Shades of hematite

Red colouration functions both to attract and to warn, in nature as in human society. It insists upon a discerning appreciation. Powdered hematite rock gave an intense red colour to the earliest lipsticks 3,800 years ago, darkened with manganite and braunite, and mixed with vegetal waxes.

C.P. Doncaster, Timeline of the Human Condition, star index