Day 5: 2-Ethylhexyl Palmitate, 2-Carnauba Wax, 96-Sex

In discussing how I felt on two of the days I concurrently scratched on the surface of two important subjects which I now would like to take time to explore. The first of these would be as Entwistle noted: the feminine body as a sexual body and how red lipstick contributes to that association, if it does at all.
I have consistently been afraid of the associations people would make with the red lipstick, but is it in fact that I would be considered a sex symbol regardless of the red lipstick? Is the red lipstick the sex symbol?


As we have already discovered lipstick was a cosmetic reserved for prostitutes for more than one century, but it became acceptable in the 1900s and yet we still make immediate associations with red lipstick, in particular, to sex.


“…the opening of sex as a subject which could be talked about and drawn attention to in public had the effect, too, of turning female desire into something which could be sold to both men and women. On the one hand, advertising for many products became increasingly associated with sex, in particular, the desirability of the female body.” (Howson, 2004:108)


It should have been obvious that we could accredit the sex association to the media, but it is never safe to make assumptions. So I looked around for lipstick ads and wow, did they make it seem as though red lipstick meant without doubt you were wearing it because you wanted ass! And if you wore red lipstick it is inevitable that you are a sex symbol:

Ad 1: this ad may not scream sex however it does reiterate what the expectation is of the women who may wear this lipstick. Williamson's book on decoding advertisements (as cited in Howson, 2004) confirms that “Advertisements have to translate statements about objects (material) into statements about people – about how people might use the object and about what kinds of people might use the object.”

Ad 2: this ad can be analyzed on more than one level. Firstly the name of the shade, ‘crushed rose.’ My immediate association to this name would be destroying the beauty or innocence of something, but on a more literal level, to be deflowered. This is a common term used to imply that a women’s virginity has been lost. However I do not think this ad is implying that. I do think it likening the women to a rose-beautiful and innocent and by using the verb crushed; it suggests that the man is going to ravage her as a result of wearing the red lipstick. Sexual-I think yes! Secondly the copy, which suggests that the women wanted a man’s sexual attention and therefore is wearing this red lipstick.

Ad 3: “Make-up can also be used as an instrument of power in relation to men, allowing women to assert their sexual attractiveness as power over men.” (O’Shaughnessy, Stadler, 2007: 335)
At the core of me I know what I want, as annoyingly indecisive as I can be, if you put a pair of jeans and a dress in front of me, I will eventually, always, walk away with the dress. Perhaps it is more accurate to say I know exactly what I do not want. I believe if a woman wears make-up, she knows it is because it will accentuate her features and her femininity, giving her confidence and self-worth. The woman in this ad knows what she wants and her choice of lipstick communicates that.




“Furthermore, the products themselves and the images through which they are represented come to define and reinforce a sense not only of self but also of gender.” (Howson, 2004: 106)