The Lip Gloss Edition

On memory, science, and stories

Stephanie Balzer (SB) is a writer, coach, and founder of Mission. She recently wrote the Art in Vegas Edition.

Stephanie here. I love lip gloss. For starters, I love the words lip and gloss together. I love its shininess, stickiness, evenness—terms borrowed from Chanel’s sensory evaluation protocol but also product attributes I have studied myself.

In general, people have agreed that personal grooming, including applying makeup, should be done in private. But even the most blue-blooded arbiters of social etiquette make exceptions for lipstick—or its more viscous cousin, lip gloss. Per The Emily Post Institute:

… putting on lipstick without using a mirror and without fanfare is one grooming ritual that can sometimes be performed in front of others. It’s okay to quickly apply lipstick at the table if you’re with close friends or relatives in a non-business situation, and at a non-deluxe restaurant. 

Fanfare, that airhorn of a word. In 2011, Angelina Jolie made news when she quickly re-applied her gloss at the Golden Globes. In a video from that night, she’s seated next to then-partner Brad Pitt, swiping her lips with a wand with so little fanfare that she barely glanced away from the stage to focus on what she was doing. 

Then there’s Rihanna, who gave us the most fanfare during her 2023 Super Bowl half-time performance. In the middle of the show, a backup dancer handed her a Fenty Beauty compact and she feigned checking her face on stage. Less social statement than product placement, her line’s new lipstick—The MVP—debuted that night.

Why is this interesting?

The lipstick and lip gloss markets are global, multi-billion dollar industries. That means there are hundreds of millions of people worldwide, mostly women, who are staking their take on the nuanced rules of application.

I wonder how many of us have personal stories tied to lip products. For example, I can remember dates, events, and even whole seasons of my life this way. 

I still miss favorite discontinued colors. Jane Iredale’s Cotton Candy was the best pink with a summer tan. Bobbi Brown’s Bellini was an ideal pale winter tint. One time a stranger asked if I always “wore black lipstick.” It was MAC’s Desire, a sheer, deep purple.

January 2012 is defined by the time I spent in the ICU with a friend after his double lung transplant. We couldn’t take many personal items into his room, so I would slip a gloss in my pocket before I donned my paper gown and scrubbed my arms with disinfectant and wrestled my wet hands into blue surgical gloves. 

One day, in the hospital hallway, I took a picture of all the glosses I found in my handbag while fishing for a specific one. To see that photo now—it’s the absurdity of carrying around four tubes of practically the same shade of pink juxtaposed against a backdrop of my desperateness that insisted something amusing still mattered.

It mattered because I intended to share that photo as its own kind of fanfare. Here, this is what I held onto and documented, the colors and habits that made up our lives. (SB)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Stephanie (SB)

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