Would You Risk Your Life For A Lip Gloss?

by Nicole Kaldes | 9:56 am, June 10th, 2010

Would you risk your life for a lip gloss? Of course not, right? Well…for a Chanel lip gloss? That’s right: Chanel cosmetics are so hot that a woman featured in this week’s New York Times wondered whether she should grab the Chanel lip gloss she dropped by jumping onto the Spring Street subway tracks.

“Should I have jumped to retrieve it myself? Should I have known better than to wait? Or to have waited so long?,” muses author Jennifer Freed in the daily’s Metropolitan Diary column, which features quirky only-in-New York style anecdotes written by resident readers.

Freed waited for what seems like a rather long time to see if subway workers might salvage the gloss for her – but I’m more curious how she was going to clean the gloss after it lay to rest in the rat-infested filth that is the subway track bottom. To find out if the tale has a happy ending, you’ll have to read for yourself…

Given the mania that Peter Phillips, the brand’s creative director for cosmetics, creates around his iconic Chanel Le Vernis nail polishes, I’m not 100% surprised by this story. Remember the black polish fever the brand created with Vamp and Black Satin? He literally doesn’t miss: Jade, last fall’s polish star that was a key part of Karl Lagerfield’s runway collection, and this season’s equally-unattainable Nouvelle Vague also sold out immediately.

For the record, Jade was fetching around $150 on eBay, while Nouvelle Vague – so far – is averaging only $40, a “bargain” by comparison. For nail polish.

If you can get your hands on Nouvelle Vague, I suggest paying tribute to the New Wave by pairing it with one of Rodarte’s limited edition “Breathless” tees, on sale this week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Godard’s legendary film.

[via New York Times]

Nicole Kaldes, whose beauty expertise comes from both sides of the aisle, has been working in the industry for the past eight years — both as an in-house and agency PR for brands such as Aveda, P&G Professional Hair Care, and as a beauty correspondent for WWD in Milan. Prior to her two years living in Milan as a journalist, she began her career as an arts & entertainment editor/reporter for Community Newspaper Company in Boston. She currently lives in Brooklyn, and can often be found trolling independent and vintage shops, writing the blog for online resale boutique Covet Shop, museum-hopping with her husband or drinking beer in the park. Oh, and the beauty products she simply cannot live without are her Mason Pearson hairbrush, L’Occitane Purifying Deodorant, or Aveda Volumizing Tonic (in the cool brown bottle). Follow Nicole here on Twitter.