I have always loved lipstick. For women, that love comes from

The words of Monica Bellucci speak not merely of beauty, but of inheritance, of a ritual passed from mothers to daughters, from grandmothers to granddaughters. When she says, “I have always loved lipstick,” she is not speaking of vanity, but of continuity, of the red thread that binds generations of women together. The act of opening the mirror and coloring the lips is not just adornment—it is a quiet affirmation of identity, of presence, of belonging to the long lineage of womanhood.

In the ancient days, women painted their lips with crushed berries, ochre, and carmine, not simply to please others but to claim their place in the world. The red upon the lips was fire and blood, a symbol of life itself. It was said in Mesopotamia that Queen Shub-ad adorned her lips with precious pigments before she entered the grave, carrying beauty even into the afterlife. Thus, the gesture has always been more than ornament; it is a declaration: I am here, I endure, I shine.

This sacred ritual often unfolds before the eyes of a child. A little girl watches her mother lean toward the mirror, the small tube in her hand, and in that moment she learns something wordless yet eternal. She learns that lipstick is not just color—it is courage before stepping out into the world, it is dignity reclaimed after hardship, it is joy in the face of sorrow. In that moment, a torch is passed, and the ritual becomes her own.

Consider the dark years of the Second World War, when fabric was rationed, and luxuries were scarce. Yet many women, though deprived of comfort, still found ways to paint their lips. To them, lipstick was resistance—it declared that their spirit was unbroken, that they could still claim beauty and strength even when surrounded by ruin. Winston Churchill himself noted that lipstick was one of the few items never rationed in Britain, for it gave women morale, and through them, it gave the nation hope.

So let this teaching endure: the small act of opening a mirror and painting the lips is no trivial thing. It is a gesture of power, of tradition, of connection across generations. It reminds women that they carry within them not only their own light, but the light of their mothers and grandmothers. And every stroke of lipstick becomes both memory and promise, a way of saying to the world: We have always been here, and we always will be.