Proof That Cindy Could Sell Ice Cubes to an Eskimo

Industrial espionage is dependably dandy as the premise for a script, especially when skulduggery is set in the glamorous world of beauty. Hard to believe that miracle formulas are sometimes poached in the real life too, where corporate attorneys don’t necessarily look like refugees from “Central Park West,” spies aren’t as fetching as Julia Roberts, and Angela Lansbury doesn’t shame the culprit into a confession in the end. Revlon recently sued two of its rivals, L’Oreal and Maybelline, accusing them of infringing on its patent for lip colors with extraordinary staying power.

No one would blame Revlon for trying to protect a product that enjoyed one of the most successful commercial launches in face-paint history, garnering 14% of the lipstick market in the year after its summer ’94 debut. But makeup is always more than the sum of its chemical components, and Revlon’s Colorstay Lipstick blended iron oxides and dyes with the illusions and dreams that throb within every cosmetic’s sweet-smelling promise.

The news of lusciously colored lips able to stand up to a busy woman’s long day or a passionate one’s tumultuous evening was communicated by the widely beloved Cindy Crawford, among the most trusted spokeswomen in the country. She spread the word for Revlon via a superbly designed, ubiquitous marketing campaign. Women rushed to buy the lipstick Cindy said wouldn’t kiss off (unconsciously wishing they, too, could test it on Richard Gere). But many of those lipsticks then languished in that purgatory where makeup mistakes gather dust before they’re taken on their death row march to the trash.

Colorstay did stay on. It also felt unbelievably dry, disappointing women who wear lipstick as much for the moist, creamy feeling as for its tint.

The joke, then, would seem to be on the alleged copycats, Maybelline and L’Oreal. They imitated the wrong formula! They should have been foraging through the dumpsters outside Shiseido’s labs. Shiseido’s Long Lasting Lipstick, with an SPF of 4, stays on through a meal and a Haagen-Dazs Non-Fat Sorbet Bar, without sitting like dried paste on the lips. Its magazine advertisements feature only a severe photograph of a tube of lipstick, no smiling, just-smooched sweetheart proclaiming the neat pleasures of lip color that endures. Could it be that Cindy Crawford even convinced the competition that they’d be rich and desirable if they had her secret?

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Todd’s Playhouse: Todd Oldham’s cheerful new shop on Beverly Boulevard stocks the Oldham collection, the less expensive Times Seven label, Todd Oldham jeans, watches, shoes and his men’s line. Being inside the store feels like a stroll through a kaleidoscope, since crushed velvet curtains and leopard-spotted seats are illuminated by a Little Mermaid chandelier of colored sea glass. Oldham and friends mosaicked a counter top with broken tile chips, and shelves are lined with ceramics by Jonathan Adler and bright pillows sewn from braided ribbon and fabric scraps.

The rumor was that the recent demise of another New York designer’s Los Angeles boutique could be partly blamed on a sales staff that performed convincing imitations of snotty 13-year-olds. The Todd Oldham store is managed by the designer’s sister from Texas and other equally friendly, pleasant folks. They can special order anything from the collection and know what accessories the designer had in mind when he sketched a Day-Glo polyester jean jacket printed with fat, bouncing jelly beans.

* Sense of Style appears on Thursdays in Life & Style.