Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America's Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry

Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America's Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry | Mary Lisa Gavenas | Must read for makeup junkies ;)

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Color Stories: Beh...

	Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America's Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry Mary Lisa Gavenas, 2002 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

For everyone who's ever slicked on lipstick, flirted with eye shadow, or browsed the bewildering array in any store's beauty de-partment, Color Stories offers an insider's view of all the brainstorming, bickering, and bitchery that go into those little sticks of color and pans of powder.

Former beauty editor Mary Lisa Gavenas takes us behind the scenes during the nine months that culminate in the launch of a season's all-important "color stories." We discover how one shade becomes the "must have," why makeup artists never use the same products as the rest of us, and exactly how easy -- and impossible -- it is to start a million-dollar makeup line.

Backstage at the runway shows, we're swept into the catty, chaotic work world of makeup mogul Bobbi Brown and supermodel Gisele Bündchen. At Estée Lauder headquarters, we see the achingly chic Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer spin societal trends into a lipstick lineup. We watch magazines cheat to make makeup work for layouts, find out how Cindy Crawford got to be worth every penny of her $10 million contract, and make the pilgrimage to Dallas as 35,000 of the Mary Kay faithful assemble for the fabled annual Seminar. Along the way, we also learn about marketing, media, and the manipulation of aesthetics, about the codification of physical beauty, and how this industry revolutionized the role of women in business.

Through its often funny, sometimes poignant scenes of seduction, courtship, and consummation, Color Stories reveals why women become besotted by beauty products -- and why that love affair will never end.

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F.Y.I

I have yet to actually read this book, but I feel moved to correct to previous reviewers who have. Actually, you are both wrong. Both Neutrogena and Oil of Olay products are still being produced though the latter is now packaged and advertised as simply "Olay".

Must read for makeup junkies ;)

This is a fascinating look inside the makeup industry and is a must-read for a make-up junkie like myself. It documents the process of creating the color story. How it's conceived, marketed, sold, ect. and reveals many interesting insider details about the color stories and the mis-truth's reported by popular beauty magazines. It also goes back in time to the conception of the beauty industry telling the beginnings of the Estee Lauder empire and walks you through a Mary Kay conference (found this pretty amusing). At times the detail becomes repetitive and I did a bit of skimming but overall it was an interesting little read.

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Well researched a written.

This is a fabulous book that's well worth the read. Gives fly-on-the-wall accounts of various elements of the beauty industry. While some of the accounts seem a little exaggerated and reductive, it is a useful tool for those interested in the beauty biz.

The Makeup Industry for Those Who Can't Get Enough

I know many people who are addicted to makeup, and I'd recommend this book to any of them. While it's not earthshattering information by any stretch of the imagination, it's still a fun, easy read. It follows the development of those seasonal color stories we so anxiously await from the initial to conception and how colors are chosen through fashion shows and advertising to the final product at the counters. You learn how the colors for the story are chosen, how magazines list that products used on models aren't really the products used (did any of us doubt this?), and many other behind the scenes tidbits.

The book is an easy, entertaining read. I finished within a couple of evenings. Behind the scenes business material is potentially dry but Gavenas manages to keep it interesting and easy to follow. It would be a great summer poolside read.

For the Neutrogena/Olay questions below...Neutrogena is still making its cosmetics line. Olay discontinued its cosmetics line but is still making skincare.

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Fun and easy to read but that's about it.

Of course, what more do you need in a book? Okay, first off--the disclaimers--I never read fashion magazines (although I have been known to rifle through them at the doctor's office), I don't follow fashions, I am not a cosmetics connoisseur (I only use mascara and eye pencil and I have used the same 2 brands for over 20 years). so why did I even bother to pick up this book? I figured it would give me some idea of how the "other side" lives (i.e. the proudly fashionable, well groomed, perfectly coiffed, put-together women). Well, not really. But I certainly have an idea about how the author feels about such women. No, on second thought I don't. The ambivalent tone of her writing was a bit confusing. Could she speak more contemptuosly of the bored and boring "suburban mom" (no I am not one therefore I am not speaking defensively) in search of a superficial "escape" from her dull and dreary existence? And then later she would sound vaguely sympathetic for these pitiful creatures. Oh never mind--let's just all forget our problems and crises by spritzing ourselves with some fun perfumes and putting on a new face.

Some of the history regarding the pioneers of the cosmetic industry --is interesting. But the narrative regarding the development of one of Estee Lauder's seasonal "color stories was somewhat disjointed and difficult to follow. But maybe it's just me. Maybe I need to start reading Vogue and Glamour. Maybe I need to lighten up and put on some pink lipstick.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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