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"  Splat. I&amp;#039;m standing next to a conveyor belt in L&amp;#039;Or\u00E9al&amp;#039;s futuristically bright white New Jersey manufacturing plant, watching a woman feed a huge wedge of what looks like red cake icing into one end of the machine, when suddenly the mass cracks in half like a melting glacier and falls on the floor. As she rushes to clean it up, I stand there transfixed: Separated from what it was meant to become\u2014material for the hundreds of glossy, pristine lipsticks parading past me on the belt\u2014this messy heap of rose-colored wax strikes me as viscerally alluring. I want to stick my hands in it, smell it, smear it on my face. I kind of want to taste it. And then I think of the 35 red lipsticks I have at home (formerly 55, until a friend staged an intervention)\u2014each of them special to me in its own way\u2014and I wonder, Am I weird for loving this stuff so much? If history is any judge, having a hankering for lipstick might as well be etched into female DNA: The first known lip-painting kit (complete with color-imparting crushed red rocks) was found in the 5,000-year-old tomb of Queen Schub-ad at Ur; Egyptian women adorned their pouts with a salubrious concoction of henna, pulverized beetles, and ants, which was deemed so essential they packed a to-go palette for the afterlife. Elizabeth I and the ladies of her court powdered their faces a ghostly white so that their crimson mouths\u2014stained with a coat of poisonous mercuric sulfide\u2014appeared more dramatic. Even prim, makeup-eschewing Victorians smooched red crepe paper in hopes that the tint would transfer to their lips. It&amp;#039;s little surprise that once lipsticks in bullet-shaped tubes began to be mass-produced at the beginning of the twentieth century, they were off like, well, a shot\u2014rapidly becoming the world&amp;#039;s most popular cosmetic.  What brings me behind the scenes at the L&amp;#039;Or\u00E9al factory is a timely opportunity to take a closer look at what fuels this fascination: The company is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and lipstick\u2014particularly red lipstick\u2014happens to be staging a major comeback. From the vivid sports-coupe crimson worn at YSL to the juicy tomato shade that showed up at Ruffian (created especially for the show by M.A.C), the fall &amp;#039;09 runways were overrun with glamorous vermilion mouths\u2014strokes of color that seemed even bolder considering the dispiriting context of the year&amp;#039;s economic crunch. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve never done so many red lips,&amp;quot; says Pat McGrath, P&amp;amp;amp;G global creative design director, who painted faces at Lanvin, Hussein Chalayan, Gucci, and Dolce &amp;amp;amp; Gabbana, among others.  Polly Osmond for Dior Beauty concurs: &amp;quot;There was a huge &amp;#039;40s influence, so we saw everything from berries to corals, but mostly classic reds. It just felt right.&amp;quot;  But why red? And why now? Maybe it&amp;#039;s the influence of Mad Men, in which office siren Joan Holloway&amp;#039;s flaming hair and red lipstick combo jumps from the screen like the last word in sex appeal, or perhaps there&amp;#039;s something to the oft-cited theory that when the economy hits a rough patch, women instinctively reach for a little mood-lifting war paint. Est\u00E9e Lauder chairman Leonard Lauder coined the term lipstick index in 2001, when he noticed that sales in lipstick spiked during the economic downturn following 9/11\u2014a trend he posited could be linked to many of Wall Street&amp;#039;s vicissitudes over the past century. It was certainly true in the &amp;#039;40s, when lipstick was such a proven morale booster that the U.S. Director of Economic Stabilization ordered factories to provide it in ladies&amp;#039; powder rooms in order to boost productivity. Pairing bright red lips with Rosie the Riveter gear was considered patriotic: As an ad by the once-popular brand Tangee stated: &amp;quot;No lipstick...will win the war. But it symbolizes one of the reasons why we are fighting\u2014the precious right of women to be feminine and lovely under any circumstances.&amp;quot;  There&amp;#039;s little doubt that red lipstick makes a lot of women feel good, myself included. One sweep of it takes me from femme banal to femme fatale. It&amp;#039;s the first thing I reach for when I&amp;#039;m tired or gloomy or in need of a zing of confidence; it palliates everything from hangovers to heartbreaks and makes me look pulled together even when I&amp;#039;m falling apart. (The sentiment runs in the fam\u00ADily: When I ask my mother how she feels without lipstick, she answers flatly, &amp;quot;I have no face.