From deadly poison to feminist statement, Carine Fabius unearths lipstick’s curious history

And now for something really important amidst all the issues in our world… My artist friend David Gibson and I were hanging out the other day when the subject of lipstick came up. He’d noticed several small, colorful bottles on my desk—a new line of herbal lip dyes that I sell through my temporary body art business. Anyone who knows me is aware that I never go a day without lipstick.

Our fearless leader, Cathy Fischer (who started Fifty is the New), likes to tell people about the time she asked a bunch of women gathered at my house to count the lipsticks in their purses. The one with the most lipsticks wins… I clocked in at 17 tubes. (That was then! I only carry one at a time now). I even wrote a recent blog for Huffington Post called Lipstick, I Can’t Live Without You. What can I say? I’m serious about Lipstick. But, back to David.

“I don’t really like that stuff,” he said to me. I nodded understanding; he continued. “I hate it when a woman gives me a big hug and I’m left with lipstick on my collar for the rest of the night.” I nodded some more; he kept going. “And what about when a woman with lipstick takes a bite out of an apple and then hands it to you.” Want a bite?

“Ewww,” I said, “Gross!” You don’t have to tell me the hassles of wearing lipstick. I’m constantly wiping lipstick stains off my coffee cup, wine glass, any glass, even when there’s no one around to notice. And what about lipstick on teeth, napkins and on the chin after said bite of apple? I once had a boyfriend who preferred me sans lipstick. I ignored him, of course, but he still remains an indelible spot on my heart for that stance. He and my father. I’m sorry but I just look better with it on, okay?

If people knew lipstick’s history and what women had to endure to wear it, even bare lip aficionados might start a political movement to honor the waxy stick. Hello National Lipstick Day! For instance, did you know that the desperate need to vivify the lips started circa 3500 B.C. when a Sumerian queen donned a white lead base with crushed red rocks to achieve some kinda, any kinda hue? How about such mind-numbing ingredients as the deadly poisonous vermilion, sheep sweat, and crocodile excrement? Mmm, Mmm, Mmm. And then there were the vile accusations suffered by women who dared to wear lipstick—prostitute being the kindest. In fact, the Greeks punished prostitutes for not wearing it, lest people confuse them with ladies. By the middle ages, the ever-reliable religious nuts decreed women wearing lipstick to be incarnations of Satan (why else would anyone mess with the God-given? Come to think of it, it’s downright bizarre that cosmetic surgery has not been declared a sin punishable by stoning).

Eventually, things took a positive turn for the reviled lipstick when, in the 1300s, the English came to believe that it carried magical powers and could even keep death at bay! But, you guessed it, this really pissed off the church again. Magical powers?? Using lipstick was declared a mortal sin (to be divulged during confession), unless it was by horribly disfigured women—for the purpose of relieving their unfortunate husbands. Around then pictures of devils applying lipstick on women were rampant. You can imagine how much worse it got during the Victorian age.

Because you are busy and we endeavor to keep these blogs short, I have to stop here; but the lipstick’s fascinating history goes on, even becoming a tool for the feminist movement in the 1900s when the suffragettes endorsed it as a sign of emancipation.

As my grandmother always said, Il faut soufrir pour être belle (one must suffer to be beautiful). So, all I can say to my friend David is, if I have to suffer, so must you.

How would your life have been different if you had seen this time-lapse video on the cusp of your own womanhood?

What if, as a young girl of 13 or 14, you had witnessed the impossibility of being that perfect face on the billboard? Would you still have lain in the sun to get that Bain de Soleil tan? Or, turned your legs (and Mom’s white sheets) orange with “QT” (aka Quick Tan)? Or stripped your hair with the spray-on Sun In, trying to look like those Nordic blondes in the commercials?

Would you have starved yourself to look like Twiggy or stretched your Dippity-Do gelled hair over soup cans to have Cheryl Tiegs’ smooth, waspy locks?

Me, I don’t think I’d have done anything different…I think I still would have broiled in the sun and sacrificed my personal development in order to please friends and boyfriends. I hope that I wouldn’t have, but as the philosopher Ouspensky said, “If it could have happened any other way, it would have.”

And, after all, what would be the point of being young if you listen to your parents’ wisdom and learn from their mistakes?

(If you are viewing this post in your mailbox, you must click on the title to get to the Fifty is the New website and view the video.)

December 2007, photo by Michel Bocande

Cathy Fischer’s third and final installment of her “hair trilogy”

I thought of writing about a topic other than my hair, but my dear friend and chemo companion Wendy (who accompanied me to all four treatments, where we’d yak for a few hours, leaf through magazines, then go out for a fabulous lunch) insisted that I update those who are anxiously waiting to know if I’ve gone gray or returned to being a slave to color.

