Women have come a long way in their quest for the perfect crimson pout. Here, ELLE.com walks you through the history of how women (and their men) have made it so popular.
BY TAYLOR BARRINGER
ANCIENT EGYPT
One of the first accounts of wearing red lipstick came from the Mesopotamian women (and often men) who used to adorn their lips with crushed semi-precious stones. Later, Cleopatra was known for crushing beetles and ants to get the right shade of scarlet for her lips.
The phrase 'Kiss Of Death' was coined because of the harmful mixture of fucus-algin, iodine, and bromine mannite that Egyptian women used to create lipstick. Highly toxic, the concoction often led to serious illness and sometimes death.
Frost lipstick even had its first incarnation—fish scales were ground up to loan lipstick its pearlescent sheen.
