‘O’ Face: the timeless sexualization of makeup
Is that blush on your cheeks, or are you just happy to see me?
Though women throughout history have used cosmetics to treat blemishes, maintain suppleness, or enhance or downplay facial features, the makeup products we always come back to are the ones that mirror the magic of the ‘O’ face. Those that redden lips, make cheeks look flushed, and lend skin the sheen of sweaty exertion. Many historians even agree that makeup was invented to emulate the look of that face experiencing, uh, intimate pleasure.
From gelatin to beeswax to crushed safflower petals, women have made makeup out of virtually everything. Though not exhaustive, here are some historical examples of women’s sexed up makeup:
1. Blush
Some scientists believe the face’s natural blush signals a readiness to mate, in both men and women. Just as the genitals flush and plump, so does the face. Some even suggest the erection is a “blushing of the penis.”
In “The Oeconomy of Love” (1791), poet John Armstrong implies a woman’s modest blush was wildly attractive for its innocence. He saw it as an invitation to sex, despite her resistance:
She, perhaps
Averse, will coldly chide, and half afraid,
Blushing, half pleas’d, the tumid wonder view
With neck retorted, and oblique regard;
Nor quite her curious eye indulging, nor
Refraining quite. Perhaps when you attempt
The sweet admission, toyful she resists
With shy reluctance; nathless you pursue
The soft attack
In ancient Egypt, women made blush from seeds, and in the Middle Ages ladies bled themselves to become pale, then applied strawberry juice to their cheeks.
Today, we still equate the facial flush with health, youth, and sex—consciously or unconsciously—and use products to amplify the effect. NARS makes blushes with names like “Orgasm” and “Deep Throat.”
2. Skin
Similarly, soft skin on a woman’s face “may have evolved as a sexual body preference because it signals ‘youth’ and perhaps helplessness,” writes Joann Ellison Rodgers in Sex: A Natural History. Plus, it’s a subconscious biological preview to the goods down below:
“Long before a couple gets to sex, they get to shopping…It’s the rare fellow who gets to see vagina, womb, or clitoris. What they do see is what sells sex. And that starts with the body’s largest organ, the skin.”
It’s no accident that women are sold products that promise “baby softness.” As Rodgers points out, “The soft skin of a baby’s cheek has been poetically and accurately compared to the soft skin of a woman’s thighs.”
3. Lips
“If eyes are windows on the soul, lips…are the gates to your insides,” writes Jane Wooldridge for the Miami Herald, 1985. Lips guard the inner workings of the body; they are an intimate threshold between the outside and in.
Painting and accessorizing the lips communicates all kinds of messages: power, rebellion, femininity. One of the most impactful is lust. More than any other facial feature, lips are actively involved in foreplay. Even Biblical passages and Roman artifacts reference the romantic kiss, which Romans called savium.
Babylonians reddened their mouths with crushed and dried insects. Geishas used safflower to color their lips red, then crystallized sugar to create luster. The effect was akin to flower petals, a look considered sensual at the time. Popularized in the 1970s, flavored lip gloss was marketed to the teen makeout crowd, so a boy’s “first taste” of a girl was sweet.
4. Eyes
Bedroom eyes tempt us from every magazine, every corner of the internet. The half-closed, heavy-lidded look oozes seduction and release. Over time, both women and men have smoked their lids for added sultriness. False eyelashes, invented in 19th Century France, have been a sexy staple ever since.
When Japanese geishas entered a room, they were instructed to lower their eyes in mystery. 20th Century Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset proclaimed: “Anyone who has such a look possesses a treasure.” Roman poet Ovid’s advice for bedroom eyes sounds like an old Cosmo article: Keep eyes “gentle and mild, soft for entreating of love. If he is looking at you, return his gaze and smile sweetly. Love is allured by gentle eyes.”
But hallelujah, bedroom eyes are not solely women’s territory. Greek poet Hesiod said, from man’s and woman’s eyelids flowed “limb-unnerving love.” Not only were Madame DuBarry, Clara Bow, and Lauren Bacall pop touchstones of the trend, male celebrities like Rudolph Valentino and Robert Mitchum beckoned the hordes with their erotic gazes.
