The Lipstick Index

In newsagents today - my Deeply Superficial column in the (sydney) and the (melbourne) magazines:

Peter Costello should really pay more attention to lipstick. Forget inflation, trade deficits, housing figures – the true indicator of where our economy is going is the humble lipstick.

Leonard Lauder, Chairman of the Estée Lauder group, first coined the phrase Leading Lipstick Indicator when he observed that during tough economic times the sale of lipsticks boom. Immediately after 9/11, for instance, the sales of lipsticks doubled, as women sought comfort from an indulgent but inexpensive source. When female consumers face a dismal financial outlook, it has been discovered, they seek something to make them feel better about themselves. And that thing often is lipstick.

Why lipstick? Well, it’s cheaper than an Easton Pearson skirt or a Chloe bag. It has the ability to quickly transform a face – especially a gorgeous, deep slash of red or a swoop of liquid gold. In this orally fixated society there’s something undoubtably sexy about a luscious pout (even for the pouter.) It’s maximum output for minimum outlay. But, more crucially I think, a cylinder of lipstick (more than a wand of gloss) is an icon of the mystic feminine, invested with the collective potency of a century of magazine advertisements and images of sultry Hollywood goddesses. Unfurl that tube and you unlock the vamp within.

In any case, economists now view lipstick sales as a surprisingly reliable indicator that consumer confidence is low. And that is troubling – given the number of new releases of lipsticks recently, clearly the cosmetic companies feel the global economy is about to dive. A considerable amount of effort has been put into developing lipsticks that not only provide new colours, formulas and textures but also new ways of presenting them in clever packaging which often incorporates a useful feature, such as a built-in mirror (YSL’s Lip Twins lip duo with satin and shine options) or even built-in LED lights for those many occasions when you need to apply lipstick in the dark (ModelCo’s Lip Lights Ultra Shine Gloss).

If you have any doubt about the attention cosmetic companies are paying to the little old lippie, check out Chanel’s advertisement for its lipstick Rouge Allure, which has been playing on TV screens and in the cinema for a couple of months. “Le Rouge,” inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 masterpiece Contempt (and borrowing the original music from Georges Delarue), is photographed by fashion great Bettina Rheims and features model Julie Ordon (a blander Brigitte Bardot) romping naked under white sheets with a tube of Rouge Allure (a lippie I love, by the way, because of it’s elegant click-open case.) “Tell me,” she purrs. “I want to know. Do you love my lips?” It’s all rather silly (if you’re going under the covers with something phallic, maybe a lipstick is a bit size-challenged) but girls and guys alike get the drift when our heroine slowly and lasciviously fills in her pout with creamy red: Lipstick equals sex equals big bucks.

Lancome is another company betting on the Lipstick Index. It had phenomenal success with Juicy Tubes and Juicy Gelée when the shiny look took off and now has released the next generation, Colour Fever Gloss, with the innovative Lip-Magnify applicator that is shaped so that it picks up more colour and contours more precisely. It’s not exactly reinventing the wheel, but the brush does deposit the thick, rich gloss on your lips in a way that seems more sensually satisfying than glosses that have a hard tip or a brush. I’m the sort of person who notices these things: you may not. The colours themselves are lovely - rich with pigment and shot through with a beautiful moiré effect.

Of course, it helps to have a big pout to begin with. I’m mad about YSL’s Exfoliating Lip Balm, which gives your lips a stimulating, plumping scrub and tastes like spearmint milkshakes. (Ask him to lick it off.) I also like a bit of S&M for the lips - those products designed to sting your lips swollen, such as Do Wop’s Lip Venom and Stila’s Plumping Lip Glaze (both available at Mecca Cosmetica.)

Lead with your lips!

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