Red Lipstick, Nail Polish Ban Angers Turkish Airlines Flight Attendants, Inspires 'Red Lipstick Movement'

Turkish Airlines announced a new employee dress code this week, outlining new rules that prohibit flight attendants from wearing varying shades of red lipstick and nail polish.

"Red, dark pink, etc. colors, the use of lipstick and nail polish of these colors by our cabin crew, impairs the visual integrity," the airline said in a statement Friday.

"Face and hand appearance of cabin crew has a particular significance during servicing to the passengers. Addition to this, it's a highly experiences and well known fact that a natural presence has a more gentle and attainable effect in communication."

But the dress code, calling for plain makeup in pastel tones, has sparked outrage on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook where users are expressing disapproval over the new regulations.

And the new code even inspired a movement called the "Red Lipstick Movement," started by a columnist for Turkey's Daily Hurriyet newspaper, encouraging women to send in photographs of themselves wearing red lipstick.

The heated debate over the airline's dress code is a microcosm of a much larger issue facing the country: Turkey's culture war between religious Muslims versus secularists.

Turkish Airlines is 49 percent government-owned even after the company was recently privatized.

And with the airline's most recent move, combined with separate policy changes such as banning platinum blond hair and certain shades of red dye for flight attendants, many fear that conservative ideals are infiltrating too far.

Turkish Airlines also banned alcohol from most of their domestic flight routes, saying that there is a low demand. Alcohol is no longer served on eight international flights at the behest of the host countries.