Make-up artist and historian Erin Parsons despatched me a mysterious electronic mail final week. “I needed to let you already know first that I’m breaking a giant story,” she shared cryptically. “It’s a giant story on Marilyn Monroe’s lacking lipstick. I can’t say a lot else now, however curious if you’re on this?”
My reply, from each a private {and professional} standpoint, was a giant sure.
Yesterday, Parsons took to TikTok to share the sordid story behind Monroe’s signature pink lip. “In December 1987, in Los Angeles, pals devoted a time capsule to Marilyn Monroe,” she begins. Artifacts contained in the vessel, created by artist and sculptor Invoice Mack, included a mink cap owned by the actor and a lock of her hair, all meant to be unearthed on August 5, 2062—the one hundredth anniversary of Monroe’s tragic demise.
On the day the capsule was set to be buried, Monroe’s longtime make-up artist, Allan “Whitey” Snyder, additionally added one thing to the gathering: a tube of her lipstick. “Whitey’s contribution to the occasion was a pink lipstick used to make up Marilyn’s physique in demise,” Parson says, studying from a newspaper clipping. “He advised the gathering that he had used this pink colour for half her profession and that he had specifically made it for her.”
After all, everyone knows about Monroe’s singular beauty look: completely curled bob, a sultry cat eye, and a shiny pink pout. It’s one thing Gabriela Hernandez, founding father of Bésame Cosmetics, recreated in her 2021 limited-edition assortment devoted to the actor, producing a real pink meant to precisely match the shade worn by Monroe as Sugar Kane in Some Like It Sizzling. (The colour was aptly named “Some Like It (red) Hot.”)
However Monroe’s time capsule was by no means buried—as an alternative, in response to Parsons, it was really stolen.
To seek out out what occurred, Parsons reached out to the three residing individuals who had been a part of the venture. First, Hollywood Heritage’s archivist Richard Adkins described your complete occasion as “not a contented story.”
Parsons then spoke to the occasion’s publicist, Chris Harris, earlier than coming to her conclusion: “I’m not accusing Invoice Mack of getting the lipstick, however some others are, and I’m going to point out you all the proof that I discovered.”
Hear all of the (reasonably compelling!) proof in her video, beneath.
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