The story
Kurenai was measured in gold: mountains of benibana petals from Yamagata went down the Mogami river to Kyoto dye-houses, and the extracted red was proverbially worth its weight in gold — 'one monme of beni, one monme of gold.' The Man'yōshū already calls deep feeling 'kurenai no' — crimson-deep — and the pigment doubled as the beni lip color that made a geisha's lower lip shine green when layered thick.
