Beauty and The Brain: Why Red Lipstick Is More Important Than You Think (PHOTOS)

GO TEAM!

Finally I understand how people who follow sports feel when their team wins. I just read that a new study has proven that men are more interested in a woman's lips than any other part of the body. Woohoo! I knew it.

According to a study carried out at Manchester University that tracked men's eyes when presented with women's pictures, men spent the first 10 seconds staring at the lips before looking anywhere else on the female landscape.

Anywhere else. Including, yes, the breasts. It gets better too as far as I am concerned. They spent even longer lingering on the lips when the lips in question were wearing lipstick. (Try saying that quickly!)

In particular red lipstick received the most prolonged gaze warranting a full seven seconds, followed closely by pink lipstick. I don't know what I am happiest about, the vindication of red lipstick or the fact that not all men are not complete idiots, salivating like Pavlov's dog around at bums and boobs.

Let's address the red lipstick triumph first. A misunderstood female talisman in the 21st Century. Ironic that in the very same century when 5-year-olds can wiz around the world on the Internet, red lipstick has become a cause of confusion. Not so much for men but for women. I have spent the last decade (actually two, but the last one in particular) trying to convince women that they can indeed wear red lipstick.

The fear of it (and fascination with it) seems to stem from a misheld belief that red lipstick ages you, or makes you look like a hangover from the over-made-up 80s. Instead this has been a decade characterized by nude lips and smoky eye makeup as the beauty ideal.
The muted mouth. A fashion trend, yes, but an ideological worry. A silent-mouthed generation, despite the tweeting and Facebooking and constant technological chatter. A generation of women unsure about highlighting their mouths for fear it makes them less attractive.

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I am thrilled that this study shows this not to be the case but just the opposite. That lips colored with confidence can be very attractive. Could this mean that men are as interested in what comes out of women's lips as they are in the appearance of them?

Perhaps that is a wish too far... Oh happy day that there is a study which disproves the old adage that "men fall in love with their eyes and women fall in love with their ears." So for now I will content myself with this one which it has shown that women with a smear of red lipstick have men admire them three times longer than women without. Men can handle us with red lipstick, now I hope this helps women to connect to that power within themselves.

Ladies, this is not just fashion, it is confidence. Red lipstick is an outer sign of inner confidence. Not the only one for sure. I am not so mesmerized with it that I cannot see where its influence starts and ends. But it is an outwards sign that we are here, we are women. Admiring what our mouths look like is a step in understanding that we have much to say!

Go team!

Tips on wearing red lipstick for the newly recruited:

1. minimal eye make up

2. apply the lipstick before your eye makeup so that you know when enough eye makeup is enough with red

3. minimize the jewelry, let the lips be a statement