Read an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung a while ago, written by Mrs. Vahabzadeh, about the tremendous amount of lipsticks and other make up products you find everywhere – but always not exactly that lipstick you always prefer – gone from the market… The author’s argumentation is, if women had not been wasting their time for the search for the right lipstick (and in her eyes, the offer is just too enormous), they would have taken over the power over the world long ago.
Left me bewildered. Take over control and power, over the world? To reduce the offer of lipsticks then? To reduce everything? Well, we had that times with reduced products a while ago: “Bananas? Sorry, today potatoes only, but only ten.” Or: “Take that d**** lipstick now, there is no other.” Perhaps the author never had that glorious experience to chose a lipstick out of the great offer you find everywhere… never had a good sales personnel at her side to find the right one… Ah, too sad. I understand that the product lifecycles are sometimes ridiculous short, but:
a lipstick is not only a lipstick anymore, it is a product embedded in a whole range of
other make up products up to other accessories, clothes, hairdos etc.
Personal example: Bought me, in winter, no, not a lipstick, but make up, to cover a bit my
‘not so young anymore’ skin. Perfect service in the shop – the woman softly applied the make up
onto my skin. Result: Perfect look, fine and fresh. Then, went outside into daylight:
Ui, a bit too dark… know what? In the end, 2 days later, I bought a lighter make up too. Marketing?
Well… more a kind of a self made marketing… in order to find the perfect make up combination
for inside and outside. And I was able to forget about the effort of another sales woman
at the first visit, tried to sell me a make up brush for my face. A brush it would have been possible to paint an elephant with.
So, I do not think that if you really love to do something, here, taking your time to find the perfect make up, lipstick or whatever, is a waste of time. Just want to cite an article about a music duo here (the band SDP) who claim for themselves that they are “successful” – in making music – in ‘wasting time’ about music (found the article in the DIE ZEIT special magazine +3, no. 33). OK, this might not be the way of ‘From 9 to 11 music composing, 11 to 12 music performing’, ‘from 1 to 3 money collecting’, etc. pp. Is wasting time really possible? If you are spending your time on something you really love? Good point in this article.
But: The money to make your living has to come from somewhere…
Mrs. Vahabzadeh, by the way, to take over power you need to wear the right lipstick anyway… means, sometimes you have to buy another one compared to the one you used to have
all the time. Cost what it may – even a lot of time.