Empowering the pucker

Even when a woman has little to say, her lipstick can speak volumes. And layering several sumptuous shades 21st century style keeps bedazzled beholders hanging on her lips.

By JANET K. KEELER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 18, 2002

[Times photo: Patty Yablonski] The lip color of Heather Jeurgensen in the movie Kissing Jessica Stein is re-created by layering M.A.C. Viva Glam III lipstick with Hard Candy’s Baby Doll and Philosophy’s Supernatural Nude.

We've got some bad news for Jessica Stein.

Prescriptives' bubble gum pink lipstick, Poodle, was discontinued last year. That means the hunt for the perfect shade continues for Jessica, the most endearingly batty movie character since Annie Hall.

Jessica is fiction, but her love affair with luscious, perfectly painted lips is not. For most women, their dirty little secret isn't how many men they've slept with but how many tubes of lipstick they own.

We talked to someone who admitted to 250.

In Kissing Jessica Stein, a girl-meets-girl, girl-loses-girl-but-finds-self-and-boy art house flick, lipstick is a metaphor for the search for love. The movie got its start as an off-Broadway play called Lipschtick: The Story of Two Women Seeking the Perfect Shade, co-written by Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Jeurgensen, who also play the main characters in the movie.

In the back seat of a cab, Jessica (Westfeldt) comments on the lipstick worn by Helen (Jeurgensen). Helen is ready to forge ahead on lesbian experimentation; Jessica is as hesitant as a 13-year-old considering her first smooch.

"Lipstick, I'm looking for the perfect one," Jessica says.

"Trust me, you'll never find it," says Helen, explaining how she layers three shades. "You need to blend."

The hues on Hollywood's lips What the stars wear

Helen reveals she is wearing M.A.C.'s Viva Glam III, the aforementioned Poodle and Philosophy's Supernatural Nude. The results are lips that look like they've been stained by Burgundy wine, only much glossier.

To re-create her look, we bought Viva Glam III ($14) at Saks Fifth Avenue at WestShore Plaza and Supernatural Nude ($15) at Nordstrom at International Plaza. Hard Candy's Baby Doll ($16) was a suitable stand-in for Poodle.

"Same shade with more shimmer," the Nordstrom makeup counter lady told us. For the hour we had it on, we felt as if we could be the star of the cocktail party had we not been hauling a 6-year-old to baseball practice. Was the cute guy in the next car actually staring?

All this trouble and expense to find the perfect lipstick is hardly Hollywood silliness. It's a glimpse into the real life of women not often shown in the movies. Truth is, most of us don't leave home without something on our lips, even if it's just Chapstik.

"You assume lipstick is a fluffy subject, but anthropologically it's pretty deep," says Jessica Pallingston, owner of the 250 tubes and author of Lipstick: A Celebration of the World's Favorite Cosmetic (St. Martin's Press, 1999). "It started as a tribal marker to show whose side you were on. It has been protection against the elements, protection against discrimination. Lipstick has all these different purposes that are pretty profound."

But none more profound to a 21st century woman than to make her look good.

"Many women say they don't feel complete until they have their lipstick on; they don't feel dressed," Pallingston says. "Maybe that's the metaphor they were going for in the movie. That just like lipstick, women don't feel complete until they have a man."

Or, in the case of Jessica, someone -- man or woman -- who understands her.

Since ancient times women have stained their lips with substances such as berries and henna. Today, we don't rub raspberries across our lips but rather tubes of wax, oil, perfume and color. Lipstick is the top-selling cosmetic in the United States, and 92 percent of women wear it regularly, according to Glamour magazine.

Even when the economy is troubled, lipstick sells well. In 2001, American women spent $836-million on lipstick, up 6 percent from 2000.

"We always feel lipstick is recessionproof," says Robin White, director of sales for Philosophy cosmetics. "You can always afford a new tube."

But what tube to buy? Price plays a factor, and it varies widely. A tube of Maybelline Plum costs less than $5 at the supermarket, and a similar shade from Chanel, which will likely be called something more evocative, like Cancan or Frenzy, could cost almost $20. Pallingston says the higher-end lipsticks are better than the economy brands because they have more moisturizer, color and scent, less wax. However, when it comes to lipstick, to each her own. Happiness can be found with a tube of Cover Girl, at least temporarily.

Advertising and aura are also factors for consumers. M.A.C., which has a store in Tampa's Hyde Park and is sold at Saks, won underground fans because word spread that it was the brand of choice among supermodels. For a long time, it was sold only in New York, and because of that it engenders exclusivity.

Philosophy, a 6-year-old company out of Phoenix, is making a name with pithy sayings on its packaging. The lipstick boxes promise "more than lip service."

"Our philosophical sayings make us more than a cosmetics company; they make us a lifestyle company," White says. "The product can make you look better, but the sayings on the box can make you feel better."

Most of us know better, but we still like the way the Nude glides over our lips.

Even lipstick junkie Pallingston, who says all cosmetics are made at just a handful of labs, marvels at how affected she is by advertising. She likes Philosophy's boxes more than the products but is even more enamored of the Tony and Tina line, which bills itself as aromatheraphy makeup.

"I know it's hokey, but I think it's clever," she says.

Pallingston, a New York City children's art therapist, turned her obsession into Lipstick at the urging of friends who tired of hearing her talk about her little tubes of joy. Of her stash of 250, she only wears 150. The rest are souvenirs from trips around the world or keepsakes from companies such as Manic Panic, which produces lipstick in unnatural yellow, green and blue.

White and Pallingston agree that to find the perfect shade, you have to do some blending. In fact, White says, much blending is done unknowingly because a woman forgets what shade she put on in the morning and then adds another and another as the day wears on. Even if she got the perfect shade, White says, she probably wouldn't remember how.

Funny thing, though, about Jessica Stein. She didn't blend much at all.

According to the PR folks at Fox Searchlight, she wore either Bobbi Brown's Pale Pink with Stila No. 8 lip liner or M.A.C.'s Touch with Spice lip liner.

And she got kissed a lot.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.