Five thousand years ago, the Sumerians crushed gemstones into a fine powder. They mixed the gemstone powder with lead and made it into a fine paste. Then, they applied that gemstone potion to their lips as a form of body art that symbolised status and wealth.
At the time, lip painting was gender-neutral. Men and women–people of other sexes, too–painted their lips. That invention–made out of crushed gemstones and lead–laid the foundations of what we now know as lipstick.
The Egyptian royalty took it a step further. They crushed bugs into a fine paste and painted their lips with bug paste. King Tutankhamun and Cleopatra loved applying this paste on their lips. Such was their fascination that they forbade everyone other than the royals from applying the bug paste on their lips. Here, too, the lip paste made out of bugs was used to denote social status—not gender.
In the Chinese Tang dynasty, scented oils were added to lip paints to make them more delicate on the lips. When young girls reached puberty, they painted their lips to indicate they were sexually active.
Historically, however, lip paints had different connotations worldwide; each culture and custom had a different meaning and symbolism associated with the act of painting lips.
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