Moments in Makeup: In Search of the First Lipstick

New Beauty Blog Series!

Moments in Makeup

Well, a World History major I was not.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t pay that much attention in that class (if I even took one? lol), but when you put a beauty spin on it…all of sudden it seems ALOT more interesting…SO…if you’re ready for a little learnin’…I’m ready for a little sharin’…

 In Search of the First Lipstick 

Since we’ve been talking about lipstick this week and it’s making a big comeback and shaking things up for all of you gloss gals, I thought it would be interesting to find out where the first lipstick came from.  So….whose big idea was it anyway?? 

Well, the answer is….nobody really knows…but what people who dig for ancient things and understand science have found is that women have been prettying things up for well over 5000 years.  Drumroll…the first proof of women using ”lip rouge” was found in a tomb in Sumeria (3000–2000 B.C.E. ) (uh…huh??…that’s exactly what I  thought….so to clear up the confused look on your face…. Sumeria is currently named Iraq)  In the 5000 year old tomb, possibly of Queen Schub-ad of Ur, (Ohhh, right!…that chick) in addition to finding “lip rouges”, they also found a cosmetic pot of blue-green malachite, a shell-shaped gold cosmetics case with mini cosmetic spoons, tweezers, an ear scoop (ewww), a cuticle pusher, and pots of apple green, aqua, terra-cotta and charcoal for the eyes. Sounds like those ancient Sumerians knew how to PRIMP!

So it seems the Sumerians thought taking a few beauty products with them when they kicked it would be a good idea…apparently so they could glam it up in the afterlife.  To whom it may concern, DO NOT bury me with beauty products.  Thanks.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 at 3:12 pm. It is filed under d.d.Nickel PRO and tagged with ancient beauty, beauty, celebrity makeup artist, ct makeup artist, d.d.Nickel makeup studio, history of beauty, history of makeup, makeup, makeup artist, nyc makeup artist, vt makeup artist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.