The Time I Was Caught by a Cosmetics Lady

She was the lion…I was the antelope

PR King
Crow’s Feet
Published in
4 min readOct 6, 2024

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a 1950s department store
Image created by ChatGPT

Hello, my name is PR King and I’m a cosmetics and skincare junkie. Well, I used to be. Now in my 70s I still have a ray of hope that there’s some magic out there that will make me look 40 again. Or, if not 40, maybe just a little younger. I will take all the help I can get.

In the olden days

Way back in the prehistoric ‘80s and ‘90s, department stores had counters devoted to a specific line of beauty products: Chanel, Elizabeth Arden, Lancome, Estee Lauder, and Shiseido. Yes, I know all the names. These were expensive brands so I seldom bought anything, but wanted to because of the promises they made.

The counters were always laid out to lure shoppers in. Special offers and new products were always prominently displayed. Freebies and samples were de rigueur. Women staffed all of them unless a man was there from headquarters who would do your makeup for you so you’d spend a couple hundred bucks to buy everything he used.

But those days, like the princess phone and floppy disks, are gone forever. What online stores didn’t kill in department stores, Covid did. Now hardly any of those counters are staffed. Makeup and skincare lines are sold in trendier stores like Sephora and Ulta or online. Even Amazon…

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Crow’s Feet
Crow’s Feet

Published in Crow’s Feet

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays and occasional poems that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.

PR King
PR King

Written by PR King

Florida stories, history fan, avid reader, geeky Boomer, Sagittarian with a Capricorn moon, Chromebook convert, military brat, sober 30+