July 29th is National Lipstick Day. In honor of the day, we are spotlighting the non-profit Find Your Fabulosity, which empowers victims of domestic violence with a simple tube of lipstick.
Harvard recently conducted a study on lipstick that had some surprisingly rosy results. When women wore lipstick when taking an exam, they scored higher than their counterparts who did not wear lipstick. This seems to come from the boost of confidence lipstick gives them – of 300 women they interviewed for the study, 253 of the women reported that lipstick made them feel “very confident”. The British Health Foundation, meanwhile, reported that 26% of women they surveyed said red lipstick made them feel fierce, and the study further reported that women felt that being around someone who is exuding “that happy lipstick vibe” is a “natural” and “mysterious” “mood elevator”.
This is where Find Your Fabulosity comes in. As quoted by Full Scale Media, “Find Your Fabulosity, founded by Domestic Abuse Survivor Advocate and Expert, Sheryl Kurland, instills confidence and a sense of self back into women who have survived unthinkable domestic abuse. Kurland’s 501c3 nonprofit organization donates new, packaged lipsticks to tens of thousands of domestic abuse survivors living in temporary housing and women’s shelters across all fifty states. To date, Kurland has donated more than 80,000 lipsticks to women residing in 300 shelters across the U.S.
Additionally, FYF ships Get Help Giftbags to women who are currently living in abusive situations and trying to gather the resources and strength to get out.”.
I remember, many years ago, my friend saw a girl crying on the bus. As the bus rolled to her stop, she quietly put a pair of sunglasses in the girl’s lap before getting off the bus. To this day, my heart warms imagining how that small act made a very hard day for one woman a little easier. That same friend encountered another woman on the train one day, who was also quietly crying, and in this case had sunglasses on, and she did the smallest but most empowering gesture possible in the moment, by offering her a tissue.
If there is one thing true when it comes to kindness and philanthropy, it is that all forms of kindness make an impact in different, unique, and universally important ways. We must remember that, while it is certainly crucial to prevent starvation and disease in the world, sometimes an act as simple as providing a women with sunglasses – or lipstick – is what they need to have the strength to get through their ordeal. When Tyra Banks asked Hillary Clinton if women ever ask her whether they should leave a man, Hilary replied that she tells them that their story is not her story, and that only they know their truth. While our story may not be someone else’s story, as women we must always remember to lift other women up. Recently, an article said that Barbiecore was ending the “Not that type of girl” movement, and it had me thinking: As women, is there not a divide that must be lifted between femininity and empowerment, as though they can not be intertwined? Do women who wear combat boots sometimes fear the judgment they might receive if they wear a pink lipstick? Can we not live in a world where all women embrace all women, helping us create a united front, so that, whatever story a woman has, she knows she has allies?
At the end of the day, one thing is clear: Lipstick is so much more than just a tube of color.
