lower
class.
In the 1500s, many people in England believed
that lipstick actually had magical powers. Queen
Elizabeth had such a powerful belief in its
healing powers that she was wearing half an inch
of lipstick just before she died.
Think about that for a minute. Half an inch of
coating on a set of lips! That sounds positively
terrifying to me, and the image it brings to
mind takes me back to the vampires and zombies I
mentioned before.
Guys, next time you kiss your lady visualize
what her lips would look like with half an inch
of paste on them. Try very hard not to flinch
away or turn green, because I promise you that
you will pay for it.
In the 16th century somebody had a lot of fun
naming lipsticks. Their monikers included ape’s
laugh, chimney sweep and dying monkey. There’s
another thing for the guys out there to think
about the next time they lay a smacker on
somebody. If a giggle pops out, you’re on your
own.
The Catholic Church once connected red lipstick
use with the worshipping of Satan. (I told you
so!)
That belief seemed to catch hold later in 18th
century England too. The English Parliament
decided lip painting altered "God’s most
precious gift," so they passed a law stating,
“women found guilty of seducing men into
marriage by a cosmetic means could be tried for
witchcraft.”
That seems a bit harsh to me. Wouldn’t a few
days locked in the stocks be enough punishment?
If they used red, of course, they might need a
bit more.
 Guerlain’s
KissKiss Gold and Diamonds Lipstick will set you
back $62,000.
The lipstick by itself is worth $34, but the
tube is made of 110 grams of 18k gold and
encrusted with 199 diamonds to really add some
nice sparkle. Of course, the lipstick is
refillable for life.
Seems only fair to me.
Statistics say that 65% of American women use
lipstick daily, and 25% won’t leave home without
it. Those same statistics say that the average
woman will use their height of it every five
years, use nine pounds of it in their lifetime
and spend almost $1,800 on it in that same
lifetime.
I find all of those things hard to believe, if
my personal observations mean anything at all.
Maybe I am a poor lip observer, or maybe small
North Idaho towns don’t use as much lipstick as
city girls.
Or maybe, just maybe, some statistics are as
full of crap as the boneheads who pay $62,000
for a tube of lipstick.
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