Great Fashions
of the Forties
This fashion
show--featuring vintage ensembles and "renovated" fashions
by local artists, hors d'oeuvres, wine and door prizes--is
a fund-raiser for the renovation of the Maryhill Museum
of Art.
Embassy Suites
Hotel, Queen Marie Ballroom, 319 SW Pine St., (509) 773-3733.
7 pm Thursday, July 20. $35 advance, $50 at the door.
Is the broad array of beauty booty at local drug and department
stores just not enough to meet your personal needs? Do you
feel unfulfilled after sudsing your tresses with a favorite
Aveda shampoo? Has Revlon somehow overlooked your perfect
shade of red in its countless formulations?
I didn't think so.
But household goods behemoth Proctor & Gamble is banking
on the notion that women do, indeed, want something more--specifically,
custom-tailored beauty products from reflect.com, an Internet
offshoot P&G launched last September. According to a
July 10 article in the business section of The New
York Times, the company is sinking $3 million to $5
million into an ad campaign promoting reflect.com for the
third quarter.
Considering that online skin care and cosmetics retailers
such as Beauty.com (not to mention "e-tailers" in general)
are disappearing faster than a fresh coat of mascara in
a downpour, P&G's confidence is befuddling. But, as
company mouthpieces assured Times reporter Stuart
Elliott, reflect.com has something unique--and potentially
profitable--to offer women shoppers.
Are you sitting down? Get this: Customers can have hair
care, skin care and cosmetics custom-formulated based on
their answers to questions posted on the website. Then,
products are shipped (free of charge) to shoppers' homes,
complete with personalized labels (i.e., "Tina's shampoo").
Apparently, the site's "whimsical" illustrations and cutesy
messages (like "Active ingredient: You") are projected to
score points with beauty mavens, too.
Don't get me wrong--I like to slather a rich cream cleanser
onto my face at the end of the day. I appreciate nice lip
gloss. And I've spent plenty of time hovering over the MAC
counter at Nordstrom. But this whole reflect.com gimmick
strikes me as absurd. Who wants to buy products they can't
try on first? Even if having my name on a bottle of toner
were, for some unimaginable reason, important to my identity,
I'd make my own label before I'd pay someone to do it for
me in the guise of "personalized service."
Eventually, I
got to enter my name (I chose "Asshole"), which soon appeared
on a virtual foundation bottle label ("Asshole's foundation").
Despite my irritation with this whole concept, the investigative
urge got the best of me. I visited the site.
The main page features a picture of a naked woman with
an image of a giant flower superimposed on her back (note
to marketing directors: ads that associate women with flowers
are notoriously off the mark). I plowed through tedious
introductory messages (whimsical illustrations take a helluva
long time to download), meanwhile learning that I could
use this revolutionary service to "while away the hours"
dreaming up a wish list of every beauty product imaginable.
Just what every busy woman needs!
Eventually, I got to enter my name (I chose "Asshole"),
which soon appeared on a virtual foundation bottle label
("Asshole's foundation"). That's where the fun ended. The
registration page was cumbersome, and when I finally got
to the questionnaire and clicked on my answer to the first
question about wardrobe choices, absolutely nothing happened.
I had hit a roadblock (after having trouble even getting
this far on the site earlier in the day), with nowhere to
turn for help. Twenty minutes into my customized shopping
adventure, I was stymied.
In the time it took to get this far on the site, I could
have walked to Fred Meyer and chosen from myriad brands
of tried-and-true beauty products, or driven to Escential
Lotions & Oils to have a moisturizer mixed with my favorite
essential oils with the help of a friendly, knowledgeable
humanoid. Hell, I could have mixed my own potion from the
contents of my medicine cabinet in the time that it would,
theoretically, take to order--let alone receive--the goddamn
goods here. I signed off, vowing never to return.
Reflecting on my reflect.com misadventure, I'm convinced
that P&G should stick to peddling impersonal yet beloved
products like Oil of Olay and Pantene Pro-V. Or at least
that company strategists should spend less time in marketing
meetings and more time observing how women actually shop.
My experience at the site was hardly "interactive," and
it was far from "personal." The lo-tech "computer" consultations
at Clinique counters that were available more than a decade
ago were far more helpful than this newfangled bull. For
now, I'll stick to interacting with real live people who
will answer my questions and help me choose products
when I seek their help (you know, it's called personal service).
Or maybe I'll coat the inside of my wrist in 10 red lipsticks
at the Revlon display and buy one on the spot without anyone's
help at all. Now that's user-friendly.
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