No lip service: Camden Town pub says no to customers wearing lipstick because of glass stains

Thursday April 1, 2010

By CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS

YOU may have thought it was only snooty clubs that decreed what you could and couldn’t wear on a night out. But pub-goers beware: there’s a new dress code in town, and it’s banned your lippy.

Yes, that’s right ladies, the Camden Eye in Camden Town has outlawed lipstick – the foundation stone of any spruce-up – after bar workers complained they couldn’t get it off their wine glasses despite several rounds in the dishwasher. Staff at the pub, on the junction of Camden Road and Kentish Town Road, have made the ban loud and clear by putting up a sign behind the bar warning drinkers “no lipstick”.

Sarah Arslan, 24, said the sign went up after her male colleagues got sick of scrubbing the glasses by hand – and questioned why women felt the need to cake themselves in cosmetics.

“You have such a lot of women wearing such a lot of make-up and we couldn’t get it off the glasses,” said Sarah. “It’s not about being sexist or having something against women wearing lipstick. It was mostly the guys getting annoyed about it but it was a bit of a joke.”

She admitted that since that the sign went up there has been a low take-up of the new house policy at the trendy pub, formerly the Halfway House.

“We’ve had some people laughing and some people confused, and some people asking: ‘Am I not supposed to be wearing make-up?’,” said Sarah, “but people aren’t wearing less lipstick. It would be funny if people did take it seriously, but they don’t.”

One regular, who did not know whether to laugh or spit his beer out when he spotted the sign, was former publican John Graham. 

In a letter to the New Journal, the fundraiser from Hampstead, who works at the Royal Free Hospital, said: “In all the years I used to have a pub – and technology wasn’t up to date in my day – I never had any problem with my dish washer getting rid of lipstick. 

“I don’t know where the bar staff are coming from here.”