Description: Timeless red lipstick helps you feel confident and powerful
Red for stop. For danger. For love, but also lust. The first colour of the rainbow and the colour our eyes can see farthest and longest.
Scarlet, Flame and Cherries in the Snow. Ruby Woo, Dragon Girl and Fire Down Below. Lipstick is just wax and oil and pigment. But it is also sex and power and confidence. Desire (and desirability) in a twisty tube and a clever title.
Why do women paint their mouths red?
"Because it's iconic," says Lisa Matson, L'Oreal Paris makeup director for New Zealand. "Depending on what you wear it with, and how you wear it, you can pull off being a business woman, a seductress, or even something quite feminine and pretty. Fashions change, the catwalk changes, but there's nearly always a red lip."
In 1810, German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published the book Theory of Colours. "The colours are acts of light," Goethe wrote. "Its active and passive modifications."
On red: "The effect of this colour is as peculiar as its nature. It conveys an impression of gravity and dignity, and at the same time of grace and attractiveness ... thus the dignity of age and the amiableness of youth may adorn itself with degrees of the same hue."
Wednesday morning: Antipodes moisture boost in Remarkably Red, $34
It's 7.30am and I am walking to my bus stop and Mt Albert is lit like a Peter Siddell painting. I can smell winter daphne like someone has just put their arms around me and I am smiling a pinky, reddy smile. A small, school-uniformed boy stops just short of me on his scooter. Looks at my lipsticked face, grins, and says: "What's up, Dawg?" This has never happened to me before.
Most days, I wear lipstick. A safe, pinky-bronze that does not stand out in the mornings and is gone by lunchtime because I bite my lips when I think and my coffee mug collects the rest. I never bother to re-apply and by the time I catch the bus home the minimal foundation, mascara and eyeshadow I've chucked at my morning face has worn off. I like the effect of properly applied makeup, when I become more eyes and less bags-under-my-eyes, but who has the time or energy?
Matson says red lipstick has to be perfect.
"With anything bright or dark, if it's not put on with a perfect outer line and balance, it looks wrong, and it's really obvious if it's crooked."
Pro-tip: "People tend to put lipstick on with an open mouth, but the best way to do it is with a closed mouth so you can see the balance. Work on one side, and then match the other. It looks really odd if it's smudged or skewiff."
The pay-off: "If you want to look smart, in the least amount of time, put on a bright lipstick. It's the fastest way. A ponytail, mascara and a bright lip and it looks like you've made an effort."
M.A.C national artist Kiekie Stanners touches up writer Kim Knight's lipstick.
Thursday morning: Maybelline New York loaded bolds in Dynamite Red, $20
Every woman knows it's lips or eyes. Emphasise one at the expense of the other. Do not, under any circumstances, go big on both. (Maybe men can't figure out where to look first? Experts advise aiming for somewhere on the face.) Anyway, lips or eyes. Choose one. Now I'm late for work. I've just discovered that if you don't do the eyes, your mouth will look like the spawn of a sex doll and a fairground clown. You need your eyes, and particularly your eyebrows, to balance out the gaping, scarlet chasm that used to be your mouth. I call an Uber. I can't believe the driver doesn't tell me how Dynamite Hot I look. Maybe he's scared of clowns.
Thursday night: L'Oreal Paris Colour Riche matte addiction in Retro Red, $23
I am going out for dinner with a vegetarian and my mouth is a wild animal that's just fed on the beating heart of something definitely not quinoa-based. My friend is a cheek-kisser, but when she arrives I waft my face near hers because it took about 45 minutes to figure out this lip-liner, lipstick combo and I'm not messing it up now. We order roasted cauliflower, flaming cheese and cocktails. She frowns.
"Why?" she asks. Then she looks at me closely and frowns again: "Have you had oral surgery?"
In 2012, researcher Nicolas Gueguen recruited eight women to sit in four bars in a seaside resort on the West Atlantic coast of France. Over the course of 12 nights, the women - working three observational shifts of one hour at a time - wore red, pink, brown or no lipstick.
According to Gueguen, "the red lipstick condition was associated with a higher number of male solicitations and a shorter lead time between the arrival of the confederates in the bar and the first courtship solicitation of a male".
More simply: ladies in red scored faster and more frequently.
Gwen Stefani is known for rocking a red lip. Photo / Getty Images
Other studies have shown that waitresses with red lipstick make more tips from men (but not women), that men will sit closer to a woman in red shirt than they will a woman in a blue shirt, and they will ask a woman wearing red more intimate questions than one wearing green.
On an online dating website, women in red T-shirts got more clicks than those in black, white, yellow, blue or green. And, when one group of researchers showed men photographs of women posed against different-coloured backgrounds and asked, "How likely is it this woman would have sex on a first date?" it was determined that: "Red is a visual indicator of sexual receptivity."
