Lipstick left on a wine glass serves only one purpose: to let old timey detectives know a dame was drinking with the suspect before he cheesed it. Otherwise, it’s just an annoyance, a lifestyle hazard for anyone who wants to combine the two hedonistic pleasures of looking kinda nice and drinking wine.
And we would enjoy those things, both at once, if we could. Except that smudge of lipstick on your glass is like your makeup’s way of announcing itself to the room. “Hey! Everyone! I tried to look pretty tonight! See? This stuff on my face? It comes off!”
As if refereeing between your makeup and your beverage weren’t enough, there’s the pesky problem of red wine stains on your teeth. Fortunately, we already found a few solutions for those (and cheese lovers, rejoice). But even after you figure out how to keep the stuff in the glass off your teeth, how do you keep the stuff on your face off the glass?
The answer is painfully simple, and we never would have thought of it, not in a hundred years of wine drinking and cheese eating (which, let’s hope…). Remember how Hans Gruber told Karl to shoot the glass? Well, lipstick wearers need to lick the glass. Before you take a sip, try to surreptitiously moisten the spot on the glass where you’re drinking from. (If someone sees you licking, you can either turn it into a bizarro flirt if you’re feeling confident, or else explain patiently that you have “Restless Tongue Syndrome.”)
It may seem too simplistic and, well, heavily reliant on the ability to lick something in public multiple times (you have to remoisten with each sip). But it works. Trust us, we’ve tried. Why it works is the same reason you need to shake up salad dressing: fats and water don’t mix. And since most lipstick is made of a combination of waxes, oils, and fats (plus yes, some other chemicals that may or may not be super great for you), your lipstick won’t dissolve onto the wet surface. Which is a good thing to know these days, since lipstick trends in 2015 are pretty bold.
Of course another way to avoid the issue is to wear a lip stain, which acts more like a “temporary dye”—and negates the need to constantly reapply. Once it’s dried, a lip stain won’t smudge off. But if you’re a lipstick lover, and you’d like to knock back a glass of Sauvignon Blanc without leaving a splotchy crescent of your $27 Bobbi Brown Atomic Orange on the glass, the answer is simple: you must lick it.
