Finding those hard-to-find inexpensive cosmetics

Every now and then, I get inquiries about specific Love My Lips products. Unfortunately, finding these products is catch-as-catch-can. I don't know of any store that carries a complete line of Love My Lips products. Moreover, Bari Cosmetics, which distributes Love My Lips, has not been responsive to my inquiries. To those people looking for Love My Lips products, I suggest prowling dollar and close-out stores, including, but not limited to, the big chains such as Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and Big Lots!

Jordana is another much sought-after brand of inexpensive cosmetics, particularly for their eyeliner pencils. Walgreen's drugstores carry Jordana's eyeliner and lip liner pencils, and you can find a broader range of Jordana cosmetics at dollar stores, although I haven't seen Jordana at the big chain stores. Alas, I can no longer find Jordana's eyeliner in Bittersweet - it was the perfect black-brown eyeliner that I favor. Now, however, you can shop for Jordana online at BestBeautyOnline.com.


My web stats indicate a number of queries on L'Oreal HIP foundation. It has been harder to find this in stores. My contact at L'Oreal tells me that several retailers are no longer carrying L'Oreal HIP Flawless Liquid Makeup, in order to make room for other L'Oreal HIP products; however, Rite-Aid and Wal-Mart are still carrying L'Oreal HIP Flawless Liquid Makeup. Rite-Aid partners with drugstore.com for online shopping.

My web stats also show a few queries on Boots No 7 products at Canada's Shoppers Drug Mart. While Boots No 7 and Botanicals may be found at select CVS stores and many Target stores in the U.S., only four Shoppers Drug Mart stores in Canada carry Boots cosmetics: for more information, visit Shoppers Drug Mart.

What's New in Beauty - May 12, 2005: Yue-Sai, Costco, Webby Awards, cosmetic buying trends

Categories: Beauty, Cosmetics

China's Yue-Sai goes global: L'Oreal will launch Yue-Sai, the Chinese cosmetics brand, first in Asia and then in Europe and North America. Yue-Sai was founded by Chinese-American TV presenter Yue-Sai Kan. L'Oreal acquired Yue-Sai from the Lancaster Group in January 2004.

Costco developing its own cosmetics brand - Costco, the Seattle-based wholesale buyers' club that can supply you from cradle to grave, is developing its own cosmetics brand in partnership with Borghese. The Style Page has previously written on cosmetics brands exclusive to a store chain: IsaDora (Walgreen's), Lumene (CVS), Per Una (UK's Marks & Spencer), No 7 (UK's Boots), and good skin, American Beauty, and Flirt! (Kohl's).

The Webby Award winners have been announced: in the Beauty and Cosmetics category, the winner was comeclean.com, a web site for method's holiday gift set. Its gimmick was providing a place to read confessions and post confessions to "come clean." The People's Choice winner was the Mary Kay personal consultant site - no surprise there.

Finally, the article Specialty format steals department store beauty dollar from Cosmeticsdesign.com discusses how specialty and discount stores are taking market share for cosmetics purchases from traditional department stores. The merger of the major U.S. department store chains - Federated (Bloomingdale's and Macy's) and May (Lord & Taylor, Robinson's-May, Hecht's, Famous-Barr, etc.) will result in fewer consumer choices among department stores.

The Style Page notes that one challenge is that salespeople at department stores represent and work on behalf of a particular cosmetics brand. If department stores and their suppliers (notably Estee Lauder Companies) want to win back market share, they should scrap the current system in favor of salespeople/advisors who can advise on several brands and provide central checkouts for cosmetics purchases.

Update: Soon after I published this post, I found that Shoppers Drug Mart, a drugstore chain in Canada, is negotiating with Estee Lauder Companies to distribute various Estee Lauder brands through their stores. More evidence about the change in buyers' habits.