10:12 PM |
Ok, we've all fallen victim to those special "events" in the cosmetics department. They generally require you to make a large purchase for the "gift" of a really nasty pocketbook or tote filled with tiny little samples. Here are some of the bags I've gotten:
They want you to feel really good that you've gotten the "deluxe" samples. What, you may ask, makes a sample deluxe? If it is perfume, it's large enough to have a teeny-weeny spray top so that you don't have to dribble the few drops that come in the regular sample. A deluxe skin care sample is in a tiny tub or bottle instead of a foil packet that looks like a condiment. Unless it is a really expensive skin cream, in which case the foil packet is the deluxe sample. I guess this stuff just can't be regular at $400 a jar.
I love Khiels, because their gift is always really useful. The bottles are the right size for the Ziploc bag you're allowed to take on board. Plus, they give you so many! And I'd buy anything from Lisa. They once had a special thing where they brought a fabulous gay man in from New York to consult on your look and lifestyle, whatever that is. My BFF always wears stone colored pants, cotton tissue turtlenecks from J. Crew (so that the sweater isn't so itchy) and a heavily pilled cashmere sweater. She has the most gorgeous natural light, light blonde hair with a touch of grey, the pretty kind. She wears it twisted off her neck in a little clip. She sports tortoise shell glasses, and always, always, always a large pearl necklace and clip-on earrings. See, her father subscribed to the gypsies/whores theory also. Anyhow, she's very horsey and the expert remembers her having riding boots on, but we're pretty sure it was a pair of needlepoint shoes. She's really not very glamorous, but he felt that she had the best style of anyone in any Neiman Marcus in the country. He's right.
Back to the samples. If you really get down to it, we all (yes, you know who you are) go home and open the little present that comes in white tissue paper in the hideous bag. It feels like Valentine's Day without the guy, and teenage mall gorging put together. It's a heady experience, yes it is. So, you've opened them all up and kept them in perfect condition in their pretty little packages in your bottom bathroom drawer. Where they stay until they turn rancid.
I have a system for these. I divide them into little baskets by function, like moisturizers, shampoos, body washes, treatments, and so on. And when there are too many to fit, they go into my attic. It's a virtual sample graveyard up there. I figured that I can use these when I travel on very short trips, just throw a couple of samples into a teeny tote. I've done that about twice. I now have over 500 samples (I counted; uh huh, get a life, I know). Should I send them to Sierra Leone? Kenya? The Haitian earthquake victims? Martha's Mobile Home Paradise? Oooh. How about Look Good, Feel Good, the one for bald ladies going through chemotherapy?
Nope, they will live in my attic for posterity, where they will spontaneously reproduce. These will be the prize finds of archaeologists of the future. They'll do chemical analyses on the components to determine which natural ingredients are in them so that they can date the find, even without carbon. They'll want to know what the habitat was like. From which region are the pollen fragments? They will find nothing natural whatsover, and the gift of samples will be the mystery that decades of PhDs will try to solve.
You know, I may actually use some on the road trip. My Imaginary Boyfriend will help me reach the baskets down.
- A bright eggplant mock-croc vinyl shoulder bag
- A pewter woven clutch (also vinyl)
- A furry roll of something in which there was a metallic brocade cylindrical zipper thing (don't ask because I don't know)
- Faux leopard velvet shoulder bag (thank god I didn't get the hot pink one)
They want you to feel really good that you've gotten the "deluxe" samples. What, you may ask, makes a sample deluxe? If it is perfume, it's large enough to have a teeny-weeny spray top so that you don't have to dribble the few drops that come in the regular sample. A deluxe skin care sample is in a tiny tub or bottle instead of a foil packet that looks like a condiment. Unless it is a really expensive skin cream, in which case the foil packet is the deluxe sample. I guess this stuff just can't be regular at $400 a jar.
I love Khiels, because their gift is always really useful. The bottles are the right size for the Ziploc bag you're allowed to take on board. Plus, they give you so many! And I'd buy anything from Lisa. They once had a special thing where they brought a fabulous gay man in from New York to consult on your look and lifestyle, whatever that is. My BFF always wears stone colored pants, cotton tissue turtlenecks from J. Crew (so that the sweater isn't so itchy) and a heavily pilled cashmere sweater. She has the most gorgeous natural light, light blonde hair with a touch of grey, the pretty kind. She wears it twisted off her neck in a little clip. She sports tortoise shell glasses, and always, always, always a large pearl necklace and clip-on earrings. See, her father subscribed to the gypsies/whores theory also. Anyhow, she's very horsey and the expert remembers her having riding boots on, but we're pretty sure it was a pair of needlepoint shoes. She's really not very glamorous, but he felt that she had the best style of anyone in any Neiman Marcus in the country. He's right.
Back to the samples. If you really get down to it, we all (yes, you know who you are) go home and open the little present that comes in white tissue paper in the hideous bag. It feels like Valentine's Day without the guy, and teenage mall gorging put together. It's a heady experience, yes it is. So, you've opened them all up and kept them in perfect condition in their pretty little packages in your bottom bathroom drawer. Where they stay until they turn rancid.
I have a system for these. I divide them into little baskets by function, like moisturizers, shampoos, body washes, treatments, and so on. And when there are too many to fit, they go into my attic. It's a virtual sample graveyard up there. I figured that I can use these when I travel on very short trips, just throw a couple of samples into a teeny tote. I've done that about twice. I now have over 500 samples (I counted; uh huh, get a life, I know). Should I send them to Sierra Leone? Kenya? The Haitian earthquake victims? Martha's Mobile Home Paradise? Oooh. How about Look Good, Feel Good, the one for bald ladies going through chemotherapy?
Nope, they will live in my attic for posterity, where they will spontaneously reproduce. These will be the prize finds of archaeologists of the future. They'll do chemical analyses on the components to determine which natural ingredients are in them so that they can date the find, even without carbon. They'll want to know what the habitat was like. From which region are the pollen fragments? They will find nothing natural whatsover, and the gift of samples will be the mystery that decades of PhDs will try to solve.
You know, I may actually use some on the road trip. My Imaginary Boyfriend will help me reach the baskets down.