Used by 90 percent of the female population, lipstick is undeniably America’s favorite cosmetic. Most of us started experimenting with lipstick surreptitiously when we were children, and I would assume that there are very few women who haven’t tried it at one time or another. Current yearly sales on lipstick are more than $580 million, and lip gloss accounts for at least another $140 million. Lipstick has a long history: Sumerians, Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks all colored their lips. But, at the turn of the twentieth century, in this country at least, lipstick as a separate product was unknown. Rouge was used interchangeably on both the cheeks and the lips. And unless you were a “loose” woman, you used it very sparingly. By World War J, moral attitudes had changed significantly, and the product we recognize as lipstick was introduced. The first pushup tube was seen in 1915, which was also the year in which the first claim of “indelibility” was made. Does anybody ‘ besides me remember ‘Tangee,” the product that was orange in the tube and red on your lips?
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