First, a quick recap/update:

In January, I posted “Wigging Out” which chronicled my going from hirsute to hairless, in just three days. It started when my hair began falling out after my first chemo treatment for breast cancer. I shaved my head, preemptively, to avoid the horror-induced depression of finding clumps of hair on my pillow or even worse, having a head resembling the cruelest of all male baldness patterns—the Franciscan monk look.

In hindsight, the quote about the “joy” of being hairless was true. It was a relief not having to shave or pluck, cut or color, for a few months. I’m pretty sure that most of the money I saved on hair maintenance went directly to shoe purchases. “Do what makes you feel good” was my motto, which often manifested itself in the form of new shoes, dry vodka martinis or extra crispy french fries.

In late April, I wrote “Gray Matters”. It was soon after the Susan Boyle phenom and a New York Times piece about how the perception of age—not gender, ethnicity or race—is the most difficult to change. I pointed out how I tend to date younger guys (although it’s been so long since I’ve had a date, all bets are off), wrote about working in a young industry and confessed my fear that going gray would make me look dukes of haggard-like.

Fast forward to the near present.

I went back and forth on the color thing. A lot. Finally, I made an appointment with a new hairstylist who does great short cuts. My plan was to shape and color it all—except for the cowlick in front that grew in as a swirling shock of silver.

That was my plan but Julie, the hair genius, convinced me otherwise. She said the gray smatterings made me look soft and if I didn’t like it, I could come back and she’d color it for free. So, I decided to brave it for a week and see what happened. Two weeks later I’m still au natural, and I actually like it. I’m getting pretty good reviews too.

This chic new look has me fantasizing about Japanese designer clothes and moving to Manhattan. And when I’m not thinking about how much I hate my neck, I’m groovin’ on the cropped hair, which for the first time, has a Josephine Baker-esque wave going on in the back. Luckily my eyelashes have returned, and that’s important since now it’s all about the eyes. (Melissa says it’s the lips, but, really…it’s all about the earrings.)

In “Gray Matters” I did some heavy pondering. Could I make a crack in the stereotype, or would I be seen, as mentioned in the Susan Boyle article, as “harmless and useless”? I’ve yet to determine how our ageist society will respond. I haven’t been job or man hunting, and I haven’t had to change my makeup or style, so far….

Will I stay gray and let it go all the way? It’s freeing and fabulous, but, as I recently learned from What Not to Wear, “Hair is an accessory and you should treat it as one. It’s not a permanent fixture.”

From Rapunzel to Samson and throughout the ages, hair has been a metaphor for transformation. I too have been transformed, and like brilliant sunshine after the rain, the outpouring of love, humor and inspiration—from friends old and new—has been the shiniest silver lining of all.

Melissa Howden believes in the power and danger, the wonder and necessity of art.

Last week, my friend Stefanie sent me a link to the image above, entitled The Language of Birds. The image of a site-specific installation across from the famous City Lights bookstore in North Beach, San Francisco made me gasp out loud in wonder. The “birds” are books in flight. Below them on the street are phrases embedded in the walk from over 90 authors, as if their words have fallen out of the books. The piece, by artists Brian Goggin and Dorka Keen, was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Seeing the “bird books” ignited delight and made me thrill at the prospect of a pilgrimage to the site when next I am in the area. The fact that such a piece exists at all, and was commissioned by a public agency for the benefit of all, is also incredibly heartening.

Thanks to my mother who began taking us to live theatre at a very early age (she always got seats in the last row so that we could stand up in the seats to see and not disturb others) I grew up with an appreciation for art as something as vital and necessary as the air I breathe. Art that is successful, no matter its form, has the affect of rearranging my cells, creating a sense of expansion and challenging my beliefs. Sometimes too, a particular piece will simply just inspire wonder, causing a pause in my day. Such was the case recently while driving the back roads when I passed a house with big letters installed on the wall, which said, “A POET LIVES HERE”. There in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, I was reassured by the existence of a resident poet in the pasture.

A while back my 10-year-old niece Emily was pondering the texture of an adobe wall, and commented that she really liked the swirls in the adobe. My brother standing next to her said that he couldn’t see the swirls she was talking about. Emily turned to him and said in the most matter of fact voice, “That’s because you aren’t an artist.” This interaction reminded me of a summer adventure with my wild and different Uncle Al, who while not a practicing artist had to my mind the soul of an artist. We were walking down the Santa Fe River and he was pointing out to me how the sun refracted off the pebbles on the bottom of the river creating magical reflections in the water. At the time I was probably a bit younger than my niece, but I count that day as my most singular lesson in consciousness.

