The triumph of marketing over all else

Here are a couple of products that represent the triumph of marketing over anything else:


Stila Smoky Eyes Palette

This $40 compact embeds a one-minute recording explaining how to create the smoky eye look - with named Stila brushes. In other words, you're paying $40 for advertising, the same reason I find logo tees so stupid.


Cargo Daily Gloss

Cargo Daily Gloss is an example of making money from a product that had previously been given away free - Mary Kay and Merle Norman provided blister packs as a hygeinic means for customers to test lip colors. Similarly, CARGO's ColorCards™, upon which eyeshadow color has been embossed, is yet another means of commercializing what had been given away for free.

Introducing 29 Cosmetics

Winter Collection from 29 Cosmetics

I spoke by phone with Lydia Mondavi of 29 Cosmetics while she was on the floor of Neiman Marcus in San Francisco for the promotional launch of 29 Cosmetics, her new color line formulated with grape seed extract (“29” refers to Route 29 in Napa Valley, the premier wine country in the U.S.). The line only debuted at Neiman Marcus on February 16.

Lydia is originally from Atlanta and is a fifth-generation Atlantan. She developed skin care lines for spas all around the world. The spas were interested in color cosmetics with benefits for the skin.

Lydia met Robert Mondavi, a scion of the Mondavi wine-making family, through a grade school friend who is now a chef in Napa. Lydia and Robert married soon after, and now have been married for five years.

Robert is the vintner for both Spellbound and Medusa wineries. While Spellbound specializes in wines at $15 a bottle (the Petite Sirah is their flagship brand, the first of its kind in Napa Valley), Medusa is a boutique label with wines at $38 a bottle.

All products in the 29 Cosmetics color line are formulated with grape seed extract. Grape seed extract is a powerful anti-oxidant, and as Lydia noted, is a by-product of the wine-making process.

29 Cosmetics will expand into skin care. This raised the inevitable question about competition with Caudalie, the skin care line in which the products are formulated with grape extract. Lydia said that the people who run Caudalie are dear friends, and 29 Cosmetics’ skin care products would not compete directly with Caudalie’s skin care range.

Check out the sophisticated shades of 29 Cosmetics at its website www.29cosmetics.com. Names for the product colors and palettes were inspired by wine and areas in and around Napa Valley. Special products include lip treatments (see photo above) and Napa Mist. All products are formulated, manufactured and packaged in Milan, Italy.

You may buy 29 Cosmetics on its web site, or at 29 Color on Neiman Marcus’s web site, beginning February 20. 29 Cosmetics is exclusive to Neiman Marcus, and will be rolled out in NM stores in LA, Chicago, Palm Springs, Atlanta, and Las Vegas this spring. It might eventually come to Washington, DC (where I live!) and King of Prussia, PA.

Catch-up from The Style Page

I have had a busy time since Christmas. We visited my folks for Christmas, and then we went to India to visit with my in-laws. I shopped while in India, and stocked up on kurtas and bedding and pillow covers. Our departure was delayed by three days because my husband got sick the day we were supposed to leave. Once we got back home, I had less than 24 hours to get ready for my departure for school. Since that time, I've rescoped my research paper.

I've collected a lot of new cosmetics links since I last updated the popular Cosmetics page on The Style Page web site. You can guess that I haven't had much time to update the page, so I've added a badge on the Cosmetics page to show the new links.

Here's some news from my friends:

• Jackie Cawthra informed me that the Belen Echandia web site has been re-designed. She's really pleased with the new design. In addition, she's studying psychology, and remarks, "It is great to have some intellectual work as well as the creative and business things I do."

• Sharon Bolton told me that Sharon Bolton Scents has a new Web site address: http://www.sharonboltonscents.com.
  

Australian Beauty

After our articles on Asian beauty and Canadian Beauty, here's an article from The Age (Australia) about Australian niche beauty brands, including Aesop, Bloom, Natio, Mecca Cosmetica, Li'Tya, Mor, Glamourflage, and Red Tea Natural Skin Therapy:

Lifting the lidThere's a lot more to make-up than meets the eye, writes Melinda Houston.

The article also mentions that Poppy King, who had the eponymous lip color line Poppy and later joined Prescriptives, has a new venture Lipstick Queen.

And let's not forget about Becca, Sue Devitt Studio, and Di Kennedy Studio Colour! Are there any that I missed?

Best wishes for the Holidays

Dear friends,

I will be leaving for St. Louis tomorrow to be with my parents for Christmas. After that, my husband and I will be traveling to India, where we will welcome the New Year (thanks to the multiplicity of calendars in India, there are several New Years, and more opportunities to create or renew New Year resolutions :-)

All this activity will leave me precious little time to blog. To everyone who stops by and visits The Style Page, best wishes for holidays and for a happy, prosperous, and peaceful New Year!

Julie

Christmas Music

Music to uplift the spirit at Christmastime

See more of my Christmas Music list at ThisNext.

Trade not Aid

These gifts give twice - to the person to whom you're giving the gift and to the people in developing countries that make these items.

See more of my Trade not Aid list at ThisNext.

Ojon Restorative Hair Treatment

Ojon says that its Restorative Hair Treatment can be used leave-in conditioner, shine enhancer, and moisturizer. I like to use to get rid of flyaways and to groom my eyebrows (I then apply a dark eyeshadow like Sonia Kashuk's eyeshadow in Night or ModelCo ColourBox Eye Shadow Ibiza 13 on my brows).

You can feel good about using Ojon, because Ojon has created thousands of jobs for indigenous people who harvest palm nut oil from the Ojon tree, which grows only in Central America. As it's made of palm oil (one of nature's most saturated oils), it congeals. The fragrance reminds me of pipe tobacco, but I happen to like it.

You can find Ojon Restorative Hair Treatment 5 oz at Sephora.

News from The Style Page

I hope that everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday. My husband and I flew to St. Louis to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. We had a wonderful time, but it was also poignant, as my mother (and my father, as an unwilling companion) visited with the marketing director of a senior living center in the St. Louis area. For them, moving to a senior living center is an admission that they are no longer able to live independently.

The first semester of my doctoral program will be over by December 9. I'm already struggling with my dissertation topic - more about this some other time. I'm indebted to ThisNext to provide fresh content for this blog, as my studies leave me precious little time to blog. Now ThisNext enables me to blog directly from my shopcasts; in fact, my Holiday Gift Guide 2006 post was created with ThisNext's BlogIt! utility.

I've also upgraded to Blogger beta, which enables me to add labels without having to go through the cumbersome process of using a widget to generate code for inclusion in my post. This allows you, the reader, to select a label and view all posts with a particular label. Look for labels at the end of a post. Another change I've made is adding a "badge" for del.icio.us under the "Subscribe" heading in the left-hand navigation bar.

I hope that you like these enhancements, and be sure to share your comments with me!

Holiday gift guide 2006

Gifts for the beauty fanatic on your list

See more of my Holiday gift guide 2006 list at ThisNext.