Read my red lips!

Rose McGowan

Rose McGowan once said, “I came out of the womb waving red lipstick”

Never mind that women in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and those across the Indus had to grind gemstones, or bugs (cochineal), or pulverized fish scales to provide iridescence to adore their lips some 2000 years ago, or that if I were a British woman in the 18th century and throughout the 19th century I would have been considered in the ‘very least’ marginal in my morality for wearing red lipstick; I don’t care! I probably have the infamous 19th-century, curly-haired actress and eventual courtesan beauty Sarah Bernhardt to thank – as a child my maternal great-grandfather likened my ‘flair for the dramatic’ to her. I love that for someplace between $13 and $40 or rather, (obscene) $62,000  I am transformed into a sensual, seductive, glamorous goddess of lip perfection (even as I might be modestly critical of my other assets). My current favorite is a hybrid I concoct by wearing a Face Cosmetics Stockholm matte finish red called ‘Secret’ over Nars Cruella lip crayon – just Snow White red enough! 

I can understand why some women (and men) might prefer Bert’s Bees to a sultry shade of vermilion or carmine or cherry – it’s just not me.  I have had sufficient conversations with girlfriends over the 40 years I have worn some version of red on my lips (at 12 it was Bonnie Bell lip gloss that had a red tint) to understand that red lips are not for everyone, but nothing makes me feel more immediately and divinely feminine (even if I am working in the garden and covered with mud, or sitting here at my computer writing) than putting on red lipstick.

Some months ago a journalist posted an enquiry on HARO asking how to choose the right shade of red lipstick. I am convinced every woman can wear red lipstick but you must be mindful of the tint matching skin tone (I absolutely cannot wear any with an orange-y tomato or salmon under-tone) and, yes, I think wearing red lipstick requires a certain level of confidence to ‘pull it off’ – a daring attitude bordering on la femme fatale, though if I am honest, wearing such has never felt contrived to me; actually, I feel quite naked without it.

A recent study at the University of Manchester confirms that men, even totally clueless ones, will fixate on lips wearing red for an average of 7.3 seconds! It’s ancient and primal, in our earliest human state our health was gauged by the ‘blossom’ on lips and cheeks – thus, a deeply held attraction to red tied to virility.

I have been known to leave my lip prints alongside terms of endearment to my niece and nephew in cards and books (if it was missing from something given to my niece she would ask me to put it there, for my nephew – yet unschooled in the mysteries of a woman’s lips – he would smear the cochineal colour from the end page) – I hope the men receiving my rather infrequent love letters didn’t feel as my nephew did!

I grew up watching ‘old movies’ on Sunday afternoons – with actresses such as Gene Tierney, Cyd Charisse, Maureen O’Hara, and Rita Hayworth, brilliant, fiery, glamorous women whose cupid’s bow mouths were ALWAYS adorned in some shade of ‘1940’s Screen Siren Red’ (as I refer to it) and their leading men always swept them back into their arms heedless of the lipstick. Maybe that is the point – as I see it the sweeping romantic leading man of my dreams will want to ravage my mouth heedless of the consequences!

Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Who are you? Where are you? I am waiting, darling!

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The Hand-kiss a courtly, tender, respectful gesture we need more of!

Jacques Chirac kisses Angela Merkel’s hand

Last evening, for the first time in so many years I can’t recall exactly who, or when or what the circumstances of the last time it happened were (though am pleased that I should have known such a chivalric gesture previously) a very genteel man kissed my hand.

It could be his octogenarian age which made this such a natural thing to do – though the last man was certainly not his age peer and I believe was a member of a German fraternity half of my then age of 39. It might be that he is English, a world traveler, a global thought leader and a networks influencer (long before social media made such ‘easy’) as such refined behaviour is somehow natural to men in these spheres of influence. I understand from my girlfriend that in all the years she has known him he has never kissed her hand.

It is gallant in the extreme, and evidently (most) American men often think it is silly or feel stupid attempting it, but this nearly archaic sign of regard for a woman Il est incroyable! A man gently taking her hand in his, kisses the air just above her skin and, sometimes the skin itself (as Jacques Chirac, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and Nicholas Sarkozy have so exquisitely executed on the back of all kinds of ladies hands – my favorite is the particular hand-kiss Keith Urban gave to his wife Nicole Kidman on the Red Carpet – it captures the fullest extent of his love and respect for her, intimate in the extreme, tender and effortless even with several billion people bearing witness).

For those of you who have never bestowed such, nor received, allow me to explain why this is such a high form of regard. A man doesn’t offer a hand-kiss lightly or randomly, only to particular lady to whom he feels a special level of homage is due. It is an unusually formal gesture.  When a man kisses a woman’s hand it implies that he thinks her noble and that he respects her (pay attention, there is a lovely version of this in the @2CELLOS & @ZuccheroSugar video) as a remnant of the feudal ceremony of vassalage in which a knight swore fealty to his King or Queen it also means that he is putting himself at her service. Of course there can be romantic connotations as we witness in period dramas and in romance novels but I think it’s important to understand the origins of the hand-kiss are based in respect, not seduction.

