 Lipstick sales actually go up when the economy goes down. Yes, the classic red lip is as powerful as you think it is. We associate a red lip with words like confidence, power, and class, but it hasn't always been that way. It's time to sprinkle a little substance into our beauty routines by learning the roots of your favorite trends, who history's earliest trendsetters were, and how to rock the looks they inspired. Sheep mass! Before it's over, you'll be asking, can I borrow that? And now for the history of ruby red lips in under 90 seconds. Ancient Sumerians win the prize for the invention of lipstick. All the way back in 3000 BC, they were crushing up red gemstones to paint their paths. Men and women in ancient Egypt were also on the bright red bandwagon. They achieved the look using everything from red clay and crushed ants to fish scales. And historians believe Cleopatra's ruby reds are how the look became a symbol of power. However, those same smackers held a very different meaning in ancient Greece. Prostitutes were required to signal their profession through a distinctive red lip. That way, men could easily spot them and avoid accidentally soliciting the wrong women. But the Greeks were far from the last to associate a red mark with crimson lips. In the Middle Ages, Christianity dictated fashion and red lips were essential. Thankfully, Queen Elizabeth I put her foot down and the look came back in vogue in the 1600s. But then, red lips had a tumultuous few centuries. And at one point, they were considered the mark of a witch. But in 1912, the red lip reclaimed its rightful position as a power play when the suffragettes rocked the look as a symbol of rebellion. From that moment on, red lips spread like wildfire. From silent film star May Murray's beastung lips to Marilyn Monroe's signature red smackers, these lips have been every it girl's not-so-secret weapon. And today, red lips are breaking the glass ceiling with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lighting up the political landscape by owning the look. Ladies, the future is fire and in red. I've got some tips to help you borrow from beauty icons throughout the ages. Let's do this. For me, I like to start off with cleaning my entire lip with one wash of color, so my foundation color. I take my little beauty sponge, whatever's left over on here. I just pat it on my lips. To me, this is like a little bit of a base. Now I'm going to show you guys how I pick the perfect red color for me. So first you want to take into account what are you wearing? I'm wearing a denim jacket with some pop of red. I kind of want to match this level of red on my jacket onto my lips. And I also want to pick a red that flatters my skin tone. I'm going to show you how I do it. I like to just see what my options are. Now that I have my colors swatched on my hands and I can see my options, I'm going to layer because layering is fun, especially when you're building that perfect red lip. So I'm just going to wipe this off. So I have some lip liners and then I have my lip products that I'm going to apply on top. So I'm going to go ahead and line my lips. And what I like to do is I like to fill in my entire lip. This is my pro tip because I feel like if you want to make sure that your color lasts all day, then you need to use a lip liner throughout your entire lip as that extra measure of protection. Just fill this entire thing in. Sometimes you're going to look really weird when you're doing your lips. That's okay. Sometimes I'm looking in the mirror like and that's normal. It's all for the finished product. So as you can see, my lips look great already. Next step, your lip product. What are you going to use? So I was really attracted to this really bright liquid lipstick and I'm going to apply it because I'm going for really bright red today. So with this product, I can just go ahead and use the Doe Foot applicator and apply directly to my lips. That is the cutest, most perfect red for me ever. This product I can apply all over my lip. It looks so good, right? Uh-huh. This part is cleanup, okay? I'm going to use this brush and a concealer to clean up and make my lips super crisp and ready to hit the top. The color that you want to pick for your concealer is pretty much what is your foundation. You want it to pretty much be your skin color. So you just need a little bit. Here we go. I'm just taking the concealer and I'm cleaning it up. It's like the concealer is serving as an eraser. It's erasing your mistakes. It's erasing your boo-boos and now you look like you're some professional expert and that's exactly what you want. Sometimes you need to go back in with the liner and re-perfect things. So as I was erasing, I erased too much and now I'm just going to re-line it back. Pretty! This was a process but it's worth it because I feel like this is a statement. I'm ready to hit the town and you know I'm here because with a lip color like this, no one will ignore you folks. You will be seen. You will be heard. So growing up, my mom always wore a red lip. There was always a red lip in her bag. My aunt's the same thing. Whenever I go to Bangladesh, everyone is just wearing red. And weddings, it's all about red versus white. Brides wear red. It is the traditional color. It just symbolizes cultural richness and our henna is red. So red is a big deal, okay? And I just grew up watching my mom put it on and I felt like she could just take on the world when she put her red lip on. Her confidence would boost. She would hold her head up high and she'd wear a sari and walk down the street and be a proud, you know, immigrant living her life and thriving. I just find it to be a symbol of perseverance, of strength and just cultural richness. I look at red lips as something that I should embrace that brings me closer to my culture and I hope that when you wear a red lip you think of something that makes you feel more confident. I want to know where you would wear a red lip too. So what is the perfect occasion for you to wear a red lip that would make you feel more confident and more strong? Let me know in the comments down below.