Honest Babes

Ooh, what do we have here? A display for the limited edition Midnight Muse collection from L'Oreal!

I found this last Thursday at the Harmon inside my local Bed Bath and Beyond store.  It has two of each lipstick, maybe one of each gloss, and one of each nail polish color.  I picked up Femme Noir (416) and Luminescence (314.)  The dark color second from your left was Dark Sky, and I think it's a dark indigo crème, if memory serves.  The next color was a mauve pink, or something equally boring and non-vampy, so I didn't even pay attention to it.  I do wonder if these are repromotes, since the numbers aren't consecutive. And of course I wonder if these are colors that were previously Essies, too. But who cares- THESE COLORS ARE HOT!!!  In my humble opinion, of course. Would you like to judge for yourself?

So I left on a trip in the middle of April, but I had some posts already prepared. I got back, had three days at home and then I left again. I was too lazy to blog, even with pictures already taken. Then I came home and got all nest-y and didn't blog... and now I'm headed out to the beach for the day in less than seven hours. But! I have a burning desire to blog! So I'm gonna get it all out now!

So OPI is suing some of the etailers.  Guess those etailers weren't actual OPI distributors.  If you've ever bought a bottle of OPI and there were scratches in an area around the top of the bottle, that means it may have been diverted product.  The place you bought your polish from may not have been an official OPI seller.  If the serial numbers are scratched off, no one can tell where the bottle came from.

Another issue with buying from etailers- distribution.  OPI has different distributor areas throughout the US.  When I buy from an etailer, I bypass the distributor in my area.  That distributor loses income they could have made on my purchase of OPI, whether from them, or from a salon that bought from them and then I buy from the salon.  OPI doesn't think they need people to sell their polish.  It sells itself, which, to be honest, is true.  People on average tend to have brand loyalty.  I'm not going to stop buying OPI because of all of this.  Buying three bottles at a discount is practically the same discount I get when I take advantage of Ulta's "buy two, get one free" sale.  It'll still be possible to get OPI at a good price, but it won't be on demand.

Some of the above is rumor and opinion on my part, so please take it all with a grain of salt.

Essie news from Women's Wear Daily and Lucky via The Cut and Jezebel:

Barely a week after a glowing item in Women's Wear Daily touted Essie cosmetics' flush financials, and mentioned founder Essie Weingarten's coy unwillingness to just sell to any old Tom, Dick or Harry capitalist sniffing around, comes the news that Essie is sold to L'Oréal. Weingarten and her husband and C.E.O., Max Sartino, have both signed multi-year contracts with the new parent company. Plans are to expand the line overseas, and domestically, via L'Oréal's superior distribution networks. We only ask that they never change the names. [WWD]

L’Oréal USA bought Essie Cosmetics, the nail-polish brand based in Astoria founded by Essie Weingarten. A purchase price was not disclosed, but Weingarten said that Essie generates $150 million in annual sales. [WWD]

Essie has teamed up with J.Crew to release two new nail polishes, a dusty pink and an opaque orange-red. The spring shades are available in J.Crew stores starting this week, and sell for $8. [Lucky Right Now/Lucky] (Super opaque Essies?!  Don't faint, ladies! )

And finally, your reward for sitting through all of that:Two pictures! Yay??