Come To Your Senses with Mary Lofgren

An Ode To Red Lipstick 💋

• Mary Lofgren

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Who knew that red lipstick could carry such depth and history? Join me in celebrating this iconic staple of feminine and feminist power.  

Whether you're a cherry chapstick beginner or a ruby lipped renegade, you'll find something to love in this episode. 

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Speaker 1:

Hello, beautiful, and welcome to the Come to your Senses podcast. I'm your host, award-winning certified feminine embodiment coach, licensed esthetician and enthusiastic foster dog mama to animals across the land, mary Lofgren. Here we explore how to bring more richness, radiance, peace and pleasure to our lives, homes and hearts through the joy of beauty, the wisdom of the body and the splendor of the senses. I'm so glad you're here. Pull up a poof and let's dive in, and let's dive in. Hello, beautiful beings, and welcome to today's episode, which is a Valentine's truffle, an ode to red lipstick.

Speaker 1:

So this is airing the week of Valentine's and I love the romance of Valentine's Day. I was actually telling members of the Sanctuary recently because we are gathering for a Make your Own Valentine's craft date and the Sanctuary is our online membership. You can find out more about it at the link below this episode schoolofsensuallivingcom slash sanctuary. But I was telling them how the most memorable Valentines of my life are not with lovers. Like I have little to no memory, to be honest, of Valentine experiences with boyfriends and people I was romantically involved with. For me, valentine's is all about just drizzling decadent romance and beauty and joy and fun over everyone that I love in my life. Fun over everyone that I love in my life. And if you're listening to this episode on the website, on the blog, you'll see, below this episode, a picture of one of my foster dogs, fred, who was a white pit bull mix, and on Valentine's Day I couldn't help but just smother his face in red lipstick, kisses and you'll see a picture of that. But today's episode is filled with gems on not just how to use red lipstick, how to apply it, what products to use, but the historical and cultural significance of rouging the lips as a symbol of feminine power and resistance, because if there's anything I love, it's the blending of cosmetics with resistance, and I know, as a listener, you love that too. So today's episode is actually a recast.

Speaker 1:

This episode is so delectable and so relevant to Valentine's Day, I couldn't resist republishing it for your listening pleasure. And, interestingly, I went back and listened to it myself and I recorded this years ago after visiting the Bay Area for not the first time, but the first time on my journey to moving here. It's so full circle, it's so cool, and yesterday I just got my California license plates, so that just adds an extra layer of charm and delight. And so enjoy that little part of the intro where you'll hear my California adventure beginning, and I am broadcasting to you from the other side of that dream being met and I'm wishing you all a very, very love-laden valentines. I am coming to you so full, so filled up.

Speaker 1:

I just got back from a beautiful trip to Northern California, to the San Francisco Bay Area, and was at an equine therapy retreat, a somatic coaching equine therapy retreat, which was so magical, and I am working on the real, the real highlights to share with you on my Instagram at Hello Mary Lofgren. And one of my favorite moments was I was in San Francisco with my dear friend Nicola, who is a listener of this podcast, hello darling and she was so generous to take me around for the day. I'd never really explored and sunk my teeth into San Francisco, and so she took me to the park and to a beautiful waterside restaurant for oysters. And one of our adventures was to go to the Ministry of Scent, where they have just a robust collection of unique perfumes from all over the world. And so Nicola and I went and we talked to one of the shopkeepers and just explored all these different ranges of fragrance a portal to a world, like a whole world of romance and artistry and sensuality, and it made me think that I would love to record an episode all about one of my great loves in the world of cosmetics, which is red lipstick. In the world of cosmetics, which is red lipstick.

Speaker 1:

Red lipstick is an iconic aesthetic, but what you'll also discover today is that, like most things that inspire controversy, there is a whole lineage of feminine power behind it, and so, whether you identify as a savant of the rosetto rosso, as they say in Italian red lipstick, or if you are someone who cannot even imagine yourself leaving the house with cherry chapstick on my friend, you are in the right place, because today I am going to tantalize and inspire you with stories about the history of red lipstick, the symbolism of red lipstick as a form of resistance, and all other sociological and all other sociological delights that just so intrigue me and pull me into the power of the ritual of cosmetics and beauty. And what I'm also going to share with you is a hard-won collection of gems that come from a lifelong obsession with red lipstick, and how to choose the right red lipstick for you, how to apply it, the different types of products that are out there, how to sport red lipstick in a way that complements, rather than overly intensifies, your sense of style. Last night, actually, I went out on a date and I dressed for the date in high heels and a little swing skirt and a leather jacket on so a lot of power pieces, you know. And I did a red lipstick with a little gloss on it and I looked in the mirror and I said, oh no, no, this is way too intense for a first date. And so I wiped off all the lipstick and I put on like a almost clear red gloss and which just gives the lips like a shiny, slightly red, slightly pinkish hue. And it was so much much better. And so we'll also talk about how to take red lipstick and work your way up and into the full spectrum of the glamour and the power that rouging the lips has to offer. And so let's dive in to our gems.

