Lipstick

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Lipstick

Lipstick is a cosmetic product

Cosmetics

Cosmetics are substances used to enhance or protect the appearance or odor of the human body. Cosmetics include skin-care Cream , lotions, Powder , perfumes, lipsticks, fingernail and toe nail polish, eye and facial makeup, permanent waves, colored contact lenses, hair colors, hair sprays and gels, deodorants, baby products, bath oils, bubb...
containing pigments, oils, waxes, and emollients that applies color and texture to the lips. There are many varieties of lipstick.

tick is known to have been invented in antiquity when semi-precious jewels were crushed and applied to the lips and occasionally around the eyes.

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Encyclopedia

Lipstick is a cosmetic product

Cosmetics

History

Lipstick is known to have been invented in antiquity when semi-precious jewels were crushed and applied to the lips and occasionally around the eyes. Women in the ancient Indus Valley Civilization

Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization , abbreviated IVC, was an ancient civilization that flourished in the Indus River basin. Primarily centered along the Indus river, the civilization encompassed most of Pakistan, including its Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan provinces, and extending into modern day Indian states of Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab...
applied lipstick to their lips for face decoration. Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
ians extracted purplish-red dye from fucus-algin

Seaweed

Seaweed is a loose colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthos ocean algae. The term includes some members of the rhodophyta, phycophyta and green algae....
, 0.01% iodine

Iodine

Iodine , is a chemical element that has the symbol I and atomic number 53. Naturally-occurring iodine is a single isotope with 74 neutrons....
, and some bromine

Bromine

Bromine , , meaning "stench " ), is a chemical element with the symbol Br and atomic number 35. A halogen element, bromine is a reddish-brown Volatility liquid at Standard conditions for temperature and pressure that is intermediate in reactivity between chlorine and iodine....
mannite, which resulted in serious illness. Cleopatra had her lipstick made from crushed carmine

Carmine

Carmine , also called Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470, or E120, is a pigment of a bright red color obtained from the carminic acid produced by some scale insects, such as the cochineal and the Polish cochineal, and is used as a general term for a particularly deep carmine ....
beetles, which gave a deep red pigment, and ants for a base. Lipsticks with shimmering effects were initially made using a substance found in fish scales called pearlescence.

During the Islamic Golden Age

Islamic Golden Age

The Islamic Golden Age, also sometimes known as the Islamic Renaissance, was traditionally dated from the 700 A.D. to 1200 A.D.Common Era, but has been extended to the 15th and 16th centuries by some scholars....
the notable Arab

Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
Andalusian

Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to the parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Arab Muslims, at various times in the period between 711 and 1492....
cosmetologist Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) invented solid lipsticks, which were perfume

Perfume

Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces a pleasant smell....
d stocks rolled and pressed in special mold

Mold

Molds include all species of microscopic fungi that grow in the form of Multicellular organism filaments, called hyphae. In contrast, microscopic fungi that grow as single cells are called yeasts....
s, and he described them in his Al-Tasrif
Al-Tasrif

The Kitab al-Tasrif was an influential Islamic medicine encyclopedia on medicine and surgery, written near the year 1000 Common Era by Abu al-Qasim , the "father of modern surgery"....
. In Medieval Europe, lipstick was banned by the church and was thought to be used as an 'incarnation of satan'. Lipstick started to gain popularity in England

England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
the 16th century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who made piercing red lips and bright white faces a fashion statement. By that time, lipstick was made from a blend of beeswax

Beeswax

Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the Beehive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites on abdominal segments 4 to 7....
and red stains from plants.

During the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
, lipstick gained popularity as a result of its use in the movie industry, and it became commonplace for women to apply makeup, or "put their face on".

As with most other types of makeup, lipstick is typically, but not exclusively, worn by women. It is usually not worn until a female reaches adolescence

Adolescence

Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental Human development that occurs between childhood and adulthood. This transition involves biological , social, and psychological changes, though the biological or physiological ones are the easiest to measure objectively....
or adulthood. Male lipstick, especially as used in theater, is sometimes called "manstick".

Another form of lip colour, a wax-free semi-permanent liquid formula, was invented in the 1990s by the Lip-Ink International company. Other companies have imitated the idea, putting out their own versions of long-lasting "lip stain" or "liquid lip colour".

A study by US consumer group Campaign For Safe Cosmetics, in October 2007 found 60 percent of lipsticks tested contained traceable amounts of lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
. The levels of lead varied from 0.03 to 0.65 parts per million. One third of the lipsticks containing lead exceeded the 0.1ppm limit set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for lead in candy.

In popular culture

Lipstick has been used in some media to symbolize confidence, such as the film, Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy
Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy

Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy is a 2006 television movie that aired on Lifetime Television and starred Sarah Chalke. It is based on the memoir of the same name, written by Geralyn Lucas....
and the television show Lipstick Jungle
Lipstick Jungle

Lipstick Jungle is a novel written by New York writer and socialite Candace Bushnell, that weaves the stories of Nico O'Neilly, Wendy Healy, and Victory Ford, who are numbers 8, 12, and 17 on The New York Post's list of New York's 50 Most Powerful Women....
.

Vernacular

"Lippy" is a common British
British English

British English or UK English is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere....
colloquialism for lipstick.
A general consensus amongst the gossipers in the day was the reason red lipstick became so popular was due to the development of colours that, when applied to the woman's facial lips, it created an illusion and a hint that resembled the sexual organs or sexual lips of a wanton woman anxious for sexual fulfilment. Typically when the color red was worn it reminded her lovers of her virility, it could have been used to attract a new lover. This display of similarities of the woman's natural coloured vulva and the natural pink/redness of the labia majoria and vulva of her genitalia was reflected on her facial lips via the application of lipstick. This display became a mainstay of the culture for centuries which followed, although the sexual comparisons were deemphasized in the early 1800s then briefly brought back in focus during the 1920s, in order to increase the products marketability.
A "lipstick lesbian
Lipstick lesbian

Lipstick lesbian is a slang term used to describe lesbian and bisexual women who exhibit femininity gender attributes, such as wearing cosmetics , wearing dresses or skirts and perhaps having other characteristics associated with feminine women....
" is a gay or bisexual woman who exhibits feminine
Feminine

Feminine, or femininity, normally refers to qualities positively associated with women.Feminine may also refer to:*Feminine , a grammatical gender...
gender attributes. The alliterative term is thought to have come into common usage during the 1980s in order to distinguish between lesbians who adhere to more conventional gender roles and those who do not. In some contexts, it has pejorative connotations.
The phrase "putting lipstick on a pig
Lipstick on a pig

To put "lipstick on a pig" is a rhetorical expression, used to convey the message that making superficial or cosmetic changes is a futile attempt to disguise the true nature of a product....
" is a colloquialism that means, "making the unattractive superficially attractive," with overtones of futility or of a lost cause.
The phrase "lipstick on his collar" is a euphemism used to describe a man who is cheating on his partner.

Lipstick

History

In popular culture

Vernacular

See also