This will not surprise anyone who has watched a nature documentary on macaques or baboons. Or has been to a bar in New Zealand.
Friday morning: Nars Audacious in Shirley, $54
Shirley is Little Red Riding Hood grown-up and eating wolves for breakfast. I am wearing a virginal white shirt, but my lips are stained and pouting. All I can think about is sex. Shirley sex.
Friday lunchtime: Clinique Chubby Plump & Shine liquid gloss in Super Scarlet, $42
If anyone is qualified to comment on this experiment, it's the man whose job it is to know exactly who is air-kissing who in this lipsticked village. "Your makeup looks nice today," says the Spy editor, en route to deadline. Jackpot!
New Zealand joined World War II in 1939. By 1941, the Government had ordered blackouts in coastal areas. Windows were covered with black curtains, paper and paint, and street lights were dimmed. Meanwhile, on the beauty front: "Attenshun! Lips right! England expects every woman shall be a beauty! There's no retreat from Victory Red!"
War was hell on Earth, but lipstick could make the world a better place.
"Think victory, wear victory," said the 1941 New Zealand Herald advertisements. "Whether you're in uniform or with uniform, feet will step lighter, hearts will beat quicker to its thrilling, courageous colour!"
Sugar, tea, butter, flour and petrol were rationed. Lipstick was not. Winston Churchill asked women to "make do and mend" - but he also asked them to "make up for morale".
Saturday: Estee Lauder Pure Colour Envy Hi-lustre in Killer Kiss, $63
The shoes I want are on sale. The bra I want is on sale. The jeans I want are on sale. I am in Newmarket and EVERYTHING IS PERFECT. It's the lipstick. It has a hint of shimmer, it makes my skin brighter and my heart happier. Nothing bad is going to happen to this face today. I head for the changing room, and the saleswoman hands me a scarf. "For your lippy," she explains. I have no idea what she means. The website of a glossy magazine advises that when trying on clothes, I should drape a silk scarf over my face and head like a beekeeper's mask, making sure I fold it in around my lips. I examine the scarf more closely. Someone with pink lipstick has been here before me. Amateur.
The internet repeatedly cites Queen Schub-ad of ancient Ur as the first woman to wear red lipstick. Circa 3500BC, it's said she used crushed rocks and white lead to make the cosmetic that didn't come in a push-up metal tube until 1915. Psychologies magazine credits Queen Elizabeth I with elevating red lips "into something regal, instead of seedy" though, by 1770, lawmakers were allegedly attempting to ban lipstick (along with false hair, hip bolsters and other womanly accoutrements akin to witchcraft). French actress Sarah Bernhardt flew the flag for renewed acceptance of red lipstick in the late 1800s, and more recent red-lipped icons include Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Gwen Stefani, Dita von Teese and Taylor Swift.
Madonna wore red lipstick throughout her touring days. Photo / Getty Images
In the 1980s, Madonna toured Like a Virgin with her mouth painted exclusively in M.A.C's Russian Red and Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love girl band literally rocked a red lip.
Back then, Canvas beauty editor Tracey Strange was a business reporter. "To me, wearing red lipstick was then, and is now, the equivalent of wearing a lowcut dress ... people just look at your mouth when you speak. I found that so off-putting. It's like having a conversation with someone looking at your boobs. It's not their fault, but it's the main reason I don't wear it."
Strange says almost anyone can wear red lipstick. "If you've got lips like a squid ring - really thin, with no shape, it's just not going to work. But if you were wearing red lips in your 20s, you can still wear red lips in your 60s - you just have to be a bit more careful, because your lips will be thinner, and the lipstick will bleed into the lines around your mouth a lot more."
It's worth investing in the primer and the liner: "Red lipstick can lift your mood. It just makes a statement, and it somehow makes you look really pulled together. If you've got a really good lip, you don't need very much else. It's the equivalent of a flash handbag!"
Like butter on hot toast. Really, really expensive toast. Tom Ford is the smashed avocado of the lipstick world. I took him to brunch. In the car, en route to fried eggs and steamed sticky rice with Laotian tomato relish ($13.50 or approximately one-sixth of the cost of 3g of Tom Ford lipstick), the man I live with said: "You look amazing - but I'm not going to kiss you."
In 2010, the Huffington Post surveyed men for their thoughts on lipstick. Many hated it, but many more hated its absence. Sample quote: "It can look gorgeous, but it needs to be accompanied by extremely limited smiling and a hearty 'f*** you' attitude." Done.
Where does red come from? Victoria Finlay traces the origins of our paintbox staples in her book, Colour. "For many cultures, red is both death and life - a beautiful and terrible paradox," she writes, before describing the Mexican fields where prickly pear cactuses are deliberately infested with the cochineal bugs that will be factory churned into Carmine Red.
