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I was six years old the first time I ever put on lipstick.
My aunt was hosting a family gathering in Florida, and my cousin Kate, who was exactly my age, was there, along with our grown-up cousin Megan, who lived in New York City and had a chic, short haircut that swished whenever she turned her head. Of course, Kate and I idolized her.
Naturally, it wasn’t long before we got bored with swimming in my aunt’s pool and began to ransack Megan’s stuff. In the guestroom bathroom, her things were spread out over the top of the toilet: prettily packaged creams and tonics, tubes of lipstick in shades reds and pinks, a bottle of Chanel Cristalle perfume. In our still-wet bathing suits, Kate and I surveyed these objects of femininity with interest. Neither of us were allowed to wear makeup, of course—other than the colored lip gloss we got at Christmas, which smelled like fruit rollups but tasted like wax. Yet we knew from TV that these bottles contained elixirs that would make us beautiful and womanly, like Megan. We also knew, without being told, that we shouldn’t touch them without permission.
Kate has always been bolder than I. She selected a bright pink lipstick, bared her teeth in a grimace, and applied it thickly to her mouth. She turned to me and grinned.
I don’t mean this unkindly, but at this particular moment in her life, my gorgeous cousin was going through a bit of an awkward phase. Her hair was shorn in what was meant to be a pixie cut, but which in reality just made her look like a little boy. She was still missing one of her front teeth, and her complexion was so fair it was nearly blue. When she was excited, as she was at that moment, her eyebrows shot up spastically.
I stared at Kate warily as she grinned her gaping, pink-ringed smile at me, and I decided she looked completely deranged. I was sure I could do better.
I took the tube of lipstick from her and pursed my lips like the women in the makeup commercials. I smeared a bright pink oval around my mouth. It was difficult to stay within the borders of my natural lips, but I wanted to be sure I didn’t miss any spots, so I repeated the circle two or three times before I turned to show my cousin.
In the florescent glare of that Florida bathroom, Kate and I stared at each other. My own front teeth were widely spaced, my belly was baby-round, and my hair was cut in a too-short bob that was totally unsuited to its thick, wavy texture. The pink splotch of lipstick over my mouth resembled a welt. Neither of us looked remotely grown-up or beautiful. In fact, we both looked deranged. We screamed with laughter.
I thought of this memory the other day when my dinner guests arrived before I had a chance to dress for the evening. “Damn,” I said aloud to my boyfriend when the doorbell rang, assessing myself in the mirror in the jeans and flannel shirt I’d been cooking in all day. “Maybe I have time to at least put on some lipstick.”
“For what it’s worth,” he replied gently, “I think you’re more beautiful without it.”
It was the nicest possible way to tell me he doesn’t like the bold, berry red lipstick I wear. And it was precisely this realization that made me recognize, suddenly, that I don’t wear lipstick to appeal to him.
Yet clearly lipstick matters to me. It’s the one make-up item I never leave the house without. I recently spent two hours at the Nordstrom beauty counter trying to find the perfect red (I went with Tom Ford’s Rouge Fatale) to replace the discontinued shade I’d been wearing for years (an Estee Lauder red I originally stole from my mother’s vanity when I was in college). This is more effort than I’m willing to invest in almost any other beauty ritual. Why, I began to wonder?
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I am not the only one who takes lipstick seriously. More than 80 percent of American women wear lipstick (more, even, than French women) and from a retail perspective, it’s considered to be one of the few luxury items that sells consistently, no matter what is happening with the economy. Leonard Lauder, Chairman of the Estee Lauder makeup brand, once noted that lipstick sales even rise during tough economic times, a phenomenon known as “the lipstick effect.” No one knows why this is, exactly, but a 2012 study reported in Scientific American concluded that not only is the lipstick effect real, but that it is "deeply rooted in women's mating psychology.”
Personally, I don’t buy that. When I recall my own experiences with beauty and makeup—lipstick in particular—the memories that surface seem to all be about my intimate female relationships. I think of Kate, or getting ready for my first high school formal with the girls from my soccer team, or helping my sister-in-law prepare for her wedding day. I think of searching, with Kate and Megan, for the special shade of pink that my 89-year-old grandmother loved, because she wanted to wear it in in her hospice bed in the days before she died.
Most of all, lipstick makes me think of my mom—watching her dress for a night out with my dad; helping me pick a shade to match my prom dress. My parents did not have a lot of extra money for makeup, so my mom was strategic about buying it, timing her purchase for the semi-annual promotions our local department store offered. Usually, the promotion would include a giveaway, and over the years my mom collected dozens of free lipsticks.
I could always tell which shades she liked and which ones she didn’t, because her favorites were worn down in an unmistakable pattern. She applied her lipsticks from the side, rather than from the tip, and eventually the cylinder would erode lengthwise, leaving only a fragile stalagmite of pink in the tube. I stole the ones that were untouched, knowing she wouldn’t mind.
What these memories tell me is that the ritual of selecting and applying a lipstick isn’t about sex appeal. It’s about a different element of femininity. It recalls that crucial rite of passage from girlhood, when I wasn’t allow to wear makeup, to womanhood, when I make my own choices about what is beautiful. And each time I put on lipstick, the act also invokes the physically intimate way women in my family care for each other. It’s a feminine ritual that connects me to my past, to my family and intimate friends, and to a culture of beauty for beauty’s sake, rather than as a means to attracting a man.
By the way, I went ahead and put on lipstick that night my boyfriend told me I didn’t need it. It’s sweet that he doesn’t think I need lipstick to be beautiful. But, in the end, it isn’t about him, or any guy.
