Mollie Chen, 30, editorial director of the cosmetics-sample service Birchbox, dated the topknot trend as far back as the "Sex and the City" era, but said that it exploded last year, "when cutting up socks and talking about what color sock you needed for your hair color started popping up all over our blog and magazine".
Generally cosmetics companies make samples of foundation, moisturizers, face wash, and toners.
It was there, she admitted, that she discovered her favorite brand of cosmetics, called "Free sample, not for sale".
Her hair and makeup are flawless, thanks to store-sample cosmetics, and the slick stroller in which she pushes her son, Anthony, was donated.
Each month, users receive at least four premium samples of cosmetics, shipped to their homes from over 80 high end beauty retailers like Kiehl's, Laura Mercier, Smashbox, Nars and Cargo.
The validated method was successfully applied to 24 commercial samples (14 cosmetics and 10 foods) in which 9 of the selected dyes were found at concentrations up to 989 μg g−1, exceeding in some cases the regulated maximum permitted limits.
A company called Birchbox has put this principle to work by allowing customers to prepay for gift boxes filled with a mystery assortment of sample-size cosmetics and other goods.
The box trend is widely considered to have originated with BirchBox, a company that sends sample-sized cosmetics to women (in perfumed pink boxes) and to men (in odorless blue ones), in the hopes that they will take to the samples and buy full-sized versions through the company's Web site.
The first advertisers signed up to the new ad format include Levi's and NARS Cosmetics (a mock up sample ad is pictured at the top of this post), starting from next month.
