Confidence in a Lipstick Tube

How makeup empowers India’s younger generation

Illustration: Daiana Ruiz

I bought my first lipstick when I turned 30. Blood red, it brightened my face. That same year, a Bollywood movie, “Lipstick Under My Burkha,” narrated the lives of four women in a mid-size Indian town for whom wearing lipstick was a metaphor for how they sought a spoonful of freedom and a pinch of sensuality.