There are rules of engagement – of course, thank you Raven Emrys for the following three points:

First of all, one kisses a lady’s hand in only three social situations:

1.) You already know the lady, and she offers her hand,

2.) You are being introduced to her, and she offers her hand, or

3.) You know the woman intimately and you offer your open hand to her and she accepts it (as we see in the picture of the elderly couple)

What made my experience last night so extraordinary was there was no intention to receive such  – blithely unaware (some of my friends my say, “as usual”) I extended my hand to the gentleman as he was departing our company, taking leave from the back seat of my girlfriends’ car.  I gently clasp his hand while I verbally expressed my delight in finally having the occasion to meet him and how much I had enjoyed our conversation.  On his part it was completely without artifice – he simply took my outstretched hand, gently cupping my fingers in his palm, lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed the spot just behind the knuckles of my two middle fingers. The effect on my being was one of humbled breathlessness – mind you, not a swoon – but surprise that I should be so regarded by someone so accomplished.

My friends seem to regard my life as being somewhat extraordinary – perhaps so.  Perhaps it is extraordinary because I view the exquisiteness of life in measurable beauty such as an unexpected hand-kiss, these things happen to me because I am receptive to them, charmed by the possibilities and humbled by being present to them, grateful for a sweeping vista as well as the tilt of a man’s head over my hand as he calls upon the courtly manners so lacking in our world today.

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The Little Black Dress

Fishtail train detail

In 1959 my mother bought this incredible “wiggle dress” of black silk lace embellished with black sequins with alternating panels of black silk chiffon (complete with a fishtail ‘train’ of the same which floats behind as you walk). It has the tiniest lingerie straps and one assumes she MUST HAVE worn a Basque corset with it (though I am not going to ask) because at 5’ 9”, and not exactly petite woman in her wedding pictures of 1960, I cannot imagine her getting into this otherwise. It is exactly the kind of dress that a Bond Girl would wear as 007 slides up, tuxedo suave and orders ‘shaken not stirred’. It is something that (most of) our contemporary ‘lifestyles’ wouldn’t find an opportunity to wear.

Of course I have worn it, when I reached the same age of 19 she was when mom wore it and at left in 2002. My niece is just twelve so has some years before I can make a gift of it to her. Frankly speaking, if you tried to purchase something made as well as this today it would be at least a couple of thousand dollars.

So the Little Black Dress has (mostly) hung in my closet for 33 years like a piece of art and a relic from a time when ladies wore gloves, men opened doors, Charlie Parker made Jazz hot and people actually drank gin in their Martini’s (not insipid, tastes-like-nothing vodka)! I am writing about this dress because I received the most extraordinary gift to go with it from a gentleman met on OKCupid – updated this was in October 2013 – absolutely exquisite 20 denier black silk stockings. The accompanying note read (in French) ‘Not many French women would appreciate the difference…’, what a fine compliment!

My legs, the gifted black silk stockings, and black silk Manolo Blahnik’s.

When the dress fit me for the first time at 19 Raquel Welch (then age 42?) appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated inside proclaiming that she ‘had to’ do two hours of yoga a day to maintain (yes, maintain) her body! I suppose I will work up to that but for starters I walked two and half hours this morning covering a circuit of about 6 miles – in conjunction with errand running (a large – heavy – parcel to the post office at the farthest end of the route, a trip to the hardware and drug stores) and grocery shopping (lugging equally balanced bags with a pineapple, a gallon of milk, a package of Halal chicken breasts weighing 5 pounds, 4 Granny Smith apples, 4 cucumbers, a pound of green grapes, and 5 cartons of yogurt six city blocks simply HAS TO count for weight training!). Hardly sophisticated looking!  I can irrevocably state that there is almost nothing I hate more than a trickle of sweat running down the small of my back and across my brow (subsequently making my naturally curly hair resemble the coat of a Standard Poodle) – needless to say, Bond Girls never look like this!  It might take me a year to get back into the kind of shape that would do justice to the dress and those silk stockings (both in storage as I edit this in December 2015).

The stockings provided the catalyst to the physical change that for any number of reasons I chose not to do for myself before this time. This is not to suggest that the man made any claim on me, nor I him, (our ‘romance’ never advanced as his career as a sports photojournalist always put some excuse in the way of not closing the distance to explore us) or that my (unread) Tarot cards have made prophesy of his continuing to be in my life but, suddenly, while my skin tone can still carry this off I WANT TO! Who knew that a pair of silk stockings could spur on such activity (in addition to the above) as 20 minute sessions climbing staircases, doing incline push-ups against the washing machine while it is on spin cycle, oh yes, and the big pink yoga ball now sitting on my antique Heriz carpet demanding my use for core work?

Minus the smoke rings above my head, the idea of re-capturing (for a brief moment) the refined sophistication of wearing this dress while imbibing in a so-cold-it-should-be-illegal, shaken-not-stirred, served in a chilled glass with a lemon twist and a splash of St. Germain gin Martini someplace such as Georges V, the Hotel Cipriani or the Hotel Aldon Kempinski is pretty compelling rationale for exercise.

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a Martini’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you!