Discontinued Lipstick? Ellen Byron is on the Case!

INGRID THOFT
Today's guest is a renaissance woman of writing.  Ellen Byron wrote for TV, including "Wings" and "Just Shoot Me," has written plays and writing how-to books, and more recently, is the author of the award-winning Cajun Country Mystery series.  She also worked for Martha Stewart in a non-writing capacity!  Is there anything she can't do?  Yes, apparently, there is at least one thing that is stymieing Ellen at the moment.  I'll let her give you the scoop.


ELLEN BYRON: It’s super frustrating when your favorite lipstick color is discontinued. I’ve spent the last year on a fruitless quest to replace a shade Nars stopped making. (Curse you, Nars!) With the launch of my fourth Cajun Country Mystery, MARDI GRAS MURDER and a slate of personal appearances coming up, that quest became urgent.

I recently sold a second mystery series that revolves around a catering hall. My friend Kristen runs Pickwick Gardens, a popular Burbank party venue, so I paid her a visit to do some research. In the middle of asking questions, I noticed her lipstick—and couldn’t take my eyes off it. I finally blurted out, “I love your lipstick. What color is it?” Kristen responded, “It’s called Khlo$ - K-h-l-o-dollar sign.” She paused. “It’s from Kylie Cosmetics.”

I gasped in horror. No exaggeration, I really did. I’m not a fan of reality TV in general and that Kardashian clan, with their first-world problems, body enhancements, and vocal fry  really works my last nerve. Still, there was that lipstick.

When I got home, I fought a losing battle not to check out Kylie’s cosmetic website. “I’m just looking, I’ll never ever buy anything,” I told myself as I typed the address into my search engine. Seconds later, there was Kylie in all her surgically enhanced glory, looking right into my eyes with a Mona Lisa smile, beckoning me to click on “Lips.” Which I did. And let me tell you, whoever designed that website deserves the lion’s share of the gazillions twenty-one-year-old Kylie is raking in. It’s informative, simple, and seductive. 

Did I shop? Oh, I shopped, spending sixty-three bucks on two lipsticks and a Lip Kit. (It comes with a matching lip liner!) I wasn’t proud of myself. I would have been less embarrassed buying dinosaur porn. (Yes, that’s actually a thing. And now half of you will go look it up.)

I became obsessed with the website. I kept clicking on all the pretty pictures. I even watched a ten-minute video of Kylie putting on makeup, which was weirdly mesmerizing. She’s like an American geisha or something, which I hope isn’t insulting to geishas. Or America.
Okay, now to answer the billion-dollar question—because Kylie is like, the world’s youngest billionaire, thanks to people like me spending sixty-three dollars on three lipsticks –how’s her product?

It arrived in an unmarked box. (Which I assume would also be true of dinosaur porn.) And it arrived fast. I ordered on Thursday and had it by Saturday. The box sprang to life when you opened it, with a personal greeting from the gal herself. As to the lipsticks, on a scale of pouty lips, five being the highest, I grudgingly give Kylie three and a half—okay, maybe even four—pouty lips. 

She runs a crack operation, for sure. I loved the texture of the lipstick. The liquid matte lipsticks are so long-lasting I still had the sample swatch on the inside of my arm three days after applying it. (Which is kind of scary, to be honest. It’s more like lip glue than stick). None of the colors replaces the discontinued Nars, although that’s more my problem than Kylie’s. But there are no refunds or exchanges, and that’s a drag.

I’m giving the Khlo$ lipstick to Kristen because it looks better on her than me, and I sent the Nova to my daughter for the same reason. I’ll find a way to put the Ginger Lip Kit to use. But there’s still one question that needs to be answered. I bought Kylie’s lipstick - three of them to be exact. Now how do I get Kylie to buy a copy of MARDI GRAS MURDER?

This post is so timely!  Did you see the news this week that there's a shortage of TAB soda?  What product have you fallen in love with, only to have it disappear?  One lucky reader (in the U.S. only) will get a copy of MARDI GRAS MURDER!

Joan Emerson, you've won a copy of Michael Wiley's MONUMENT ROAD.  Please send your mailing address to ingrid@ingridthoft.com.

MARDI GRAS MURDER
It’s Mardi Gras season on the bayou, which means parades, pageantry, and gumbo galore. But when a flood upends life in the tiny town of Pelican, Louisiana―and deposits a body of a stranger behind the Crozat Plantation B&B―the celebration takes a decidedly dark turn. The citizens of Pelican are ready to Laissez les bon temps rouler―but there’s beaucoup bad blood on hand this Mardi Gras. 

USA Today bestselling author Ellen Byron is a television writer, playwright, and freelance journalist. Her TV credits include Wings, Still Standing, and Just Shoot Me, and her written work has appeared in Glamour, Redbook, and Seventeen, among others. She lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband, their daughter, and the family’s very spoiled rescue dog. A native New Yorker, Ellen still misses her hometown and still drives like a New York Cabbie. This is her third Cajun Country mystery.

