Is This the End of the Lipstick Index?
Coined by the chairman of Estée Lauder, Leonard Lauder, the "Lipstick Index" is a phrase that has come to represent the (perceived or real) buying power of women in times of economic strife. The concept is simple: when the economy is shrinking, women divert their purchasing power towards smaller, less pricey items to get their luxury fix. Case in point: lipstick.
There has always been a comfort in the ritual of slicking on a lipstick before you leave the house. It's the final step before one faces the world with the help of a punch of bright poppy or a rich burgundy, each lipstick bullet a treasure that you carry along with you through your daily business. So it's really no surprise that perfectly shaped tubes of creamy, pigmented goodness are what people have reached for in trying times past.
In recent years, however, lipstick has become more ubiquitous, with the comeback of ultra-pigmented, matte formulations—whether in liquid or traditional bullet form—and the resurgence in popularity of lip gloss after its dramatic fall from grace in the middle of the first decade of the 21st century.
If you reduced the last five years of beauty trends to a single hero product, it would be lipstick (with highlighter as a close second). But with the current economic situation and the necessity of lip-obscuring safety precautions in the midst of a global pandemic, will the famed lipstick index still stand?
It's entirely possible, given the everyday ubiquity of masks that cover the nose and mouth, that the trend will move to enhancing the eyes instead. If your pout must be covered in public, what better way to still treat yourself to a little daily luxury than to embellish those poetic windows to the soul?
We're certainly all wishing we'd payed more attention when Tyra Banks taught us all to smize, but if smiling with your eyes isn't in your repertoire, maybe a palette of shimmering pressed powder or a perfectly winged liner is the indulgence you need.
In these new and indeed trying (terrifying, unpredictable) times, why shouldn't the luxury and ritual of primping as a gesture of self-kindness be shifted towards the eyes—perhaps with a swath of glossifying, thickening, ultra-black mascara that makes your eyelashes more battable than ever before. Or maybe an experimentation with colored eyeliners, to enhance the hue of your iris as it catches the natural light.
Maybe, these new beautifying regimes will go hand-in-hand with mask color schemes, and sultry smokey eyes that match your PPE will become the new beauty practice of the age.
Sure, the occasions for a striking vampy pout may be limited for the foreseeable future, but social nearness and blending some rich kohl pencil into your lashline certainly aren't mutually exclusive. 2020 may just be the year that the lipstick index becomes the mascara index.
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