Bishop

Hazel Bishop (1906-1998) was an american chemist, the inventor of “kiss proof” lipstick. She wanted to study medicine, but the Wall Street crash of 1929 forced her to study chemistry, which brought money in faster. At the end of the 1940s her kitchen was a laboratory where she conducted tests that were not allowed in the dermatology labs of the Columbia Medical Center where she worked. The new product was created in her kitchen. Sold by a small cosmetics company, it was advertised with the slogan: “Don’t lose time wiping your kisses from the faces of friends, relatives, children and sweethearts.” It was the Summer of 1950. In the America of the baby-boomers, at a cost of just $1 each, the New York department store Lord and Taylor sold out in just one day.