What’s New in Beauty: June 10, 2005 – Mary Kay, Estee Lauder, reflect.com, Sephora, Maybelline

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Mary Kay vetoes ads on Desparate Housewives – A Christian group successfully lobbies Mary Kay to pull ads for ABC’s Desparate Housewives. May we expect TV ads featuring Nicolette Sheridan (NuGlow), Eva Longoria (signed with L’Oreal), and Teri Hatcher (who has a deal of her own) to pepper Desparate Housewives? Talk about cross-promotion!

Gwyneth Paltrow signs with Estee Lauder – The favorite of celebrity magazines, who named her daughter Apple, has signed a contract to appear in ads for Estee Lauder cosmetics and fragrances. As with the signing of Tom Ford, this appears to be another effort on the part of Estee Lauder Companies to boost sales of its flagship brand as consumer buying trends change.

P&G to close reflect.com – The master marketers (and innovators) at Proctor & Gamble haven’t always been successful when it comes to cosmetics. P&G had a big rollout of Olay color cosmetics in supermarkets, drugstores, and other mass merchandisers, only to discontinue the line a couple of years later. Now comes news that P&G will close reflect.com, the customized cosmetics web site. Last day for order is Monday, June 13, so hurry!

reflect developed a color palette called the California Beauty Kit for Chico’s, the women’s clothing and accessories chain. This warm color palette features matte eyeshadows for day and shimmer eyeshadows for evening, along with a blusher, bronzer, and two lip colors. The price was cut from $55 to $29. While not available through Chico’s web site, you might yet be able to find it in stores.

Sephora announces the winners of its 2005 Best of Sephora vote. 87,000 fans voted. Winners includes Nars blush in Orgasm, DuWop Lip Venom, Stila Lip Glaze, and more. Go to Sephora.com to shop the winners.

Maybelline goes upscale with signing of Kevyn Aucoin protege – I still have a problem calling Maybelline “Maybelline New York,” as its corporate parent L’Oreal would have us call it. No doubt it has to do with the fact that I remember Maybelline as a child putzing around Kresge’s dime store (and the reference to Kresge’s alone betrays my age!), but the name “Maybelline” also conjures up Chuck Berry’s song of the same name and Mother Maybelline Carter of country music’s pioneering Carter Family – not exactly the image of urban sophistication that L’Oreal would like to convey. Still Volum’Express is my favorite mascara and I like its Dream Mousse Matte Foundation.

In another effort to go upscale, Maybelline has signed Troy Surratt, protege of the late, great makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin, as its star makeup artist and has already rolled out a new ad campaign featuring him. Previously, Surratt succeeded his mentor as beauty advisor at Beauty.com.

Turmeric, to fight cancer?

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In January 2005, I posted on how research sponsored by the Kingdom of Thailand is looking into uses of turmeric as a cosmetic ingredient. Turmeric is the spice that gives curry its yellow color.

Now comes news that turmeric might control the growth of cancer cells:

“Tests in mice showed that curcumin, an active compound found in turmeric, helped stop the spread of breast cancer tumor cells to the lungs.

Tests have already started in people, too, said Bharat Aggarwal of the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who led the study.”

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

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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.

The Candy Blog: Altoids Bling!

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Forwarded to The Style Page by The Candy Blog (who would have thought?):

“Hiya,

There’s an entry on my blog about an unusual outlet for fashion: The
Altoids Tin.

New York artist Tobias Wong designs fashionable, custom-made Altoids
tins for the stars, and now apparently the company is offering 3 of the
“Curiously Noir” tins to the public in a contest.

They’re all-black with gold chain, and a diamond-accented “Curiously.”

Pictures are on my blog and the Altoids website. Surprisingly not
tacky.”

PS You must register with altoids.com to enter the contest

Introducing FYLO Cosmetics

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FYLO (For Your Lips Only) Cosmetics is a new cosmetics line based in my hometown of Saint Louis, Missouri. It features “lip cubicles” that you can fill with your choice of “lip cubes” containing lip color, lip gloss, or lip treatment. You may select from 28 different lip colors, 12 lip glosses, 12 mini lip pencils, and a lip treatment. Colors, glosses, and lip treatment are all formulated with essential oils.


The regular sized cubicle (shown here in the “Flowers” design) may be filled with four lip cubes and two lip pencils.


The Urban Cowgirl mini cubicle may be filled with two lip cubes of your selction.

The box of FYLO products that I received was stamped “Confidential” and “For Your Lips Only.” The cubicles came wrapped in little organza drawstring bags. The cubicle and interchangeable cube concept is a new and modular approach to customizing one’s lip palette. Cubes are gently pushed into the cubicle; the cubes may be removed by popping them out with the end of the mini lip brush that comes with the cubicle. I’m wearing the Fantasia lip gloss (lavender shade, with lavender essential oil) as I write this, and I find that it’s very emollient, but not slick in its feel.

Lip cubes are $8 apiece, lip pencils are $7 apiece, the regular size cubicle is $14, and the mini cubicle is $10. A portion of profits go to organizations serving children. You may check out the full range of products via FYLO’s web site at www.fylocosmetics.com.

