Seeing red: lipstick, sex appeal and a glamorous assassin
The recent assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai has caught everyone’s attention, not least because Dubai’s police are now searching for a team of assassins who are thought to have entered the emirate with fake passports.
I was particularly drawn to the stunning photograph of “Gail Folliard”: a pleasantly smiling woman who carried a fake Irish passport and identity, and formed part of the alleged assassination team. In her passport photo she has long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and is wearing bright red lipstick.
Newspapers have focused on her as an example of a glamorous female assassin. However Hugo Rifkind, writing in the Times, had another take: “Gail my backside. She’s a bloke.” He quoted the well-known super spy Austin Powers: “She’s a man, man”.
I agree. But not because of the Adam’s apple that is supposed to be so prominent in her photo. It was the ruby red lipstick that stood out for me.
Do real women in real life really wear red lipstick?
The colour red
An experiment, carried out in 2008 by the University of Rochester, USA, involved showing men photographs of women who were either wearing red or framed by the colour. These “red” women were rated as significantly more alluring and sexually appealing by men than women wearing or framed by other colours.
The researchers also asked how much money the men would be prepared to spend on a date with the women in the pictures – and found that a women wearing red was “more likely to score an invitation to the prom and to be treated to a more expensive outing”.
As women know, however, red isn’t an easy colour to wear. Women have to make sure that a given shade of red suits their age, skin colouring and hair. Getting it wrong can result in a fashion faux pas; getting it right means you instantly stand out.
I was interested to note from the Rochester study that women wearing red can be perceived as powerful and aggressive. In business, men coming up against women who are wearing the colour may perform worse against them. (Is this perhaps the reason why women are expected to wear black in court?) Continue reading »



In my last post,
Yesterday morning my husband was reading the papers over a breakfast cup of coffee. He looked out into the garden. Our two giant Briard dogs were frolicking together, getting completely covered in snow. A little red robin was hopping about on the branch of a snow covered fir tree. Two wood pigeons landed together on an almost frozen bird bath for a drink. With the snow covering the garden, the trees and the bushes, the scene couldn’t have been any more Christmassy.
How many of us take our loved ones for granted? It is easy to forget that in a split second, lives can be transformed forever.
I don’t have any strong political views because I don’t like politics, but on Sunday morning in Covent Garden as I cycled on a bike at the gym, I watched 



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