「胭脂」的主要作用在於女子的粧容，其由來非常遙遠，宋玉即有「施朱則太赤，施粉則太白」的句子，可知古時的女子已有施「朱」的習慣。
而以植物作為胭脂的記錄最早見於北魏賈思勰的《齊民要術》 ，而紅藍花就是胭脂的主要原料。
紅藍花傳自西域，西域有「焉支山」，古匈奴王的妻子稱作「閼氏」 ，他們有：「失我祁連山，使我六畜不繁息；失我閼氏山，使我婦女無顏色。」的諺語。可知胭脂之名來自西域，胭脂之物亦傳自西域。
「胭脂」傳進中國之後，由於流傳的廣泛與久遠，製作胭脂的材料也越來越多，李時珍的《本草綱目》當中即有詳細的記載。而胭脂由於製作方法與使用材料的不同，也產生了許多的不同種類的名稱。
從古文獻中可以得知，「胭脂」除做為女性粧容品之外，還有藥用、繪畫、染箋等用途。其應用的廣泛，深入於大眾的日常生活當中。胭脂已不單純只是女子的粧容品，而是生活的必需品。
由於「胭脂」的大量運用，因此從胭脂當中所衍生的典故也很多，古時的女子為了取悅男性，想盡各種方法，而創造了許多的化粧方法。這些化粧方法有時竟是因意外而創造。
除了實用的價值之外，胭脂在文學上的使用也非常流行，從唐代開始的詠花詩中，就已將「胭脂」作為花容的代稱。宋代由於詞的流行，將「胭脂」之名當作花的代稱則更加的普遍，也可說是全面的運用。其後在文學當中「胭脂」已成為詠花詩中一種常用的意象。
以上各種關於胭脂的相關事物，交叠於古人的生活中，人們各取所需的使用「胭脂」，「胭脂」已成為普羅大眾的生活意象。

As a main role of the woman's makeup, its origins are very ancient. Back to Song dynasty, there is sentence with blush-red, it is too red, while with white-powder it too pale. Therefore we can see that the ancient woman has the habit of using blush-red. The oldest record on using plant as the source material of rouge is shown in the book Qi Min Yao Sh” of Jia Sixie back to the Northern Wei dynasty. Blue-flower was the main raw material for making rouge.
Red-blue flowers came from the Western Regions and in there a mountain
called Yanzhi Mountain, One of the ancient Huns’ queen was named Yanzhi.
A proverb, losing the Qilian Mountain results of no offspring of domestic
animals; ever severely, losing Yanzhi will make our women with “No Color”.
Therefore, we can see that both the name and material of rouge is from the
Western Regions.
After forwarding into the China, as the long time pass, the production
processes and material used were abundant and various, which were well
documented in Li Ser-Jen’s book “Compendium of Medical Material”. Ancient
literature shows that the rouge can not only be used as women’s makeup but as
general use such as medicinal, painting, dyeing paper and so on. Its application
extensively and deeply used in the daily life of the general public. As used
intensively, rouge has been more than just the woman’s makeup, but a necessity
of life. As also used intensively, to please their men, women tried various
methods, and have created a lot of make-up methods. These methods were
sometimes come-out by accident. In addition to practical value, the use of rouge in the literature is also very popular. From the beginning of the Tang dynasty, in Wing-Flower poem, the “rouge” was used to indicate the appearance of flowers.
This practice was become more accepted and even popular in Song dynasty.
Overlap in the life of the ancients, people selected what they need to use, “rouge” has become the living image of the general public.