BEAUTY BY
U B 3
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2 7 S
WHAT DO WEALTH, EMBARRASSMENT, AND A HINT OF ECSTASY HAVE IN COMMON?
THEY’RE RIGHT THERE ON YOUR CHEEKS. A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLUSHING. —AMANDA BOHNSON
$170: Cost of
flushed cheeks in
2019 by Serge
Lutens, whose
finely milled blush
is likely the most
expensive of its kind
available today.
$0: Cost of
flushed cheeks in
the Victorian era,
when Queen
Victoria publicly
decreed cosmetics
were morally
repugnant. Women
took to pinching
their faces instead.
40: Approximate
percentage of
women who do not
reach orgasm from
intercourse alone.
7,000: Ballpark
number of Nars
Orgasms
administered (read:
blushes sold) every
day. This is seven
times the population
of the world’s
smallest nation—
Vatican City.
12th century:
Date of a mosaic
featuring one of the
earliest portraits of
Adam and Eve,
cheeks rosy with
shame. “In the
Christian tradition,
blushing is
embodied mainly
by women as a ‘mark’
of Original Sin,”
according to—no
joke—a scholar of
early modern artistic
depictions of blush.