The history of lipstick is one of varying degrees of popularity over the last 5000 years. The first recorded use of lipstick was by Queen Shub-ad of ancient UR, about 3500 BC. Lipstick gained favor in ancient Egypt, but was made of some suspicious substances, a few of which could be poisonous. Always ahead of the times, the ancient Egyptians viewed all makeup as being more indicative of status than gender and so both men and women might use lipstick. Lipstick in ancient times was made of ochre, crushed red rocks, and even lead.

Elizabeth I of England made lipstick popular with her devotion to it but also believed it contained magical powers to heal. After her death, the church saw danger in this magical connection. The wearing of lipstick eventually came to be viewed as attempts by women to bewitch men with false beauty. In the American colonies they were more wont to follow the example of the French who indulged in all forms of lip rouge and makeup. But in the 1800s, when Queen Victoria declared makeup to be “impolite”, it caused lipstick to again fall to the domain of actresses and prostitutes.

In turn of the century America, suffragettes began to wear lipstick as a symbol of the new female emancipation. In the 20s, young women increasingly wore lipstick as they threw off what they considered to be stuffy ideas of the past. By the heyday of Hollywood in the 1940s, the use of lipstick and other makeup by starlets solidified lipstick’s image as desirable in the American woman’s mind. Today, wearing lipstick is as routine for most women as wearing deodorant. Some may wear lipstick only when they are going out in the evening but the majority of women wear it every day. Today’s woman considers lipstick an essential part of “putting on her face”; in fact, many women refuse to be seen without it.