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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ANTWhinger

It has taken me a couple of days to digest the momentous event which was the live telecast of the final of Australia's Next Top Model. I have, I admit, been following this avidly. (Missed a few episodes while in LA/NY and had to satisfy myself with watching America's Next Top Model in Australia instead.) But the final was a grubby experience, from the abysmal production values to the appalling manners of some of the hosts and contestants. When the host sets the tone by sulking, weeping and talking over the top of everyone else, then it sets an unfortunate standard for the teenage girls (contestants and viewers) who admire her.

Steph H, the runner-up, was devastated by her loss - and why not? Three of the judges spent a good part of the series drooling over her and building up her ego to the point where she truly thought she was another Kate Moss and had the prize in the bag. She quite possibly has a future as a Portmans model but the harsh realities of the fashion industry were clearly demonstrated by the fact that the four judges with real fashion cred voted for the eventual winner, Alice Burdeu. Somehow Steph, many of the other contestants and all the fans of the pretty sixteen year-old were encouraged to see Alice's height and slenderness as "unfair" and get upset about it, when, earth to Jodhi Meares, unfair is the status quo out there in the world. What's worse, I think Steph became a bit of a pawn in the ego contest between certain judges.

By the end of the show, the contestants seemed to have a misguided idea that personality was all that counted in the model biz. I particularly loved Alex Perry's astute comment when everyone was banging on negatively about Alice's reserved nature that confidence is not always expressed by being loud, bitchy and common. That's not something the show's producers want to hear. But I wonder, when all the face powder has drifted to the ground and the high-heeled shoes have been retired for another season, whether the young girls who were encouraged to be loud, bitchy and common on national television will have some serious regrets.

Next season - the witty and human Charlotte Dawson for host, please. (Although she apparently is to have her own show.) The viewers shouldn't vote. (It's not a popularity contest.) And let's not "punish" models who don't win challenges by making them do housework and other chores. The first time I heard the intelligent and sensitive Alice whinge about it I thought, now there's a top model!

1.14 million paper bags used every hour

This is not a photo of my murky brain matter but a reduction of Seattle artist Chris Jordan's large-scale photograph of the 426,000 cell phones that are retired in the US each day. Go here to see more of the exhibition, Running the Numbers: an American Self-portrait, at New York's Von Lintel Gallery from June 14.

The Zorro in me

The following is the text of this month's Deeply Superficial column in the (sydney) and the (melbourne) magazines:

I’m not quite sure why, but I just love face masks. Maybe it’s the Zorro in me, but there’s something deeply satisfying – and deeply cleansing – about a cup of tea, a good lie down and a layer of mud on your face. I remember a particular favourite from my teenage years. I’m not sure what beauty company produced it – Coty? Revlon? – but it was a thick mud from a tube that came in three or four dazzling metallic shades. I had a molten silver one; my sister preferred metallic blue. I looked like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz and I still remember that when it dried it cracked unattractively – but, gosh, it was fun.

These days, face masks are so technologically superior that they can virtually make the cup of tea themselves. They can infuse your skin with your vitamins; they can balance, calm, revitalise, moisturise, hydrate, firm, lift, clarify, brighten, energise, exfoliate and write your master’s thesis for you. But they also loads more fun – more fun even than the silver robot mask of my teens. The fun quotient improved dramatically with the advent of cloth masks like SK-II’s Facial Treatment Mask and Whitening Source Intensive Mask, Clinique’s Moisture Surge Facial Sheet Mask, Skinvitals G-Energized and C-Brighten masks and ModelCo’s Face Lift Hydrating Face& Neck Mask. What I like most is unravelling the face-shaped cloth cutout and lying down for twenty minutes with it pressed to my skin like a mummy in a shroud. These kinds of masks are also great for scaring the cats. Or Halloween.

Recently, cloth masks have begun to appear in two-zone versions, with separate pieces to account for the different needs of for the eye area and the lower face. I’ve had two sessions with La Mer’s The Radiant Facial, which consists of a primer and a two-zone mask infused with white algae to counteract dullness and hyper pigmentation, and I’ve found the results excellent, particularly for mature skins. This is the ne plus ultra of cloth masks at $720 for a pack of eight treatments.

I’m having lots of fun with foam masks, too. A couple to try are Babor’s effervescent High Skin Refining Lifting Foam Mask, which goes on like shaving cream and then dissolves, or La Prairie’s Cellular Balancing Mask, a two-part treatment which is mixed in a bowl and applied with a brush. Then there are the exfoliating masks that give you a rather naughty tingle, such as Dr. Sebagh’s Deep Exfoliating Mask with azelaic acid, or Yves Saint Laurent’s Lisse Expert Esthetic Peeling Mask, which is a pink emulsion with exfoliating spheres which is left to sit on the skin for five minutes before being massaged in and washed off.

Aromatic masks that give your head some clarity as well as your skin include La Prairie’s juniper, orange and lemon Masque Cellulaire Energisante. If you’re into efficiency, take SK-II’s Skin Rebooster or Ultraceuticals Ultra C Treatment Cream into the shower and leave on while your face steams. And if you love good old deep-cleansing clay masks, try SkinCeuticals Clarifying Clay Masque or Aesop’s heavenly Parsley Seed Cleansing Masque.

But don’t do what I have done on more than one occasion – forget you have a mask on and answer the front door.