A unique, full-color compendium that celebrates and explores the enduring power and allure of the world’s most iconic lip shade, jam-packed with entertaining stories, anecdotes, little-known facts, quotes, and more than 100 gorgeous images culled from fine art, photography, and beauty and fashion editorial and advertising.

“Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together.” — Elizabeth Taylor

Lipstick is the one makeup item most women can’t live without—and the most iconic shade is red. Exuding power, sensuality, allure, and mystery, red lips have been a constant of fashion for more than 5,000 years, beginning with Mesopotamian women around 3500 B.C. Throughout the ages, red lipstick has been a signature look worn by royalty, celebrities, and real women across cultures and geography. In fact, nearly all women own a tube of red lipstick, whether it’s the favorite shade they’ve been wearing devotedly for years, or as beauty boost they use for special occasions.

Filled with a show-stopping selection of images and distinctively packaged—the size of a clutch, with a jacket printed with a matte, velvet, red finish—Red Lipstick is the only cultural history of this makeup essential available. Granted unprecedented access to experts and the archives of revered brands like Chanel and Elizabeth Arden, beauty writer Rachel Felder explores the origins and allure of red lipstick and illuminates its association with aristocracy, sex appeal, illicit sexuality, rebellion, power, glamour, fame, and beauty. She also spotlights the fascinating array of women who have worn it through the ages, including monarchs, suffragettes, flappers, working women in World War II, first ladies, political leaders, geishas, Hollywood sirens, rock and rollers, fashionistas, and more.

Inside this enthralling book, you’ll discover why red lipstick makes women more attractive to others (and the science behind it); tips on choosing the most perfect shade of crimson; and a wealth of anecdotes, quotations, select literary excerpts, and trivia, such as the shade Carolyn Bessette Kennedy wore on her wedding day. Red Lipstick is packed with a museum’s worth of fine art, including both Man Ray’s photograph “Red Badge of Courage” and infamous painting “Les Amoreaux;” lush, rarely seen vintage magazine advertisements from stalwart brands like Guerlain and Dior; illustrations by renowned fashion illustrators such as René Gruau, Daisy Villeneuve, and Bil Donovan; artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edgar Degas, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Wayne Thiebaud, and Walt Kuhn; and images of famous red lipstick wearers including Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth II, Coco Chanel, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Madonna, Diana Vreeland, Rihanna, Paloma Picasso, and many others.

With its captivating, chic design, beautiful selection of visuals, and engaging, entertaining text, Red Lipstick is a classic, like the perfect red lip shade itself.