The above is a very condensed version of Zohra’s correspondence, and
I’ll include most of the rest in a moment, but a bit of background
first. We all know that cosmetic brands give their products ridiculous,
desperately attention-seeking, Trade Descriptions Act-defying names.
Heck, one of the most popular blushers from Nars is called Orgasm and,
despite using it for years, it has never once given me the promised
sensation. Maybe I’m using the brush wrong?
Indeed, these names have become so stupid that they’re almost
impossible to satirise, although Will Ferrell and Tina Fey have given it
a good go: Jenna’s favourite lipstick shade on Fey’s sitcom 30 Rock is,
rather memorably, Tiger Orgasm. But it is, of course, the discussion of
colognes in Anchorman that really wins the prize here, with Ferrell and
Paul Rudd discussing the various merits of London Gentleman,
Blackbeard’s Delight and Sex Panther by Odeon (“Made with bits of real
panther, so you know it’s good … Sixty percent of the time, it works all
the time.”)
But that film was made in 2004 – a veritable millennium in beauty
world terms – and I’d assumed that, in an era in which perfumes are
advertised by models depicted apparently having sex with the bottles and actors speaking cod philosophy,
we’d reached a point that went beyond satire. But I was wrong. For the
name of the lipgloss that so alarmed Zohra was, dear readers, Underage.
Perhaps even more than giving their products insane names, the beauty industry is infamous for its frankly deranged obsession with youth.
Moisturisers routinely promise to give grown women “baby soft skin”, as
though the problem with adults is that they’re just not enough like
two-year-olds. But really, why focus on babies, when they’re practically
geriatric already, what with all that exposure to the outside world and
everything? Terribly ageing, you know. No, if I’m going to spend more
than £20 on a moisturiser, I need it to promise that I will have the
skin of a newly conceived foetus.
So we can all see what Mac is doing here. If moisturisers promise to
make adults look like babies, then why shouldn’t a lipgloss suggest they
should look “underage”? For Mac, it seems, labours under the belief
that “underage” is merely a fancy word for “young”, as opposed to the
official term for someone who is under the legal age to drink alcohol,
smoke or have sex. I surely speak for us all when I say I am eagerly
looking forward to their Statutory Rape collection.
Before contacting this column, Zohra complained to Mac directly.
Rather sweetly, Mac reassured Zohra that she herself didn’t have to be
underage to wear the pastel pink shade, but rather it was for “All Ages,
All Races, All Sexes”. So that’s OK, then! And to be fair to Mac, none
of the beauty writers or fans seem to have noticed how weird the name of
this product is: “Underage is my go-to lipgloss,” coos one typical review.
So I took up the baton and called the press office directly, and I
talked to a very sweet young lady. Initially, the only help she could
give me was price and stockist advice, which wasn’t quite what Zohra and
I were looking for. But she got back to me a few days later with this
quote from Terry Barber, Mac’s director of makeup artistry (as you can
see, Mac likes to have fun with language), to explain the nomenclature:
“Mac Underage Tinted Lipglass [sic] is a gorgeous baby pink which looks
really youthful (hence the name) if worn in the right way. It’s a white
pink, so quite simply don’t put too much on. Go with a micro thin layer
and tap it to the edge of the lips with the fingertip for a plump, juicy
nude. It’s great with black kohl on the eyes. Think young Bardot,”
Barber said.
You know, I spend a certain amount of my time defending fashion and
beauty from accusations of misogyny and stupidity, both of which
certainly exist in the industry but don’t, I honestly and truly believe,
need to define it. Fashion and beauty should be about enabling women to
enjoy themselves, to express themselves and to feel good about
themselves; to gain confidence from trying out new looks and styles, and
to also have the freedom to not bother with any of it at all. But then
along comes something like this and, well, it’s hard to see what the
point is any more. For the record, Bardot was 23 when she appeared in
And God Created Woman, which is young but certainly not underage.
As I said, Mac is not alone in giving its products ridiculous names
and it is definitely not unique in promoting the idea that women should
look as young as possible. But despite spending a good few hours on the
internet melting my brain, I have failed to find another product that
uses an actual legal term to promote its wares, or to suggest that
statutory rape is such a good look. So thank you, Mac, and
thank you, Zohra, for reminding us all of a useful lesson today:
language is a wonderful thing. But it is generally best to understand
what the hell the words actually mean before you start using them.
