BY TRISTA EDWARDS

The lips are powerful. They can devour. They help you survive. They can attract and they can imply danger. Coco Chanel once said, "If you are sad, add more lipstick and attack." It has always fascinated me that applying a shade of color to your lips can act as a magical catalyst for confidence—to help you transform into more ferocious version of yourself. Vampiric. Alluring. Dominant.

This past weekend, I was home alone and binging on a throng of melancholy and dark movies (my favorite pastime). My night culminated with Nicholas Winding Refn’s 2016 psychological horror film, Neon Demon.

While tipsy on whiskey and popping back a bowl of cherries, I became enamored with the following scene centering on a conversation between vain L.A. models, Gigi and Sarah, vampy make-up artist, Ruby, and the waifish new girl in town, Jesse, about the implications of lipstick.

Are you food or are you sex? Immediately after Ruby asks Sarah, "What about you? What would your lipstick be called?" I looked down at the bowl of cherries in my lap and the tumbler of whiskey in my hand and knew that’s what I would be—Whiskey & Cherries. Which to me, seems to imply a little bit of both sex and food. That is the power and the color I would choose to don.

My ALL TIME FAV color, Vampira, by @katvondbeauty is not totally unlike a blend of whiskey & cherries. — My ALL TIME FAV color, Vampira, by @katvondbeauty is not totally unlike a blend of whiskey & cherries.

The history of lipstick is beguiling—once a form of ancient class distinction or social status for all genders to the mark of a prostitute to an incarnation of Satan used by witches to deceive men into marriage to alluring fashion to a symbol of feminine power—lip color has run a gambit of denotations over millennia.

Lip colorh as been concocted out of almost every imaginable material from beeswax, red roots, sheep fat, crocodile dung, sediment from wine, mulberries, seaweed, and many other earthly elements that could be found at hand.

Inspired by Neon Demon, I decided to concoct my own empowering lip stain spell. The film is dark and bizarre and horrific. It deals with young women who surgically modify their bodies to fit stressful beauty standards while lusting after the even younger ingénue Jesse for her natural and unadulterated looks. In the end of the film, led by lust and narcissism, you either consume or get consumed.

In this darkness, however, I found motivation to craft a spell of confidence. I was compelled by the film's message of consumption to focus on consuming my doubts. For me lipstick is power. I use it to empower myself, to cast myself in a new light, to feel sexy, to create a costume, to participate in ritual, to leave a mark, to connect with my feminine ancestors, to enact change. That’s what happens when I don a lip shade, I create a change, a stirring within myself that promotes a certain kind of energy that I emanate into my immediate surrounding. I can change a color to suit not only my mood but also my desire for the conversion I seek within. It is confidence. It is magic.

Berry Lip Stain Spell for Confidence

5 Blackberries
5 Raspberries
1 Teaspoon Olive Oil
One candle

(I also added 1 Teaspoon of my charged eclipse water…if you have some it is another great way to put its magic to use!)

Set your scene. Create beauty for your spellwork. Candles, flowers, beautiful dishes, music, anything that empowers you to create and set your intention.

Collect ingredients and accouterment and cleanse with sage or incense or palo santo.

Mash up the berries, oil, and water in a small bowl. Use motor and pestle or just a plain, sturdy spoon.

Once thoroughly mashed, strain with small colander or cheesecloth into a new, clean bowl to eliminate as many seeds as possible.

Spend a few minutes meditating over the bowl to focus and set your intention for what you seek to build confidence in.

Pass the bowl of lip stain over the candle flame while saying aloud:

May this color stain my desires as it stains my lips.
May these berries bring me the power to consume my fears.
May I find confidence in my actions as I paint my mark.

Then apply your lip stain generously. Perfection in application is not key. Smear, smudge, rake the berry mixture with pleasure. There will be stray seeds. There will be clumps.

Repeat the spell with the stain on your lips:

May this color stain my desires as it stains my lips.
May these berries bring me the power to consume my fears.
May I find confidence in my actions as I paint my mark.
Then lick it all off and delight in the taste of your power.

Trista Edwards is a poet, land mermaid, light witch, horror enthusiast, creatrix, traveler, and dog lover. She is also the curator and editor of the anthology, Till The Tide: An Anthology of Mermaid Poetry (Sundress Publications, 2015). She is currently working on her first full-length poetry collection but until then you can read her poems at The Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, 32 Poems, The Adroit Journal, Sou’wester, Queen Mob's Tea House, and more. She writes about travel, ghosts, and poetry on her blog, Marvel + Moon. Trista is a contributing editor at Luna Luna Magazine.