Actually, I have an Avon lady in my neighborhood and she drops her catalogues in my mailbox from time to time. They don't look bad, and I think that outside of big metropolitan areas they are still a viable way for a stay at home Mom to make a few bucks. As to Mary Kay, her cosmetics and her cadillacs, I have a strong aversion to the color pink, so I never looked at any of their goop, and I sure wouldn't be caught dead at one of those Mary Kay cosmetic parties (though I've been invited). Friends in the know have told me the stuff tends to be quite pricey. If I'm going to drop some big cash on my own shaky vanity, I think I'll go for the gusto, and choose some Clinique, Sephora, or Estee Lauder products at an upscale department store. (And that kind of frivolous purchase is not happening anytime soon, believe me.)jdb1 wrote:I wonder, Hollis. Those brands, originally sold person-to-person and not in stores, were probably very popular in places where a woman couldn't get "nice" cosmetics because she didn't live near "nice" stores. Not to say that other women in differing circumstances didn't use them as well. But in this day, when every brand calls itself "designer" and is available in every mall and drugstore, I don't think Mary Kay or Avon are what they used to be.Hollis wrote:Evening all,
As a guy, and thereby somewhat detached from the whole makeup frenzy (except for the occasional tube of Clearasil as a young teenager) where do "Mary Kay" and "Avon" fall into the pantheon of women's cosmetics? I'm asking from a purely intellectual standpoint of course! The cross dressing phase was over years ago!
As always,
Hollis
Well, I think that Avon products have kept pace with certain changing tastes, Judith. Some of their stuff is just normal looking, while a few pieces, in particular the casual clothing, seems to come from that school of fashion known as "strumpet-ware" in my family.jdb1 wrote:And, despite their raising their prices to look as though they are "designer" brands, I don't think they have kept pace with the technologies or tastes of today.
I've known and worked with really nice people who really didn't know any better when choosing these fashions, some of them quite nice, just a bit too out there in their fashions--at least for the more conservative businesses. Once there was a girl who was working with me in an insurance office who wore leopard print skirts and fishnet stockings every day. She was bright, hardworking and really a nice kid, but hopelessly undercut her value by her fashion sense. In retrospect, I wish I could have found a nice way to guide her to the tv show, What Not to Wear. But even that show sometimes seems a bit off to my rather conservative taste.
If only we could open those file drawers in our memory when we wanted them, not when it comes unbidden to the surface.jdb1 wrote:And -- an amazing thing. Yesterday, out of the blue while I was doing something completely unrelated, the name that was stamped on the cake of mascara my mother left unused in her bureau popped into my head: it was Faberge. Now I know for sure she didn't buy it for herself -- she never spent more than 69 cents on a cosmetic in her life. But be that as it may, isn't the brain amazing? Somewhere in the depths of my brain a little subconscious filing cabinet was being sorted through, and after days and days, the appropriate factoid was located.