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The
barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd
on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
Purple
the sails, and so perfumed that
The
winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which
to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The
water which they beat to follow faster,
As
amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It
beggar'd all description....
William
Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespeare
modestly stops, doesn't elucidate further…but if he had described
Cleopatra's lips he probably would have told us that they were colored carmine
(she used lipcolor made of crushed cochineal beetles in an ant egg
base). This past year the Lipstick
Effect -
that in economically difficult times, consumers tend to buy less luxury items,
but will splurge on small items that make them feel better -- has been popping
into conversations and economic discussions (interestingly, this time around
it has been more of a foundation effect in terms of cosmetic sales!). What is known is that from 1929-33, cosmetics sales went up while industrial
numbers tumbled. During WWII, red lipstick was encouraged as a
morale-booster, the idea of 'putting your face on' was taken to its
extreme! It was the era of Elizabeth Arden's Montezuma Red.
Similarly, after 9/11, lipstick sales in the US spiked dramatically.
 The
history of lipstick goes back to the Sumerian Queen Shub-ad (she preferred a
mixture of crushed red rock and white lead). The Romans and Greeks mixed
dyes and pigments in a wax base, which both men and women wore. In the
early 20th century, it was the domain of actresses until Guerlain popularized
it with the first bullet form push-up lipstick: Ne m'oubliez
pas! We
found this marvelous piece in The
New York Times
from 1917 reviewing Theda Bara (she of the cupid's bow and dark lips of
the silent film era) playing Cleopatra: " the star by dint of much
rolling of eyes and many other manoeuvres contributes a thoroughly successful
portrait of "the serpent of the Nile, the siren of the ages, and the
eternal feminine…." The 1950s saw the entry of numerous
lipstick brands into the growing market, and also the appearance of the
frosted and nude lip, the 70s saw David Bowie's glam lips, and the 80s turned
red again with Madonna wearing MAC's Russian Red and Nancy Reagan at the other
end of the red spectrum. Perhaps
the lipstick effect is just the comfort in small pleasures, timeless
pleasures. The eternal feminine. Or a return to classics. Or
words that linger, that custom cannot stale…So curl up with Antony and
Cleopatra again: "Eternity was in our lips and eyes…" Read:
Antony
and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare
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