Bugs, plants and minerals have all been harnessed to feed the human desire for red. Debbie Abercrombie, an Auckland-based interior designer who runs nationwide workshops on colour, says it's the duality of colour that attracts us.
"It is the strongest positive and also the strongest negative. We see it as festive, and passion and powerful - but we also see it as danger and warning and loss of blood."
Red is a primary colour and lends warmth to a room and for that reason, says Abercrombie, will never go out of fashion. But, similarly, it might not make Pantone colour of the year (currently "Greenery") anytime soon.
"Trends are really to do with the things that are happening in our environment, socially and politically. At the moment, we're seeing so much related to being healthy and chemical free and that's where that greenness is coming through."
Taylor Swift wears a classic red lip. Photo / Getty Images
Monday: Antipodes Ruby Bay Rouge, $34
Early in this experiment, a colleague caught me trying to remove red from my hands, my teeth and my chopsticks. "Red lipstick," she said. "It's brutal." I was literally wearing this experiment on my sleeve. Fortunately this was a red lippy on the green bandwagon. "I'm so healthy, you could almost eat me," said the packaging. For lunch, I had salmon sushi and pigmented wax.
In August 1999, M.A.C launched a lipstick called Ruby Woo. Today, the cosmetic company sells one lipstick every second - and four Ruby Woos a minute. It's magic power is that it looks good on everyone. Or, as Nicole Masson, vice-president of product development, explains: "It's a densely pigmented shade that's celebrated on so many skin tones because of the yellow and blue tone combination."
Musician Rihanna loved it so much, she created her own version - RiRi Woo. Romero Jennings, M.A.C's director of makeup artistry predicts the next big trend will be a foiled matte finish.
"I've also been thinking that lipstick needs will shift. The importance will continue to focus on what the pay-off looks like in reality, but also how well the lipstick translates to social. Everybody is becoming increasingly more interested in how they will appear once they are photographed ... "
Lights, camera, oh dear God. I thought we were done but the editor wants pictures. Kiekie Stanners has worked with Lorde, Rita Ora, Natalia Kills, Broods, Ruby Frost - and me. M.A.C's New Zealand national artist says red is her empowering, attention-grabbing, go-to colour. There is, she promises, a red for everyone.
"It has never gone away. Maybe wear it very matte, or as a pinched lip stain, or a sharp, electric red application. We're not giving people hard and fast rules anymore. Take this direction, take this mood of a classic red lip and make it your own."
Wednesday: M.A.C Retro Matte lipstick in Ruby Woo, $40
I have a loud mouth. Ask my mother, my partner, any one of my former high school teachers. I like to use all my words and now the lips that form those words have gone full drama. I see red, I see red, I see red. And I really bloody love it.
Fashions change, the catwalk changes, but there's nearly always a red lip, says Lisa Matson. Photo / Getty Images
SCARLET WOMEN
"This office looks like it's been taken over by fembots," said my boss. "Oooh," I replied. "That shade looks great on you."
Four decades of female journalists report from the red-lipsticked frontlines.
"I loved the name. I thought it would make me feel sassy and a bit naughty like Claire Underwood from House of Cards. The truth is the saucy slash of red on my lips turned me into a self-conscious wreck. I felt more Ronald McDonald (without the flaming red 'fro) than the President of the United States."
40s: Kirsty wore Estee Lauder in Prowl
"I usually wear L'Oreal 453, aka 'Rose Creme'. You have to be prepared to go red! It looks a bit like high heels with track pants if you have a perfect red pout and the rest of your look is washed-out beige. As a blonde, there were a few self-conscious moments when I wondered if I was just one tattoo away from looking like an extra on Outrageous Fortune. Wearing red is out of my comfort zone but I enjoyed the change and I loved the 'you look pretty, Mum' from Miss Eight."
30s: Emma wore Bobbi Brown Creamy Lip Color in Hot Red
"I spent the first part of the day feeling overly self-conscious but, as I started to feel more comfortable in my new look, I realised it holds a certain sway. Red lips attract attention. They exude power and sex appeal. And something tells me men agree. The day I went to work wearing my new shade I was told I looked 'bangin'. Coincidence? Considering I was wearing a high-neck sweater and jeans, I'm guessing not."
20s: Tess wore L'Oreal Paris lacquer lip paint in Red Fiction
"It smells nice and the little wand for application is great for getting it evenly on to my 'thin, mean lips' (direct quote from a family member who shall remain unnamed). But this is not a lipstick in the vein of other wet-to-matte types that have flooded the market. It stays glossy and is really more of an extremely vibrant gloss. It bleeds out quickly and comes off when you eat, though the remnants stayed on while reporting without an umbrella in the rain for the America's Cup parade, which was a bonus."
