In the beauty industry, when economic hardship strikes, lipstick has always been the one consumer product we can count on to keep our sales afloat. No matter the economic climate, lipstick has long held the title of "staple," that is until now. Imagine my surprise to learn today that in 2009, it was nail polish that in fact trumped lipstick as every woman's must-have beauty product and from the looks of all of the beauty PR we've been getting for butter LONDON, I suppose it clearly makes perfect sense now.
Reflecting back over the past year, I took a good look at which products I had more of among my beauty supplies. And wouldn't you know it, indeed, it was nail polish. Wondering how this crept up on us, I decided to ask Kelly Keeton, the nail polish blogger behind Vampy Varnish for her opinion:
"I think nail polish has surpassed lipstick because there are so many new amazing brands, color choices, finishes and price points out there. It's also incredibly accessible to get online at reputable discount e-tailers than before. Secondly, you don't often see women wearing green or blue lipstick, but you will see them wearing it in nail polish. I think it's more accepted now to wear "crazy" colors on your fingertips. Plus you can get some really awesome polish for $2 from certain brands and you don't find that with lipstick most of the time.
There definitely are many new brands like BB Couture, Diamond Cosmetics and Duri emerging. I think a lot of these smaller companies understand that there are a lot of women out there who don't necessarily want the basic reds, pinks and nudes that have already been done. They want something edgier that they haven't seen before. Even the larger named companies like Essie and OPI have jumped on this bandwagon, so to speak, and have released more exciting collections recently."
What do you think? Will lipstick eventually come back as our recession beauty staple or will nail polish continue to hold the title well past 2010?
*Disclosure: Beauty PR client
