I believe that in the eyes of many people, the strange creature of "worm" often leaves a hairy impression. Their strange physiological structure and a large number of arthropod systems, as well as their small size, bring pervasive and ubiquitous survival characteristics, which makes many people shy away from it and fear it. The diseases and itching pain caused by mosquito bites also make many people hate this strange creature.
In short, when it comes to bugs, everyone's stereotype is usually "disgusting". Therefore, most people are reluctant to have intimate contact with this creature for fear of avoiding it. But there is such a bug, which is closely related to our daily lives, especially loved by women; the powder made of this bug is a good cosmetic raw material, often used to make brightly colored lipstick, which is smeared on the lips and blooms with bright and dazzling colors.
While it may seem a little disgusting and unexpected to smear the bug on your lips, don't underestimate this bug that is "dedicated" to beauty. Nowadays, this kind of bug used to make lipstick, which is worth as much as gold, is a "luxury" that ordinary people can't afford to spend.
The reason why this insect has such a high value is inseparable from the appearance of lipstick. So, before we learn about this bizarre bug, let's take a look at how lipstick is produced.
It is rumored that the appearance of lipstick stems from the ancient memory of human beings when they first ate fresh meat, their lips were stained with blood, but this statement cannot be verified, but from the perspective of biological impulses, it seems to have a certain connection with people's obsession with lipstick. According to the excavated cultural relics, the world's first lipstick was found in the Sumerian city of Your, which is the lip gloss made of red rock by the Sumerian empress of the Sumerian period, and is recognized as the earliest prototype of lipstick.
In ancient Egypt, egyptians from the royal family and nobles to the commoners, men, women and children, had a very enthusiastic and obsessive attitude towards makeup, and they usually used powder mixed gum made of ore of various colors to make cosmetics, and lipstick also flourished during this period.
Led by the famous Cleopatra of ancient Egypt, she is very keen on the production and use of lipstick, and has also led the fashion trend of using lipstick in the country, making lipstick a favorite of noble ladies. After the death of many rich wives in ancient Egypt, they also used lip gloss to apply to their graves to express their love for lipstick. In such an environment, the ancient Egyptian people even explored all kinds of strange color numbers: blue-green, black, orange... Strange, everything is available, not limited to the red color system, it can be seen that the ancient Egyptian people for the aesthetic diversity of lipstick is more open than now.
But with the decline of the ancient Egyptian era, the status of lipstick also fell to the bottom.
In the early days of ancient Greece, only customs practitioners wore lipstick, based on people's discrimination against the identity of customs practitioners, lipstick was also "stigmatized", at that time lipstick was mainly made of sheep sweat and human saliva and crocodile feces and other filth, and the first law on lipstick was promulgated, stipulating that custom practitioners must wear lipstick made of this filth in public to distinguish ordinary women.
In the ancient Roman period, under the influence of the social atmosphere of hedonism, lipstick was once again loved by the aristocratic class, and used the most natural and precious natural ingredients to make, as a symbol of status; in the dark Middle Ages of Europe, the church believed that lipstick would disturb the male mind and increase female charm, so it identified lipstick as an evil witchcraft and resisted lipstick, but this still could not stop the status of lipstick in women's minds.
Later, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, advances in technology created endless possibilities for lipsticks, and Americans seized this business opportunity. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many cosmetic brands in the United States introduced formal commodity lipsticks, and commercialization allowed lipstick packaging to be innovated, and the production cost of lipstick gradually decreased and became easier to carry.
Feminists also use lipstick as a symbol, and they wear lipstick and take to the streets to fight for women's rights. With the rise of the film and television industry, the "goods" of female stars on the screen have also set off a wave of lipstick. In the Period of World War II, there was even a famous "lipstick effect" economic theory, which refers to the economic depression when people tend to buy cheap goods, and lipstick is cheap and good-looking, people tend to use lipstick to whitewash tiredness, so the sales of lipstick-like cosmetics have soared.
During that period, lipstick merchants often encouraged women to wear lipstick in order to market lipstick to show the courage and fighting spirit of not accepting defeat, which stimulated the patriotic passion of women and also gave lipstick more meaning. Nowadays, although the war has ended, lipstick has still become a group symbol and fashion trend for women, and more material types and color patterns have appeared, and the development history of lipstick also reflects the survival situation of women in history, so lipstick still has a pivotal position in cosmetics.