Speaker 1:

I remember when I auditioned it was really kind of an audition. It wasn't just an interview, it was a series of interviews for my first corporate job, and it was for a skincare company, and it was my dream to work for this company. My dream to work for this company. I had attended classes at their training institute for years and was just mad with passion about the products and the education and I was applying to become one of their educators. And so I went through two interviews and on the third interview I was doing a presentation to demonstrate my teaching skills to the director of education for the whole company, and I remember that I wore a bright, flaming red suit to the interview. To the interview, I wanted the world to know how deeply I burned with passion to get this job and I got the job and to this day, the person who interviewed me still says that she remembers my red suit and she remembers the impact it had on her.

Speaker 1:

So red, as we know, is a color with highly passionate, highly powerful implications, and so where we're going to begin today is with just a little bit about the history of red lipstick, adorning the lips with rouge. You know, an aspect of feng shui and Chinese medicine that I love is that placing something red near the entrance to your home can be a way of attracting abundance and success into your home, and I love that. I love the significance of adorning with red as a power of attraction and I love the way that that ties into the ritual of red lipstick. Red, we know, is a color that signifies passion, across the spectrum of meaning that is assigned to red. Red lipstick is a way of drawing attention to the lips, saying look here. It is a way of dropping red roses at the altar of your mouth, adorning the words that are expressed through your lips.

Speaker 1:

In England during the Middle Ages, a woman who wore makeup was seen as the incarnation of Satan, because, according to religious teaching at the time, to alter one's face would be to challenge God's work. To alter one's face would be to challenge God's work. Elizabethans believed that lipstick had life-giving powers, and Queen Elizabeth herself applied red lipstick on her deathbed. What a dame. So powerful was the mystique surrounding red lipstick that in the 1500s a law was passed declaring that the use of makeup to deceive an Englishman into marriage was punishable as witchcraft and that the marriage would be annulled. These facts actually came from a BuzzFeed article, which I'll pop in the show notes, that also has some references to Harvard and their research on red lipstick, which was really a fascinating article to read.

Speaker 1:

And so I begin there because, as we know, context is everything, and here on the podcast I give you some beautiful gems of wisdom and practices to add to your collection. But even more interesting to me than the content offered here is the context. And so that brings me to our first gem, which is that the first thing required in order to rock Red Lips is courage. You know, as I was sharing all of those facts with you, that I had done a bit of research on before the episode, of research on before the episode, I was really moved and struck by the cultural, historic significance of rouging the lips and how, when we rouge the lips, we are really invoking a whole passage of feminine, sensual visibility and power. And so, to quote or paraphrase, shall I say, marianne Williamson, who has that quote about you know, who am I to shine my light? Well, who are you not to? Who am I to rouge my lips? Well, who are, who are you not to? Because, you know, I remember my mom introducing my mom to red lipstick, and she doesn't really like wearing red lipstick, but when she wears it, I love it. I feel such a reclamation in my body because here is my mom, who's a woman who just turned 80 and is in this phase of her life, and when she wears red lipstick, my whole system just is electrified with seeing her claim that aspect of herself and seeing the way that she inspires, and my mom has done this all throughout my career. My mom has come on so many of my retreats and been a part of so many of my classes. Anyone who's taken classes with me, especially earlier in my career, knows the power and the significance of the Jerry. Jerry was actually a guest about rocking your crone years on.

Speaker 1:

One of my previous episodes, which we'll also put in the show notes, and one of my favorite performers, justin Vivian Bond, has a hashtag on Instagram called glamour is resistance. Justin Vivian Bond is a member of the trans community and one of the things I love about her shows is her unabashed love of glamour and her expression through glamour and red lipstick. Having the courage to invoke that lineage of resistance and reclamation through ruching your lips, I think, is just the bee's knees ankles, elbows. Here in the United States, if you're a listener outside the US, we have an expression that's just the bee's knees, like that is just the best thing ever. And so this is all the joints on the bee, In my opinion, when I see someone really rocking their autonomy and their beauty and their unapologetic resplendence, and I invite you to become a member of the Lip Rouge-ing Underground Society. This is another really fun fact is that when there was so much controversy around red lipstick, there would be underground Lip Rouge-ing Societies where women would gather together and exchange recipes for how to make their own secret little lipstick. So fascinating.

Speaker 1:

Our next gem brings us into some of the more practical aspects of this episode, which is where does one begin? This is such a vast world, and if you don't have a lot of experience with wearing red lipstick, it can feel quite overwhelming. And so, students, take your seats. Welcome to Come to your Sense's Beauty School, and we are about to start our lesson. So quill in hand, here we go.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to lip products, there are a lot of different categories, but there are three main categories of product. So you have your lipstick, your lip liner and your lip gloss. A lipstick comes in a variety of different finishes and textures, all the way from a more dry, concentrated, heavily pigmented, matte type of lipstick down to a creamy, lustrous, slippery kind of lipstick, and those are your lipsticks. That typically come in a tube. You might also find long wear lipsticks, which come in kind of a gel that you put a gloss on top of, but that's neither here nor there for this moment. Those are kind of your lipsticks. Your lip liners come in the form of a twist up product, like a almost like a pen that you can twist up, a pencil that you can sharpen. And lip liners are really meant to define the outer edges of the lips, help keep your lipstick in place.

