Jack & Hill: A Beauty Blog - make-up, cosmetics, perfume, and the substance of style

C.O. Bigelow Soda Fountain Mini Mentha Lip Shine Trio in Milkshake Flavors

One place I always stop when I'm in New York every month is the C.O. Bigelow Apothecary in Greenwich Village. It's full of wonderous products, yet is calm and quiet within - a world away from the cosmetics floors of the giant department stores. I feel a sense of Zen balance come over me just thinking about it...

I've only ever made one purchase there, a tube of tingly, tinted C.O. Bigelow Mentha Lip Balm. It's a product I would happily buy again, so you can imagine my delight when the PR for Bath & Body Works (which also carries Bigelow products) sent me this little trifecta of lippy goodness.

The miniature balms come in three flavors - vanilla malt shake, double chocolate shake, and strawberry shake - in tribute to the soda fountain which stood in the Greenwich Village pharmacy until 1984. They're small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, are untinted, and smell like a very sweet dream.

At $10 for all three lip shines, you don't have to debate the cost of treating yourself. (I also understand that it is a custom to buy gifts for other people at this time of year, some of which are inserted into a big sock. Well, if you must, you could buy these for someone else, too.)

CO Bigelow lip balm...with coffee

  Would you like lip balm with that? 
  Originally uploaded by dynamist.

I'm sharing a hotel room with my friend (and Hillary's sister-in-law) Nancy Rommelmann here in LA. Nancy runs out for her morning coffee before she does anything; she and her husband Din (Hill's brother) own the amazing Ristretto Roasters. On the road, though, she settles for Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

This morning, she came back and announced, "Jack, I think I have a blog post for you!" This was it: She was given this full size CO Bigelow lip balm with her coffee this morning. The guy in front of her didn't get any. We were both impressed that Coffee Bean actually gives their employees the autonomy to use their noggins and decide which customers would most appreciate this freebie. The lip balm's not bad either, though Hillary found it way too intensely minty. (Coincidentally, I tried CO Bigelow My Favorite Lip Balm on Sunday and thought it was pretty good.)

Pink redux, and the mysterious success of Bath & Body Works

Further to Hill's post about pink, here's what I spotted in London's Fenwick department store yesterday, right under a sign proclaiming "PROM DRESSES". Indeed they are. But as far as I know, they don't have proms in the UK. I can only hope that prom dresses are the hot new thing to wear for females who aren't hormonal teens.

As for the pink eye shadow Hill mentioned, it jogged my memory that I, too, own some. It is from - of all places - Bath & Body Works.  I can't even find makeup on the Bath & Body Works site, which tells me how old that eyeshadow must be. (I have a taupe shade from B&BW, too, which is excellent.) I guess I should throw it away, since a) it looks awful on me, and b) it could give me an eye infection if I ever did wear it. But...no. Throwing away makeup is not something I am emotionally equipped to do.

And to go off on yet another tangent: What is the point of Bath & Body Works? All of the scents are knock-you-out and overly cloying; even as a 13-year-old, I could only tolerate my Juniper Berry and Sun Ripened Raspberry body sprays for a few days after purchasing them. Or maybe I'm just being snobby; when a store opens an outlet in my teeny, rural hometown in Ohio, as B&BW did a few years ago, I figure there is no reason to ever consider shopping there again.

That said, the addition of C.O. Bigelow products to their inventory might just lure me back into a Bath & Body Works store someday. But if you want to get your Bigelow stuff online, don't bother using the B&BW website, which only allows you to "browse online, shop in-store," as they put it. Luckily, you can purchase direct from the Bigelow apothecary's online shop - which offers free UPS ground shipping for all internet orders over $60.