Lipstick

Going back about 5,000 years -

Ancient Mesopotamian women were possibly

the first women to invent and wear lipstick.

They crushed semi precious jewels and

used them to decorate their lips. 

3,000 B.C. to 1,500 B.C. -

Women of the Indus Valley

civilization applied lipstick to

their lips for face decoration.

Ancient Egyptian Women - 

Used a purplish-red

dye taken from fucus-algin, 

0.01% iodine,

and some bromine manniteto 

make lipstick - 

this early lipstick invention 

also made women

very ill....literally 

the kiss of death.

Cleopatra made her

lipstick from the

red color extracted from 

crushed carmine beetles  

and ants.

During the Islamic Golden Age the

notable Arab Andalusian cosmetologist

Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi 

invented solid lipsticks, 

which were perfumed

stocks rolled and pressed

in special molds.

In Medieval Europe, lipstick

was banned by the church 

and was thought to be an 

"incarnation of Satan," cosmetics

being reserved for prostitutes.

Lipstick started to gain

some popularity in the  

16th Century England, 

during the reign of

Queen Elizabeth I, 

who made bright 

red lips and a 

stark white face

fashionable.

In 1770 a british law was proposed

to the parliament that a marriage should be 

annulled if the woman wore cosmetic

before her wedding day, stating that:

"women found guilty of seducing men into 

matrimony by a cosmetic means could be 

tried for witchcraft."

By the time Queen Victoria

took the throne, makeup 

in general  was deemed 

unladylike and banished

to the levels of prostitutes.  

However, actresses were 

still allowed to wear makeup 

and, slowly, other women 

began to gravitate

towards it again.

In 1884 - Perfumers in 

paris introduced the 

first modern lipstick - it

was wrapped in silk paper and 

made with deer tallow, castor

oil and beeswax.

By the late 1890s - The

Sears Roebuck catalog 

offered rouge

for lips and cheeks.

By 1915 - Women started to

wear lipstick for photographs;

photography began to make lipstick

acceptable among women.

 

Dark red lipstick

was popular in the 1920s.

Flappers wore lipstick to symbolize 

their independence.

In the 1930s - Lipstick 

producers in the U.S. began to

produce a wider range of colors like

light pink, dark lilac, and bright red.

The movie industry 

continued to fuel lipstick's 

popularity through the 1940s,

and it became commonplace again.

During this time in history, the 

first lipstick tubes that 

rotated the lipstick as it 

was pushed up were invented.