I am right now especially filled with the promise of renewed creative vitality and consciousness not just personally but also for our culture. We have a president who during his campaign took the unprecedented move of forming an Arts Policy Committee. On his election he formed the first-ever presidential arts platform. For the first time in our history the National Endowment for the Arts was included in the recovery bill, receiving an additional 50 million dollars. Might we be on the brink of an artistic renaissance?

Art is power. Years ago while touring the Jewish ghetto in Venice, Italy, the young man giving us the tour pointed out the murals in one of the synagogues and said that Jews had not been allowed to paint the murals in their own place of worship. Only the Christians were allowed to create the art in the synagogues. This said to me in no uncertain terms that those in power recognized the absolute power of art and did not want it unleashed.

The power and danger inherent in artistic expression is its life force. Perhaps the most valuable thing about art is that thing which can’t be explained. An artist creates; we enter the space of that creation and at that intersection—that is where dialogue begins and meaning is found.

Go on an adventure! Discover the unexpected and wondrous:
on a poet’s barn wall;
in the Ailey dance Revelations;
the mud swirls of adobe;
a poem by Mary Oliver;
the space of sky in an O’Keeffe painting;
the pebbles of a river bed;
at the intersection of Columbus and Broadway Streets
and beyond.

You on an adventure Mr. Citizen
I bet you didn’t know that.
It’s all an adventure.
You signed up for it and didn’t even know it.
– Aunt Esther to Citizen Barlow in August Wilson’s play Gem of the Ocean

For Cathy Fischer, being post-chemotherapy is great, but soon she’ll need to make a choice about how she looks and how she might be perceived.

By now you probably know about Susan Boyle, the middle-aged television show contestant whose awkward and dowdy presence had the judges and studio audience of Britain’s Got Talent ready to laugh her off the stage. But when Susan Boyle began to sing, her matronly gray hair and bushy eyebrows disappeared and her enormous talent smacked everyone upside the head.

Like millions who’ve watched the video, I laughed, cried and cheered for the underdog. This real-life morality tale has people examining their own looksist and ageist stereotypes.

Now that I’m finished with chemotherapy, my hair is growing back—on my head, eyelashes, brows—and other places, I’m afraid. (Dang those mother pluckers!) My formerly bald pate is covered with hair soft as duck down, dark with smatterings of silver at the temples and marbled throughout. The Jane Fonda Klute wig I’ve been wearing will soon be a relic, so here I stand at the crossroads: go gray or say nay?

Some of my girlfriends are in the midst of the transition from being slaves to color to going “au natural.” These folks envy my fresh start, while others think I’ve gone mad.

My sister-in-law Ann thinks I should go back to being a highlighted brunette. “You don’t want to look like a grandma,” she said as she poured her third cup of Darjeeling.

“You don’t look like a grandma and you’re older,” I retorted, eyeing her perfect silky silver-haired bob.

Thoughtfully stirring her tea, she proclaimed, “I’m probably going to go platinum.” Then she reminded me of how my ever-attractive and stylish 86-year-old mother, who once was raven-haired, has become progressively more blonde.

I figure I have a few more weeks to make my decision. Here are some things I’m looking at:

I’m single and I tend to date guys that are younger. Not necessarily a preference, just a fact. No, I am not a cougar. (I believe cougars have to be a couple of decades older than their men to wear the prowling feline moniker.)

I’m employed in a young industry. What if I were to re-enter the job market or go freelance? I suppose I could color my hair then, but my photo is already in cyber-circulation. Just one Google search and I’d be outed.

I’d have to buy new makeup and clothes. Go ahead and call it silver, but we’re talking shades of gra-ay, my friends. Gray, that washout provocateur, shining light and shadow on eye pouches and blemishes. I doubt I could pull off the Eileen Fisher style: wild yet perfect gray hair blowing in the sea breeze, wearing linen and an “I’m-so-fresh-I-never–have-hot-flashes” look. My look would be more dukes of haggard.

(On that note, last year I was introduced to my thirty-something-year-old friend Angela’s new boyfriend. She later told him my age and apparently he was stunned. “She doesn’t look 50!” he remarked. “I thought she was a haggard 35.” That’s a compliment, right? Thanks dude.)

The recent New York Times Style article “Yes, Looks Do Matter” has scientists looking at the Susan Boyle story concluding that it matches up to the natural, survival instinct that has we humans using snap judgments to size up others.

Susan Fiske, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton, states that AGE—not gender, ethnicity or race—is a stereotype that’s difficult to change. Older people are often seen as “harmless and useless” and age perception is “particularly sticky” she says.

