The red lipstick: makeup or manifesto

RED LIPSTICK makes a statement much before the wearer opens their mouth, and the baggage lies entirely in the eyes of the beholder — confident, sexy, provocatrix, garish.

On the Internet, there are a million tutorials about how to choose the right red lipstick. There are tutorials about how to wear red lipstick if you have so far been too shy to try— a failing, which kind strangers online will help you fix.

And it goes beyond fashion magazines and GRWM reels. The ‘lipstick effect’ economic theory says that sales of red lipsticks go up during recessions, because people cutting down on big purchases cling to small joys. During World War II in Britain, wearing red lipstick to look fresh was considered a feminine duty, to keep morale up and remind men what they were fighting for. It was also a snub to the ‘natural beauty of Aryans’ craziness Hitler was propagating. Before that, Queen Elizabeth I and Cleopatra used red lips to distinguish themselves from the fashion as well as social plebs.

What is it about red lipstick that makes it more manifesto than make-up? It is the fact that a woman has chosen to put on herself the colour with the longest wavelength. And a woman making herself more visible is a radical act. Nudes, browns and pinks can be “understated”. Red has no such plausible deniability. That it is on the lips makes the act more loaded. Lips are so uniquely situated for expression. They are the gateway to speech and articulation. To taste and gratification. To flirtation and passion.

Red lips, then, are no accident. They are a declaration, of love or of war. But the question is, did the wearer choose to make that declaration? Maybe the red just goes with your dress? Maybe that was the only lipstick you could find as you rushed out, late for work?

Recently, I had two interesting conversations about red lipstick. A friend who works in a highly staid-and-respectable office said wearing red lipstick there was a sure way to lose 10 points in the appraisal.

The second was with a colleague I look up to, who said she had never been able to wear red lipstick. I immediately urged that she should, that it would look great on her, that she shouldn’t worry about it being “too much”, etc.

Later, I wondered about my insistence. Why should she ‘achieve’ the wearing of red lipstick? What would it prove or disprove? I myself am an enthusiastic wearer of red lipstick, but I don’t wear it as an announcement of anything. I wear it simply because I like the colour.

But as I sat with the thought, I realised wearing red nonchalantly is also something I have achieved. As a tween, I remember secretly trying on my mother’s lipsticks and rubbing the red off furiously, somehow convinced this colour would attract the sharpest scolding. No one had taught me that, I instinctively knew.

Till the ripe old age of 25, if I was meeting those of the opposite gender for dinner, I would not wear red lipstick lest they think this was a date.

It took me time to accept my own red lips, to accept that the girl in the mirror with the very noticeable lips was allowed to exist neutrally, if I decided she existed neutrally.

So, to go back to the question of is the wearer is making a declaration with the red lipstick, I think yes, they are.

It can be the flamboyance of ‘I look fabulous and that is all that matters’. It can be the fight of ‘I am feeling insecure and hoping the red covers it up’. It can be the surrender of ‘I wish to confirm to the mainstream definitions of attractive.’  It can be the bravery of ‘I am falling apart but I can still beautify my face and I will’.

Or it can be the quieter defiance of ‘I will wear red like any other colour’. You can wear the lipstick tuning out its interpretations. You can see in the mirror only what you wish to see, not what the world will see, in admiration or condemnation.

To me, the message of the red lipstick is a woman choosing to adorn herself, to define herself, to highlight herself on her own terms.