Coming from our Not Particularly Surprising News Department is a report that owing to the Covid pandemic lipstick sales have slumped quite markedly. With most people wearing masks there seems little point for the ladies to bother with lipstick.
However it is not all gloom and doom in the cosmetics industry as it seems women, and no doubt a few men, are paying a lot more attention to eye make-up. The eyes have always played a crucial role in communicating and these days the "peepers" are even more important. Sales of eye shadow and mascara have soared to reflect the emphasis of "above the mask" beauty.
We haven't seen the end of lipstick, of course. It is regarded as the most powerful weapon in a woman's make-up kit and apparently does wonders for a lady's self-confidence. French fashion designer Coco Chanel once commented, "If you feel sad, add more lipstick and attack".
Red lipstick sends a particularly strong message and among celebrities who used it to good effect were Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, while Marilyn Monroe loved "Rouge Diabolique" which admittedly sounds more like an X-rated film. Dolly Parton is another red lipstick fan, "the redder the better". And few could resist those ruby red pouts of cartoon sex bombs Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit.
In the early days of cinema actresses actually used bright green lipstick which looked much better in black and white films. During wartime, working women in Britain were encouraged by Winston Churchill to wear strong red lipstick to boost the population's morale.
One suspects that once the masks are gone lipstick will be back with a vengeance in every shade imaginable, from Pink Periwinkle to Toasted Almond, from Forbidden Fuchsia to Flamenco Red. However, I am not so sure about Vamptastic Plum.
Balmoral beauty
Someone who has been an enthusiastic wearer of lipstick is Queen Elizabeth II. For the 1953 coronation she insisted on having a shade of red to match her ceremonial robes. It caught on and was marketed under the name The Balmoral. To this day royal lipstick-watchers say one of the first things the 95-year-old Queen does after a luncheon is to pull out her compact and give her lips a fresh coating of the red stuff.
All about Moi!
Most people are familiar with the expression "like putting lipstick on a pig'', meaning an attempt to make something or someone look appealing when it clearly won't fool anyone. A celebrity who would definitely not agree with that interpretation is Muppet star Miss Piggy.
There is a scene in The Muppets Take Manhattan in which Joan Rivers applies a pink gloss lipstick to a coy Miss Piggy. So impressive were the pig's looks they even marketed a Miss Piggy Makeup Collection which includes a tasteful "Love Moi Lip Balm" with a scent of sweet doughnuts. Simply irresistible.
The reluctant flapper
The only time I ever wore lipstick was on one occasion in the mid-1960s when our church youth club performed a spoof on fashion shows. All our "catwalk" models were mostly overweight young males in assorted unbecoming dresses. It was in the days when men dressed as women always brought a laugh and sure enough, the audience loved it despite it being hopelessly amateurish.
Because I was really skinny, they put me in one of those slinky dresses that "flappers" wore in the Roaring Twenties. The make-up was deliberately over the top and my lipstick, which was definitely not Rouge Diabolique, was a total disaster, running down the chin and across the cheeks.
Creating the biggest laugh was a fellow wearing a cardboard box as a dress.
It looked totally absurd and accidentally fell to pieces as he shuffled across the stage, leaving him standing there in little more than his underwear.
It sounds very stupid now but it was great fun.
Even the vicar was laughing … more importantly, so was his wife.
Collared by Connie
A song about lipstick sparks memories of a bizarre night in the early 1980s in Kanchanburi province.
I was with colleague Tony Waltham on a chilly New Year's eve and we were in a small town near the Myanmar border. We came across a group of border patrol policemen celebrating in a sala and they insisted we joined them, plying us with som tam and generous amounts of Mekong whiskey.
They had an ancient record player and vinyl records featuring the likes of Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and Connie Francis.
It soon became time to dance and the fact there were no females did not worry the policemen as they were perfectly happy dancing with the two farang.
One policeman was particularly fond of Connie's 1959 hit, Lipstick on Your Collar.
The following morning, in addition to feeling decidedly sluggish, whizzing around in my head for the rest of the day was Connie's admonition "Lipstick on your collar told a tale on you…" Well, that's one way to welcome in a New Year.
Face the facts
To conclude, it seems an appropriate time to dig up the old saying: "Make-up is used by teenagers to make them feel older sooner and by their mothers to make them feel younger longer."
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