If I go gray will I make a crack in the stereotype, or will I be seen as “harmless and useless”? Even Susan Boyle has had a makeover. Her hair is no longer wiry gray and she’s dressing with a bit more style.

I need to feel good about myself before I can change the world. As superficial as it may sound, maybe I look—therefore I feel—better as a brunette. I’m just not sure.

In a society where first impressions rule, can we change perception? What are your thoughts?

Photo by Pascal Giacomini

Can I just bitch for a moment about getting old? I know, I know, there are people starving in America, and I should just be grateful for my wonderful life. And, I am. But let’s face it. Regardless of bombs going off in the world and in the lives of people you love, if a missile has landed in your little universe, you can’t just wish it away. Pettiness and substance often occupy the same space. Life is like that. Okay, disclaimer taken care of. Now can I bitch?

I’ve written on this site before about going gray, and I thought I had a pretty good game plan in place: because it blends so well, start with platinum blonde around the crown, where it’s coming in at a speed rivaling the action in Charlie Chaplin movies; and, that’s been working very well. Until now. Who knew that my nice, soft curls would morph into coarse, wiry pubic hair? Gray pubic hair at that! Can someone tell me why, when I now look in the mirror, what I see is the equivalent of two pussy puffs where my ears used to be? No amount of conditioner helps. Just today I vaulted over to the beauty supply store in search of a keratin-based product because, according to beauty magazines, keratin is the end-all in the new wave of anti-aging hair products. No kidding, they use that term on labels. I am now sick to death of wearing hats and bandanas, and am in a panic because even if I cut it short, I’ll be walking around in that super attractive short pubic look!

The only thing keeping depression at bay, and me in stitches, is the stuff I hear my friends saying about their looks. So, in order not to leave you with my sad and alarming dilemma, instead I’ll leave you with some priceless overheard comments from women I know, (laughing as they talked) about their aging process:

“Yesterday I looked at my gray bangs in the mirror and thought I looked good. Today all I saw was an old sea hag that washed up on the beach.”

“I’ve stopped drinking and I’m walking everyday because when I go to Hawaii next month I don’t want mass evacuations at the beach when I walk out there in a bikini.”

“My face now looks like a zucchini; but not just any zucchini. I mean the long, yellow oval ones.”

“I’ve got that saggy, baggy elephant thing going on.”

“…but the skin around my chin is down to my knees now!”

Woman talking about her skin: “Yeah, I don’t know how it happened.”

After being told by a friend that she’s happy her husband doesn’t have his glasses on when they make love: “So, people our age who have their glasses on…do they see my big pores, and whiskers coming out of my chin?”

Thank God we have each other. Just this morning, looking like I will at 90, I ran into a woman I know as I walked the dog. “You look great!” she said. “You always do, but even more so today!”

What a liar!

Frida Kahlo Self Portrait, 1940

On my father’s side of the family I am part Swedish (Ecklund) and part Portuguese (Frias)…Ooh…I’m a Porta-Swede.

Up until the time of the Menopause, the Swedish ruled the Queendom of Connie.  Fair, liberal and free of excess body hair, they ruled all parts of the Connie with good judgment, equilibrium and ease.  The Swedish in Connie laughed and played and worked in the warmth of youth and vigor, proud of her lack of excess body hair.  Little did she suspect that just under the skin, awaiting some deep genetic signal, a coarser, darker presence was lurking.

Then, in its time, the Menopause came and the light was gone, and the ghosts of her father’s mother’s mustache burst forth as the thorns upon the rose, and the Portuguese reined the land of her upper lip and there was sorrow, and great wailing—and there were whiskers.  “Will no one help me?” cried the Connie.  “I am not prepared to harvest what has been up till now a fallow field. I have no scythes, no machetes, no tools.”

The sisters from other lands and other tribes—the lands of Italy, Spain, Greece, Mexico and the very wise tribes of the Ashkanzy, all heard Connie’s pleas and took pity.  And though the Connie had not been kind, had teased her hirsute sisters, and had been filled with hubris, the sisters came forth with gifts of bleach and exotic waxes, and brought unto Connie that which at last tamed the Portuguese, the one true magic, the TWEEZERMAN. And it was good.

Not great, mind you, but OK.

And now for the moral of our story:

Don’t be such a smartypants.  Be happy with where you are now.  Don’t make fun of women with moustaches.   The way you look in your thirties and forties is not what you are taking with you into the great Mordor of Menopause.  They don’t call it the “change of life” for nothing.  Everything changes and continues to change, if you’re lucky and you live long enough.  Embrace it all, the whole bloody roller coaster.

Gone today…Hair tomorrow, ya know?

Blogging off,
Connie