Speaker 1:

Now, these are the kind of rules around lip products, and I'm going to teach you the rules first, and then we'll talk about breaking and bending the rules in a moment, because I love to use lip liner but I don't use it in that capacity. And glosses are a whole range of products again that you can get, from more heavily pigmented glosses which will really color your lips, to much more lightly pigmented glosses that will just kind of give them like a slight shine and sheen. And then, of course, you have lip balms, which don't have really any color. And you know I get a lot of questions from followers and clients around the color of lipstick that I wear, and my secret is that I am never wearing one lip product Well, rarely am I wearing.

Speaker 1:

About lip colors, is that you can really create such a unique blending of tones and colors and hues by using all of these different mediums together. So I would say that if you are a total beginner when it comes to lip color, I will put my favorite gloss in the show notes. It's by a company called Tower 28. And there's this one particular shade that is my absolute favorite new gloss. Really, I wear it all the time and what I love about it is that there's this beautiful, just tiniest, most subtle tint of red and it's just makes the lips look so hydrated and so juicy and it is a clean beauty product, which I find that with lipstick especially because it is something you're literally eating it's an area of my beauty ritual that I pay special attention to in terms of what I'm consuming in that product, and so that's a great place to start is with glosses, and where I love to play is actually with combining liners and glosses.

Speaker 1:

So I might buy like a coral or a tawny kind of red liner and then line the lips and fill in the liner a bit, take my ring finger and just blend that liner so that my lips are really, you know, defined and coated by lip liner, and then I'll either take a little bit of lipstick or a little bit of lip gloss and I'll dot it in the center of the lip. You dot in the center because, especially with things like glosses and lipsticks, since they have more viscosity, they'll tend to collect in the corners of the mouth and so when you dot it in the center and then blend outward, you know, especially if there is lip liner on the bottom, like as a base coat, you can really control the intensity of the color. So if I have, say, a coral lip liner and I take, like a tulip pink lipstick and I blend those two together oh, ridiculous, just so gorgeous. It's like a gorgeous Caribbean sunrise yes, sunrise or sunset, depending on how you look at it you could do just lining the lips, blending that liner and then adding just a tiny bit of gloss on top to hydrate it, and again, that's going to give you a lot more control over the intensity of the color and the placement of the color. You can also just go straight up lipstick, slap it on. Go straight up lipstick, slap it on.

Speaker 1:

And I don't really do that. I will tell you I don't do a full coating, typically of red lipstick. I did last night when I was getting ready for that date, and again it just came up way too intense. If I'm doing like a photo shoot or a class on Zoom or something where I really want to take it up a notch, then I'll do a full application of a bright red lip. But mostly what I'm working with is these different types of products and just using my mouth as like a coloring book and an artist's canvas to create beautiful colors and color combinations.

Speaker 1:

And the last gem that I'll say is have you ever bought a piece of furniture and you put it in a room and you're like oh, I don't know if I like it. It's so big or is it too small, and you have to really adjust and acclimate to it and become a little more intimate with it to really get to know it in your space. Red lipstick is very similar. If you are not accustomed to the intensity of having a red lip, not accustomed to the intensity of having a red lip, you might try this experiment. You might go to the drugstore and pick up a red lipstick and put it on with your pajamas in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday and think, oh, garish, no, thank you. I really encourage you to approach red lipstick like it's a new friend, like you are getting to know one another.

Speaker 1:

So whenever I introduce a new makeup product into my ritual, I don't really like it in the beginning. It really doesn't matter what it is. I need time to get to know it and get to know how it works or doesn't work with me. But usually, after investing in that relationship, we fall in love, and so I am going to place in the show notes a few of my favorite lip products that I have fallen in love with over the years my Desert Island lipsticks, in fact. I was once hiking the Grand Canyon and a group of hikers were laughing at me and teasing me because on the corner of the trail I was touching up my lipstick and they thought that was hilarious and I was like what doesn't? Everybody have hiking lips.

Speaker 1:

So, from my hiking lips to yours, I hope that you enjoyed this little truffle of an episode, and if you did, I would be so delighted to hear from you in a review or to see that you have subscribed and like the podcast. These tiny gestures of appreciation go so far in helping this podcast grow, and so I deeply appreciate your presence and your pushing of the subscribe button, and I will see you in the next episode, if today's episode stirred something in you a longing for more ease, more beauty, more attunement to the quiet wisdom of your body. Then I have a velvet, ribboned gift just for you. The Enchanted Path of Beauty is a free three-chapter audio collection designed to help you soften into the radiant presence that you already embody. Let us pad down a rose-petaled path to explore beauty as a profound path to healing, deep fulfillment and radiant embodied presence. Head to schoolofsensuallivingcom. Slash beautiful to discover beauty's unlimited power to heal our minds, open our hearts and write the signature of the sacred through our senses. You.