Early film actors wore green lipstick to look natural
Before the 1920s, the silver screen was a place of surreal illusions where leading ladies painted their lips emerald to avoid looking like ghosts.
Early film stock was 'orthochromatic,' a chemical limitation that made it blind to the color red. On screen, anything red—from a rosy cheek to a scarlet lipstick—rendered as a flat, muddy black or a deathly pale gray. To solve this, makeup artists turned to color theory, painting actors' lips with bright green greasepaint. Because green sat on the opposite side of the color spectrum, the film interpreted it as a natural, healthy tone for the human face.
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