Su Arte, an open access documentary retraces the socio-political history of lipstick

For a long time, Covid-19 prevented many drug addicts from being able to wear them on a daily basis. As the masks fall, even if the pandemic isn’t over, lipstick aficionados can once again indulge in it as they please, without the risk of smudging.

But where does this make-up item come from? What is it made of and how has it become so important to so many women? This is what Claudia Marschal retraces and analyzes through a documentary entitled On our lips – Once red, always red?available for free from 24 July 2022 and until 13 December 2022 on Arte.tv.

This Art documentary goes back to the origins of lipstick

“ Lipstick tells a little story of what was expected of us at a given moment and how we chose to introduce ourselves. It’s like a little piece of history with a cap that fits in your hand “Asks Madeleine Marsh, beauty historian and author, in the documentary.

In particular, we can learn that we find traces of lipstick in history at least from ancient Egypt, in particular through an erotic papyrus of Turin where we see a woman applying it.

Stand out from the crowd with lipstick

But coloring lips wasn’t always a gendered practice as it is today: in 18th century France, aristocrats, men and women, applied it to distinguish themselves from the people, explains Anne de Marnhac, author and editor, in the documentary:

“The 18th century was truly the era of the paroxysm of makeup practices. In this period the creation of a court mask, an aristocratic signage, was carried out. It is the trick with which we differentiate ourselves from people. This trick is practiced for both men and women. It is a social indicator. “

Mark your virtue with a line of lipstick

But with the revolution the heads fall and so do the aristocratic masks of make-up. This is where the distinction appears between well-educated women who should above all not appear made up, and the others, made up, who then appear as not very virtuous, even prostitutes. And it is the absence or presence of lipstick that most symbolizes this opposition. This partly explains its relative decline in popularity until the suffragettes claimed it.

The political importance of lipstick for suffragettes

On our lips – Once red, always red? also returns to the importance of vermilion for the suffragettes who have made it a communication tool, and therefore a political weapon to obtain the right to vote, also analyzes Rachel Felder, journalist and author:

“For the suffragettes, lipstick gave a sense of feminine power, an expression of that power. This is exactly what they were trying to say: “We are intelligent, thinking people, and we are women, and we are not embarrassed by our femininity. The lipstick visually communicates their message perfectly. Wearing lipstick for suffragettes in the United States and England became part of their uniform. “

The documentary then traces the socio-political issues of lipstick to the present day, from the (fake) TikTok tutorials to the controversies over their controversial composition. Women who wear it more often would ingest 3 to 4 kg over the course of their lifetime, according to On our lips – Once red, always red?. It is therefore an erudite and accessible documentary, which takes the red stick as a guide through the social and political history of makeup, women, gender and even class.

Front page photo credit: © Arte.tv screenshot