Use mascara, blush and lipstick does not suit some women. Lack of self esteem? Refusal codes of femininity? Yet, put his face in value can be learned, and does not necessarily betray.

Why?

“Spending twenty minutes before my mirror, it’s not a pleasure for me, says Tatiana, 41, editor. I do my makeup if I am really obliged. “Like her,” some women to live their faces strong narcissism, this privileged identity, without the need for adjuvants to sublimate, “Analysis David Le Breton, a sociologist specializing in the body. But for others, refused makeup is not a conscious choice and assumed rather a fragile interior.

I gave up (me) please

“Applying makeup is a sign of self-investment,” says the sociologist. And refuse to do so may mark a resignation. “Sometimes women feel not having to please or not being able to please, because they have become mothers, because they age, or because the appearance has no value in their background. “If the body is divested to other areas, why not? But beware that this refusal does not hide an onset of depression: “Do not wear makeup, it is perhaps no longer believe worthy of love and desire, unconsciously, be forgoing other, do nothing could promote the link … ”

I complexed

to the behavioral psychologist Emma Hayward, those who leave everything up suffering “body dissatisfaction” and adopt “avoidance behavior”. “They shall refrain from looking at their faces to escape the negative emotions – sadness, guilt, disgust. Also to escape from painful thoughts: “I’m too this, too that …” “At the root of this malaise, elements, sometimes physical, often psychic (perfectionism, lack of confidence) are always accented by social factors. For all of the messages conveyed by the media and the family on the cultural norms of beauty reinforcing the complex. “First, the messages of our mothers,” says the psychologist. Mom, eternal model or model against which each layer behavior, always remaining in doing so in a form of addiction.

I refuse to be vulnerable

women advocating natural would be less free than it seems. “They underestimate the feminine and wish to identifi ed in men, says the psychoanalyst Meggle Virginia. Remaining bare, they prove that they have need of nothing! This is a defense mechanism. “Where does this fear of being seen fragile? “It may be related to beliefs: the woman remains in the collective unconscious, the weaker sex. It can be induced by educational messages against which it rebels: “Be beautiful and shut up.” Or, conversely, to which one submits: “Better to be intelligent than beautiful.” The female may also have been subject of pain in the past: here is a mother who would have preferred a boy there, an aunt treated coquettish bad woman, a jealous brother who had every right … “

Need to escape from the greyness? Sales of lipsticks would go up in times of crisis. Weapon for self-assertion or adornment of seduction that tells us that color on the mouth?

The intoxication of red

The Lipstick Index is an economic indicator difficult to find in textbooks. This barometer frivolous claims that sales of sticks of lipstick increase in inverse proportion to the freefall of financial assets. This is Leonard Lauder, at the time CEO of Estee Lauder, which is attributed the invention of the concept, based solely on empirical observation of the boom in sales of the brand in difficult times. The lipstick is the perfect illustration of what women want when they no longer allow to be angry too.

“In a difficult economic environment, we need to escape the gray, de-dramatize the daily said Vincent Gregory, Director” lifestyle “in the office of Nelly Rodi. Red Red can really play with the crisis, to discard. “There is something essential, vital in the lipstick. It borders our mouth, the first erogenous zone that we have experienced baby nurse enables us to survive while providing us with pleasure. Used by the Japanese geisha, hidden under the burqa or displayed on ads, everywhere, always, it symbolizes as much as he summarizes the pleasure of putting on makeup. A pleasure that begins in the accompanying reverie choice of color and texture, in the long apprenticeship of the subtle distinction between the different proposals. Vermeil, gooseberry, cardinal, scarlet, crimson, ruby, blood … each may choose the shade that matches the idea that it is red. Matte, glossy, transparent, dense, whatever the matter long as you have drunk.

Fireworks in the supernatural power

Intoxication that begins when the stick springs spin its tubing. Brands do not deceive themselves, as they compete imagination to make their cases true objects of desire, work up the faint sound of the opening. “With one click captivating and sensual, the cover sheds its base and repositions it perfectly,” says one Lancôme, who designed the cover of The Absolute red as an extension of more feminine gestures Beauty.

Then comes the pleasure of applying color to redraw the outline of her mouth. Red lacquer with Allure, Chanel pushes to the extreme refinement and invites us to the delicate art of calligraphy lips. A deep red, a thick texture as a Chinese lacquer. A foam applicator shaped pen for a perfect drawing. This object is not to be taken lightly, and the drawing is not easy. Better to have a light hand and steady hand. Beginners refrain. But the result is remarkable. The lips are not just up, they are fascinating. They inspire respect, imposing a certain distance. Of course, the red in 2009 granted all the technological advances of cosmetics: the complex moisturizing, repairing, microencapsulated pigments for color that lasts more that did not run to the corner of the mouth, innovations that provide brightness , good performance and transparency. “The more the substance is rare and involves science, the more it fascinates and satisfies the desire of a beauty product with supernatural powers,” says Camille Saint-Jacques, author of In Praise of makeup (Max Milo, 2007) . “When I use red, I feel strong and sure of myself,” says Sandra, 38 years. The red becomes a weapon and armor, with the power to make us both visible and invincible.

A bad reputation

How self-image returns a very red mouth? “It’s the whore mouth” slice Fanny, 35, who admits he saw what he repeated his grandmother on the artificial that for women of ill repute. “I would say today that it is the prerogative of confident women, she says. I’m always appreciative to those who dare appear in public and lip makeup. I’ve bought two tubes, but I have not yet used to exit. ”

Why red he suffers again and again, for women as for men, a bad reputation? The most obvious explanation lies in his prodigious effectiveness seductive, its erotic potential. Is it not associated with sexuality, lust? Red lantern which indicates the entrance of brothels, prostitutes red lips, red color of the devil and temptation. Those who wear it and those who look perfectly know the power of artifice. For lipstick called as he stops, he attracts so amazes me. Yannick Vaudry, creating makeup consultant at Yves Saint Laurent, “this color is never vulgar, it is the interpretation that people will make that can be.” It colors the self-image, she is seductive, display rmation. Whatever the original intent, applying them to her mouth is an act sliced, erotic, strong. This is something that affects to be, to desire.

The harmony of the face of chaos

Times of crisis produce stress and anxiety, inducing two postures, escape or cope with a single goal: survival. This requires the perpetuation of the species. But to achieve the sexual act, we must, like all animal species, a courtship. The lipstick is playing the role of ornament, resulting in a visible vitally necessary that we are not immediately aware. But it would be a shame to reduce the use of lipstick in one perspective, conscious or not, to seduce men.

Etymologically, “cosmetic” comes from the Greek kosmos, order versus chaos. In-makeup, the essence of being is trying to express, to show, to triumph over chaos, to find harmony. Yannick Vaudry insists: “This is not an easy color to wear. There is something brave in this process. The woman who colors her lips and gives the impression to go up to fight. She means it has intentions, it is affirmed, powerful. “So we want to red, which may seem frivolous and superficial, she coincides with what is most archaic in us, our survival instinct. A visible and symbolic transgress the prohibition, the bypass, especially when the lights are red …!