Editor's Letter.(Editorial)

Letter from the Editor: October '07

Unfaithfully Yours

The owner of a cosmetics company once asked me, over lunch at the Four Seasons, to empty my handbag onto the table. I refused, no more wanting to expose the guts of my purse than to strip down and wade into the restaurant's pool. I don't empty my handbag for anyone. It's a tangle of sunglasses, lipsticks, receipts, loose change, stray mints, and packets of vitamins. No one should have to see that. The cosmetics mogul didn't care about my disorderly bag; he wanted to prove a point about makeup. "I bet you've never used up a single product," he said. "No one does anymore. I just want to see your blush," he said, and, blushing, I complied. I handed over a compact; it wasn't one of his brands. The center of the powder was worn down to the metal case, the mini brush long gone. The case was covered in scratches. My wrecked and beloved blush ruined the cosmetics executive's theory: that women are so fickle, they buy new products long before finishing their old ones. Brand loyalty, he said, was an ancient, outmoded concept -- and that behavioral shift was making a muddle of his business. It's true that most women no ...