Gourmet Lipstick

I had a pumpkin spice latte the other day. It's not all that often that I buy things like that (I'm a timid consumer) and when I do, I feel decadent, i.e, rich. It was Tim who taught me to appreciate flavors in my lattes -- indeed, who got me into the habit of buying lattes at all in my early 30s. Before that I would have said that I couldn't tell the difference between a latte and a coffee with plenty of cream in a blind taste test -- and truthfully, I probably still couldn't -- but the appeal of buying lattes comes from the emotional sense of well being it gives me: luxery, devil-may-care,"let myself eat cake!" So, when I saw the chalk board sign for a pumpkin spice latte I thought, "yuck -- who would waste their money on that?" And as soon as I thought it, I wanted one. So I plunked down my $3.25 for 16 ounces of non-fat, extra hot, half decaf, pumpkin spice latte.

What did it taste like? Well, it tasted like lipstick, as so many things do to a lipstick wearer.

This gave me my idea:

Gourmet lipstick.

This would appeal to foodies who wanted to look and taste fabulous.

Think about it: You go out for a fancy pants meal, and you want to look great, but you don't want your meal tasting like chemical fruits and waxy eau d'bourgeoisie.

So, voila: gourmet lipstick (this idea seems very French to me). Maybe you'd package it in courses: aperatif, soup, salad, meat, cheese? (with a tasty cheese lipstick, you'd have your beautiful woman with both eyes!). Then the beautiful woman would excuse herself between courses to freshen up and change lipsticks. (Honestly, btw, I think restaurants are missing out on a lot of drink sales by not having nicer bathrooms. Because if they did, ladies would be more inspired to go to the bathroom more to freshen up or whatever, leaving their dates with nothing to do but order more drinks. Then again, most of the time when I go out now it's with at least three other people, so maybe I'm wrong about this. And no one drinks like they used to. But seriously: nicer bathrooms would be good.)

I don't think this would take a whole lot to catch on -- there's plenty of low-brow precident in those nasty soda-flavored lip glosses that girls of a certain generation -- my generation, approximately -- used to swap around when they were 8-12 years old. I never did.

For flavors, I'm mostly thinking herbs, like thyme, marjorem, stuff like that. Maybe cinnamin, vanilla for dessert. Parmesean? Gorgenzola? Not chicken. But maybe something smokey, like bacon. A dark red, bacon-maple lipstick would definitely get you kissed. Which brings up the other potential market: foodie's girlfriends.

I could buy my own lip gloss maker and add some merlot, I guess.

I'll just add that it's Interesting that the second page of google results for "gourmet lipstick" brings me so many of the same page for engagement rings -- personally, I would be touched if someone got me an engagement ring at swollenballs.com -- nice to know they're putting that swell URL to good use.