Para Besarte Mejor (To Kiss You Better, 2003) is a video by Jessica Lagunas in which the artist paints her lips red over and over again for almost an hour. Other videos based on repetition of female beauty rituals are To See You Better 2003 (applying mascara), To Caress You Better 2005 (red nail polish) and Return to Puberty 2005 (plucking pubic hair).
"In the name of beauty most women will put on makeup, do their hair, nails, depilate, diet, fix their noses and breasts. Although few women will reach society's beauty ideals, they will sculpt their bodies as needed. In this video I play along with women's beauty rituals performing them in exaggerated ways to reflect the pressures imposed by today's society. (...) questioning our attraction to makeup and its power of seduction. Its title was inspired by the Red Riding Hood tale." Jessica Lagunas.
Jessica Lagunas frames so the red lipstick within the broader context of makeup and female beauty obsession. She acknowledging the sexual connotations of red and presents its use in beauty rituals as a sign of conforming to social norms that constrain women and encourage them to look in a particular dictated way (by "others", pressumable a male-dominated society).
