Pucker Up!

It's National Lipstick Day - apparently this started in the uSA, but has been taken up by a number of British Retailers and there are NLD events happening in department stores all over the place [like John Lewis, Oxford Street]
I don't wear lipstick every day - but if I'm dressing up for something and wearing full make-up, then lips get included. Just occasionally I'll put on a slick of the red stuff, if I think my face looks particularly wan or tired [if only to stop concerned friends saying 'are you OK, Ang?...you look very pale today']
Lipstick has been around for years.
For many centuries, it was considered sinful to paint your lips, and implied you were a harlot, and no-better-than-you-ought-to-be.
Attitudes relaxed by the Georgian era.

Bizarrely, George Washington was known for wearing lipstick. I am not sure if this was to draw attention to his amazing wooden teeth, or to distract people who were staring at them.

I am not sure what the statistics are for women looking at men wearing red lipstick [presumably quite a while, if it is the President, see above...]

During WW2 the production of cosmetics was stopped in the UK - but Churchill believed lipstick was a 'morale booster' so that was allowed to continue. Note his wife Clemmie, wearing her signature 'tied headscarf' - she adopted this style in preference to hats, to show her support of the ordinary women of Britain.

Churchill even asked Elizabeth Aden to produce a colour which would go well with the uniforms of women in the forces- EA came up with "Victory Red"



After the War, Britain remained on ration, and people were still living in a time of austerity.
But 1953 brought the coronation of our beautiful young Queen Elizabeth. 
She commissioned a special lipstick [shade 'Balmoral'] to go with her red Coronation robes - described as a 'soft red-blue hue'




For many women, their lipstick is something without which they cannot face the day. In the film Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly [played by Audrey Hepburn, wearing a shade called Pink in the Afternoon] declares "A girl can't read without her lipstick"



The average woman wears around 4kg of lipstick in her lifetime. It is estimated that 30% of lipstick is 'eaten' and ends up in our stomachs. That's more than 2 of these bags of sugar!



I shall end this post with a favourite poem of mine, by the great American humorist, Ogden Nash]

The Perfect Husband
He tells you when you've got on too much lipstick
And helps you with your girdle when your hips stick