FYLO is now listed on our Cosmetics page.

A Mary Kay beauty consultant questions my comments on the Webby awards site

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The Style Page received this email from a Mary Kay beauty consultant concerning the comments on Jouer Cosmetics’s web site that I entered on the Webby Awards web site:

“I saw your comment on your webby nomination. Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you say those exact same things about the Mary Kay site? Did you check it out and compare? You should. Thanks.”

To which I wrote back:

“I am very impressed by the interactive makeover tools that the Mary Kay company provides to its beauty advisors.

I voted for the Jouer Cosmetics site, as its side-by-side makeovers for women of different complexions demonstrate Jouer’s claim that its colors work for all women. I also use Jouer Cosmetics – I like the product and both the concept and execution of its customizable palette. For more, please visit my blog entry, April 2005: What’s New in Beauty – Webby nominees for Beauty sites announced.”

Direct sales is not my favorite way of purchasing cosmetics or any other products, for that matter. The Style Page lists only the corporate site for direct sales companies such as Mary Kay and Avon, and will not list web site for individual sales consultants.

April 2005: What’s New in Beauty – Vivid Girl, Goldie, Tom Ford, Marionnaud, The Style Page

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Vivid Entertainment Group, the X-rated film company, has signed a licensing agreement with the WII Group and X-Girl Cosmetics to market a line of Vivid Girl cosmetics. To learn more, read the press release Vivid Signs With The WII Group for a Collection of Vivid Girl Cosmetics.

Dineh Mohajer, founder of Hard Candy cosmetics, has a new cosmetics line called Goldie, which has rolled out at Bath & Body Works stores nationwide. She’s teamed with Jeanne Chavez, whom she met after selling Hard Candy to luxury goods purveyor LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. I couldn’t find out anything about Goldie through the Bath & Body Works site or through the website of B&BW’s parent Limited Brands. The best source I could find was this cached article B&BW’s Golden Opportunity from WWD.com (Women’s Wear Daily).

Tom Ford, the designer who famously revitalized Gucci and left the Gucci Group a year ago, is entering into a partnership with the Estee Lauder Companies to update products of its flagship brand Estee Lauder and boost flagging sales. For more, see Estée Lauder inks deal with newly-formed fashion house.

Marionnaud is a chain of fragrance and cosmetics stores in Europe, primarily in France, but I also spotted one in Switzerland. The EU has cleared the way for A.S. Watson, part of the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchinson Whampoa, to purchase Marionnaud. A.S. Watson owns a number of drugstore chains in Europe and Asia.

Oh, and finally, the Beauty pages of The Style Page have been updated and redesigned. Over twenty brands have been added to the Cosmetics page and twenty brands of products have been added to the Fragrance page – check them out!

April 2005: What’s New in Beauty – Webby nominees for Beauty sites announced

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The Cosmetic Site published an article Webby nominees for Beauty & Cosmetics listed. The Webby Awards recognizes the best in websites. This is the first year that beauty and cosmetic businesses can compete for the Webby awards. Among the nominees is the web site for Jouer Cosmetics. Jouer states that its colors work for all women, and to prove its claim, the web site features an interactive makeover with four women: a blonde, a Hispanic, an Asian, and a woman of African descent.


Jouer’s interactive makeover

The Jouer Cosmetics website certainly deserves its Webby award nomination. The Style Page reviewed Jouer’s products in its December 12, 2004 entry on this web log. Since that review, I’ve come to appreciate that I can apply Jouer’s products on the run: a tiny mirror is included in the container and no implements are needed – just use your fingers. Right now, I’m wanting Jouer’s Velvet (charcoal gray with shimmer) and Peridot (soft shimmering olive) cream eyeshadows.

April 2005: What’s New in Beauty – Boots No 7

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Boots puts £5m to promote No 7 range overhaul – Boots is the UK’s major drugstore chain and is everywhere as pervasive in the UK as Walgreen’s and CVS are in the US. Boots has even established stores overseas (I spotted Boots in Bangkok). Lucky magazine’s editor-in-chief, Kim France, is quoted as saying “I could find an excuse to go into this drugstore every day” in the article on shopping in London from the April 2005 issue of Lucky. I putzed around at Boots everyday while I was in London and Oxford – it’s probably the novelty of seeing products you don’t find in the US. The referenced article is about Boots’s overhaul of its No7 cosmetics line, which is marking its 70th anniversary.

Bloglines now offering package tracking via RSS

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In the 2005-03-18 entry Now Why Didn’t You Think Of That? Tracking Packages with RSS, I pointed to an article on xml.com that provided an implementation for tracking packages with RSS news feeds. Now Bloglines has enabled subscribers to track packages via RSS. Currently, the service is available for packages sent via UPS, FedEx, or the U.S. Postal Service.

Mail order catalogues and web sites are currently holding sales on spring clothes. Now is the right time to take advantage of the RSS services offered through Bloglines!