&amp;quot;)  Lipstick Queen creator Poppy King credits the cosmetic&amp;#039;s popularity to its unparalleled transformative power: &amp;quot;Red lipstick makes me understand how little boys feel when they put on a superhero outfit. It&amp;#039;s as if it gives you the power to transcend your physical limitations. No other kind of makeup can work that kind of magic.&amp;quot; (Which might explain why Britain&amp;#039;s Parliament outlawed lip-painting in 1770 on the grounds of supernatural tomfoolery, stating that women found guilty of seducing men into matrimony by a cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft.) The fact that it bestows its wearer with a certain intangible power is no doubt why it was seized upon by the suffragettes and later the flappers as an emblem of their newfound independence: Whipping out a ruby-tipped bullet and applying it in public became a deliciously subversive act. Lois Long, a writer known for her racy nightlife columns in The New Yorker, pointedly chose the nom de plume &amp;quot;Lipstick&amp;quot; when she joined the staff in 1925.  Then, of course, there&amp;#039;s the sex thing. Most women who favor cardinal-color lipstick will tell you they wear it more for themselves than for men, yet it drips with erotic symbolism. Lips become swollen and flushed during arousal; even the lipstick tube itself is suggestive. Psychologically speaking, red is associated with vigor, passion, and anger; just looking at it has been proven to raise blood pressure, increase the heart rate, and stimulate the appetite. In a 2008 study at the University of Rochester, men shown photographs of women wearing or framed by red rated them significantly more attractive than the same women depicted with other colors. In other words, red is a major turn-on.  As the original 1952 ad for Revlon&amp;#039;s Fire and Ice\u2014the matching nail polish shade is used regularly on the set of Mad Men\u2014so brilliantly conveyed, hot-hued lipstick signifies that its wearer is no shrinking violet. (The ad included a quiz asking such questions as: &amp;quot;Did you ever wish on a new moon? Have you ever wanted to wear an ankle bracelet? Would you streak your hair platinum without consulting your husband?&amp;quot;) A crimson mouth is attention-grabbing, telegraphing both &amp;quot;Come hither&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Get lost.&amp;quot; You have to have a certain moxie to wear it\u2014and perhaps that&amp;#039;s why so many women claim it doesn&amp;#039;t look good on them.  Mad Men makeup department head Debbie Zoller says, &amp;quot;So many actresses sit in my chair and say, `I can&amp;#039;t wear red.&amp;#039; I say, `Let me prove you wrong.&amp;#039; Everyone can wear it; you just have to find the right shade. As a general rule, blonds are best with true reds or reds with blue undertones, brunettes should go with true red or coral, and redheads can do either coral or blue. Skin-tone-wise, if you have pink in your complexion, blue-reds are most flattering; if you&amp;#039;re more olive, go for orangey reds. But be warned that blue-reds can look a little garish under fluorescent lights.&amp;quot; King points out, &amp;quot;You also need to decide what kind of attitude you want to convey.&amp;quot; Depending on the spirit in which it&amp;#039;s worn, red lipstick can be fresh and demure (see Drew Barrymore, Leighton Meester, Zooey Deschanel), costumey (Dita Von Teese, Christina Aguilera), punk rock (Debbie Harry, Gwen Stefani, Karen O), or bombshell sexy (hello, Scarlett). Its impact is intrinsically related not only to your clothes but also to the rest of your makeup. &amp;quot;The most modern way to wear it is to keep the rest of the face as minimal as possible,&amp;quot; Osmond says, &amp;quot;and to smudge it into your lips with your fingers instead of creating a hard outline.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ll know when you&amp;#039;ve found the right red lipstick,&amp;quot; King says, &amp;quot;because you&amp;#039;ll see your hair and eyes light up when you put it on. A red that doesn&amp;#039;t suit you will pull the color from you, but when you find one that works\u2014and there&amp;#039;s one for every woman, I promise\u2014you&amp;#039;ll look in the mirror and it will be like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.&amp;quot; Top 10 Reds  1. Max Factor Vivid Impact Lipcolor in Ms. Right, $10 2. Laura Mercier Mistress, $22 3. Chanel Rouge Allure in Lover, $30 4. M.A.C. Ruby Woo, $14 5. Shiseido Valentine, $25 6. YSL Rouge Volupt\u00E9 in Red Muse, $34 7. Nars Jungle Red, $24 8. Guerlain Rouge G in Gala, $45 9. Revlon Fire and Ice, $8 10. Maybelline Color Sensational in Red Revival, $7 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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