Lipstick.

• Position: LIFE-CYCLE STUDIES

Overview

Lipstick's long and colorful history begins as early as 3500 BCE, when Queen Shub-ad of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur used a mixture of white lead and crushed red rocks to color her lips. Over the years lipstick has slipped in and out of favor among queens and commoners alike; in the 1600s Queen Elizabeth I wore crimson lipstick, but Queen Victoria in the 19th century publicly declared makeup to be "impolite." In the 20th century lipstick served as a symbol both of female emancipation (suffragettes wore it) and of degradation (in the 1970s feminists protested by not wearing it).

The first lip rouge in stick form was produced by the French company Guerlain around 1910, and it wasn't long before James Bruce Mason, Jr. patented the first swivel tubes for lipstick--those instantly...