Red Red Lips

What do your red lips say about you? Do you love your red red lipstick? Red is a potent colour, it's highly symbolic with powerful meanings both in nature and culture. Red is hot! Red red lips are perfect for Valentine's Day. Red red lips are so retro and so Hollywood.

So many cool words for this hot colour. Paint your lips red with bright red lipstick, cherry red, crimson, imperial red, ruby red, blood red, cardinal red or wine red lipstick and get noticed.

Tell me the truth now - are you a scarlet woman - or not?

You might think that it's obvious that wearing scarlet says you're bright and bubbly - but there's more to red than meets the eye! What does red really say about you?

We all know that culturally (that's the culture of the western world, America and Europe) red means danger, passion, blood, violence and war. Nothing wishy-washy here then! Cultural meanings change radically though; In Eastern cultures such as China red is the color for good luck. In the west red might be bold, but in India red represents purity and is used for marriages - don't get it wrong!

But how can wearing red win friends and influence people? It has been scientifically proven that men will spend more on a date if a girls wears red. (Where is that red lipstick!) Men also rate women as more attractive if they are photographed in front of a red background than in front of a blue, green back or white background.

People think that women wearing red are more extravert. Shown pictures of a woman with red lipstick, men will rate her more extravert than a picture of the same woman with more subtle shades of lipstick.

But red can have more, far reaching effects. Advertisers are well aware of the power of color - and the psychology of colour. Men are influenced by the colour red - to the point that teams with red strip tend to win more often. amazing!

So what are the general affects of the colour red?

Red is a stimulating colour, connected to the senses and sexual appetite (back to the scarlet woman). Red is associated with deep passions - love, lust, sex and courage.

Red excites us and get us going! It catches the attention - gets you noticed. Why else would we use red for warning signs and signs of danger?

Red lipstick is a true classic. Red lipstick is ALWAYS in fashion. Red is retro and there's always a place for retro but the 50's are really back with a splash! Get that film star Hollywood look with red red lips.

From the Egyptians to today

Madeleine Marsh, author of Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty From Victorian Times to the Present Day (Women with Style) recounted the remarkable history of lipstick on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Friday 6th June 2014 and it was notable what a strong role red lipstick played in this history.

Marsh tells us that the frist evidence we have of the use of lipstick was from an erotic Egyptian papyrus showing a woman painting her lips - probably with henna, but the real heyday of red lipstick was the 20th century. This is when respectable women were 'allowed' by society to paint their faces.

In 1912 at a suffrage march in New York the women all painted their lips bright red - a strike for freedom to wear whatever they wated to without censure. Interestingly enough, one of the leading manufacturers of cosmetics, Elizabeth Arden, was on this march. Find out more about Elizabeth Arden and her arch rival Helena Rubenstein in the book War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden, Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry

by Lindy Woodhead (author of Shopping, Seduction and Mr Selfridge)

The influence of Hollywood on the red lipstick craze was strong too. Max Factor was in the right place at the right time when he moved to Hollywood in 1909 juqt before the first movie was made in 1910.

With cinema we saw faces blown up on a gigantic scale and the studio lights demanded a new breed of grease paint.

Lipstick took off in the roaring twenties when the bright young things took to the Betty Boop bee-stung fashion of lipstick invented by Max Factor. It was he who covered the whole mouth with foundation and then applied two thumb prints of red on the top lips and two on the bottom for Mae Murray:

During the war red lipstick took on a patriotic role even though the production of cosmetics was reduced to only 25 percent of its prewar volume as the machinery normally used to make lipstick was used instead to make shells. It became up to the women to stay strong and beautiful for the boys (grrrr) and red lipstick became a badge of courage carry names such as 'Fighting Red" and "Patriotic Red".

In the 60's the fashions chnaged dramatically. Gone were the womanly curves of the 50's and out popped the gamine girl, Twiggy with bust measurement of 30.5". Youth came to the fore and white or pale lipsticks allowed emphasis to be put onto the big baby eyes, or silver and gold lips looked to the modern and space-age look.

Hot red, Fuchsia red, cherry red, Garnet red and Hollywood wine red. So many words for RED. So many shades of lipstick. So many shades of red. Make your wet n wild lips tick

Red is the colour of Valentine's Day

Red is the traditional colour of roses, of love and Valentine's Day. I love this poster of Marilyn. Get your lips ready for Valentine's Day and for love.

Rihanna has red red lips!

Rihanna Red Lipstick - the new song from Rihanna's album "Talk That Talk" Red Lipstick [Explicit]

A great range of long lasting lipstick.

I just love the KA'OIR range of brilliant and, in manycases, wacky colours. Here we're just interested in their colour-saturated red red reds! KA'OIR By Keyshia KAOIR "Red Roses" Lipstick Bright

Retro lipstick reminds me of my grandmother's lipsticks. Do you remember the gorgeous smell of the old lipsticks? Beautiful containers. Search the net for the best retro red lipsticks and you'll find the most beautiful objects - perfect for taking out and topping up with a vintage compact mirror.

I love this "Hello Sailor" come-and-get-me idea - definitely for the racy woman look and not without certain references to fast women. Bright and clear classic scarlet red.

How we say red red

hot red, bright red, crimson, fucshia red, scarlet, rose red, brilliant red, post box red, pillar box red, blood red, neon red, wine red, ruby red, garnet red, Russian red, cardinal red, carmine, cerise (which is just French for cherry!), claret, coral red, flaming red, geranium red, glowing red, ruddy red, titian red, vermilion