To this day, lipstick still has great market size and development potential in the cosmetics market. According to the 2018 middle-class women's consumption report, middle-class women buy an average of four lipsticks per year; lipstick is also the most concerned of all cosmetics categories, and the lipstick market share is also increasing year by year. Therefore, both capitalists and women love lipstick equally.
However, most of the lipsticks made by modern industry use a large number of synthetic pigments as raw materials, which often contain a large number of heavy metals and harmful substances, as lipstick that will be ingested into the mouth every day, and the synthetic pigments of human red will often bring some health risks to the human body, and people have been looking for the safest and healthiest red raw materials for lipstick.
As a pure natural and non-toxic animal pigment, the acidic nature of carmine also has strong stability and excellent antioxidant capacity, and can even be used as an edible coloring.
According to the British "Herbal Medicine", cochineal can treat depression and hallucinations; according to modern medical research, cochineal red pigment can inhibit DNA damage caused by carcinogens, and can also prevent viral diseases and AIDS, so it is widely used in the pharmaceutical field.
As an important raw material for lipstick, the use history of cochineal can be traced back to Cleopatra, who is known as a "lipstick enthusiast". Due to the backward level of productivity development at that time, the materials for making lipstick were very limited, and many heavy metal raw materials used to make lipstick were actually harmful to the human body, and lipstick poisoning incidents were actually not in the minority. Cleopatra, who loved lipstick so much, began to look for a safe and non-toxic lipstick recipe, and also opened the "heavy taste" history of lipstick.
In order to find the right red color, she found a red bug from Persia and Mesopotamia, that is, our protagonist cochineal worm, using the eggs and fat of the female cochineal to make a magenta, which gradually became the most classic color of lipstick. Until Elizabeth I of the European Middle Ages, on the basis of the magenta formula made of cochineal worms, it was improved into a deep red.
Later, with the advent of the industrial age and the scale of the lipstick industry, hydrophilic carmine needs to be made into an oil-loving carmine red lake to be used as a pigment raw material for lipstick, so the cost of carmine red lake is three to five times that of ordinary lake, so the lipstick made of carmine is currently mainly in the high-end cosmetics market.
However, to talk about the scale industrialization of cochineal worms, we have to start with Spain. Cochineals were first distributed in cacti in tropical regions such as Mexico and Africa, feeding on cactus leaves. At first, cochineal was only used by the locals to make dyes, and later with the arrival of the Spaniards, they quickly found business opportunities from it, and shipped the dyes made of cochineal back to Spain for sale and export trade, did not expect that this cochineal red was very popular, the market demand was in short supply, because of its pure natural nature is widely used in food, clothing, cosmetics and medicines and other industries.
In 1600, carmine had become an extremely important export product for the Spaniards, and the market size of cochineal was constantly expanding. In order to meet the market demand, Spain began to carry out large-scale cultivation of cochineal.
At the same time, in order to maintain a monopoly on the market for cochineals, the Spaniards banned the export of live cochineals and tried to cover up the fact that cochineal red was made from insects, falsely claiming that this red color was extracted from plants. It was not until Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope that the composition of the cochineal worm was discovered under microscopic observation, and the fact of the cochineal worm was made public.
In the mid-18th century, the American-loving French also succeeded in establishing cochineal farms and introducing local industries, breaking the Spanish monopoly on the cochineal market. Although the market demand for this pigment of carmine is very impressive, but because its production is far lower than the market demand, the price has been high, a pound of cochineal can sell for more than a thousand US dollars, the value is comparable to gold.
In China, we also introduced cochineal in 2000, mainly cultivated in the dry and hot river valleys and Jinsha River in southwest China, which are suitable for cacti growth, filling the shortcomings of local agricultural development caused by climate, and creating income for local farmers through the breeding and development of the cochineal industry.
Therefore, the golden value of the cochineal also shows people's enthusiasm for color. Rouge's dedication to lipstick has become a bright color that women love, while making the lipstick that is eaten into the mouth every day healthier and safer. This seemingly inconspicuous little bug makes beauty no longer a charming but dangerous trick, so that the bright and seductive red can also become a cure for diseases, making the red more solid and timeless.
Therefore, carmine worms have made a huge contribution to pigmentation. It is hoped that through reasonable breeding methods, its supply can meet the demand, the cost price is reduced, so that this "perfect pigment" can be more widely used in various fields.