ON OBSOLESCENCE

"The Cheshire Cat vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.”

***Lewis Carroll

"You can't always get what you want..."

*** Mick Jagger

HANK:

I read somewhere--I think it was The Economist or, okay, maybe Vogue-- that if your lipstick color is discontinued, vanishes from the shelves, you should consider yourself lucky, because the cosmetics industry is blasting you out of your rut. Because, it went on, no one should wear the same lipstick color for so long that it actually becomes obsolete. That it says more about you than it does about the lipstick.

Well, say what you will, cosmetics people. Say I'm stuck in my ways. Mired.

I say: Got RIO? My dear lipstick color, a wonderful brick red, not too bright, not orangey or bluey, not gunky or transparent, just solid and competent red with a dash of glamour. Why, why, why, Trish McEvoy, did you give it the heave-ho? When it happened, I called the Trish HQ, and ordered all the rest of the tubes that existed. And now I have a refrigerator full of RIO. (I got, um, a few more than I had actually expected, but I did need a lifetime supply. I figure my life can now go to about 2060.)

Anyway, then I heard Elizabeth Arden has discontinued Visible Difference. I haven't used that in years, but I still have a jar of it, and sometimes just take a whiff of the fragrance. And it brings back so many nice memories. We all swore by it in the 70's. And now, EA says, fuggedaboutit.
Some really great fabric softener came out a year or so ago, scented lavender and vanilla. I loved it. And I bought about five bottles of it on one trip to the grocery. My husband stopped in his tracks. Why on earth, he asked, do we need five bottles of fabric softener? Because, I said, I love this, and that means they are going to discontinue it soon.

Are we too set in our ways? Have any of your faves disappeared?

RO:

Some years ago I used to LOVE a Body Shop shampoo - I think it was Cocoanut Oil and they paired it with a Brazil Nut conditioner. Smelled heavenly and it made my hair look and feel fantastic. Went to buy it one day - boom, discontinued. I had them call every Body Shop on the east coast and I bought all of the giant sized bottles that I could get my hands on. I had it for about two years after they discontinued it. Every once in a while I go into a Body Shop to see if they've brought it back. It was the best.

I had a little hissy fit at the Gap last year...wanted another pair of the same style jeans I had bought not 60 days before and I was told they didn't make them anymore - as if I had tried to buy...I don't know..a freaking Edsel.

You were absolutely right to buy the fabric softener. I just bought 3 tubes of Touche Eclat concealer...YSL better not stop making that!Umm, do you think I can get that shampoo online..?

HALLIE:

My all time favorite scent came from a container of Arpege by Lanvin talcum powder. It was tangy and spicy and sexy and I loved it and the last speck of it is long gone. My husband, sweetheart that he is, a bottle of the perfume for me in a vintage perfume store--yes, they do exist. It's close, but it ain't the same.

I've, um, had the same tube of lipstick for years and years and years. On a whim (or maybe it was the two for one sale at Walgreen's) I shopped for a new tube a month or two ago. Remember the olden days, when you could try a lipstick at the Woolworth's counter? And remember how many tries it took to get just the right shade? Now you just have to imagine what will work, and forget trying to return a used tube. So I bought a skinny little tube, a kind of reddish terra cotta. It's okay, and occasionally I use it. But what is this with the tingling when you put it on? Is this supposed to make me feel like I got botoxed?? Or plumped? Minty-fresh lips is not what I crave. Am I imagining this??

ROBERTA:

As you may have noticed, I'm no expert on lipstick. Now if the Burt's Bees company ceases to manufacture lip balm, I will be in serious trouble. I'm an addict and I admit it. I have a tube in the bathroom, kitchen, office, car, purse, many of pants pockets. If I could find a lipstick that didn't make my lips feel like sandpaper, I'd love to look like Hank. (Only shorter and less stylish--well, you know what I mean!)

My other problem has to do with hair products. For 21 years I drove an hour and paid big bucks for a certain hair salon. Finally, I couldn't take it and made the switch to someone nearby with a sink in her basement. But my shampoo, conditioner, and styling goop all come from the previous place. I'm starting to panic as I move to my last bottles. I suppose I'm going to have to make the trip and slink back in disguise to buy up whatever's on their shelves...

HANK:

Hallie, sounds like you got the special so-called lip-plumper stuff? Yeah, I think some lipsticks have flavors, which I don't really understand. Others just have a weird scent, don't they? And tell us what you need, Roberta. The least I can do is go in undercover and get it for you! So how about you, dear JR readers--anything you're hoarding? Or worried about being discontinued? Or have you had your favorite stuff whisked out from under you?