Ode to Revlon #110 Blush Chrome

Anyone who knows me well, or who has read my blog over the past 8 months, knows that I have a great affinity for the forlorn or odd. Maybe I AM an odd duck after all. (I had hoped that this fact might not come to light and I've tried to appear normal for years, but there is that Odd Factor that has attached itself firmly to my personality and I just can't shake it.) Every product on the market that I LOVE is destined for the "discontinued" column. My love=certain doom. So that must make me odd...nobody likes the products I like...thus, discontinued.

So my tale begins (rather ends.) I wrote another post about trying to come to grips with the discontinuance of my favorite lipstick. How I was reduced to dumpster diving at Hudson's Fire sale store for the beloved tube of Revlon's #110...how I even considered for a fleeting moment buying an already opened (and sampled..eeek!) tube. This is quite traumatic to me...Revlon has stopped production of MY signature color. Ah, Revlon Blush Chrome #110. It's been a part of my persona for years (and years). No other color quite highlights my features like #110.

(Sidenote:) When aging, among other things, your lips shrink...thus some may turn to collagen injections. But with #110 by my side I was able to hold off the process of the shrinking lips. I began noticing the phenomenon several years ago...I started looking in my 5x magnification mirror more closely...I added 350 Reader glasses and got a stark look at reality! Holy cow! Where'd my mouth go?!

(Note: a friend once told me that as you age, your mouth turns downward and to always go about your daily life smiling...so for the past 10 years I have taken that advice. But my smile looks like a smirk...it's hard to press against the forces of nature...if I run into you somewhere and look like I am disgusted, I am NOT. I am trying to hold up my down turned mouth with the shrinking lips. Very hard work.)

While peering into the 5x mirror, I suddenly remembered a tiny much older lady in my church who always wore her lipstick outside her lip line...NOW I understand what she was trying to do...restore just a little of her youthfulness and dignity...add a few inches to her once pouty persona. (I believe she wore Revlon's Cherries in the Snow and if you are above the age of 40 YOU KNOW that Cherries In The Snow has been around since the Garden of Eden)...so WHY, I ask you, would Revlon choose to push the delete button on #110 and keep that not so lovely CITSnow? I have no answer...I only have my memories.

Thus began the saga (and I mean SAGA) of trying to select a suitable replacement. I have exhausted my Ebay supply. I have assigned "pickers" all over the US on #110 "Watch For" alert. I have offered a king's ransom for an unopened tube. I have looked everywhere...for some color that approximates #110. I had considered retirement from my job but alas, I can't afford to because of the extra $100 a month spent on new lipstick colors. My makeup drawer looks like something that a archaeologist would unearth...bones lying everywhere...except in my case it's lipstick tubes. What on earth do you do with hundreds of used only once tubes of lipstick?

It's with a heavy heart that I announce that I have officially picked a new color...oh, I know, when you see me, you will think, "What's wrong with her? Is she ill? Her little spark is gone. Somehow she just doesn't look the same". It's the lips...it's the new #610 that makes me look like I've gotten trapped in a tanning booth.

Carefully, look. Can you see the subtle difference? If you are a lipstick aficionado, you can. To those of you who just slap something on your mouth and rush out the door, it won't matter. But there are those of us who carefully apply lipstick to our lips...who love to make the little "bow" of our face look just right. #110, of course, is pictured on the right...See the orangey cast that the new #610 broadcasts? What a shame...what a waste of chemical engineering.

Even the name sounds inane....Goldpearl Plum...what a dumb name. Now, Blush Chrome #110! That's a name! Oh, well enough of my troubles. Just remember me today...that 3/4 of an inch of #110 pictured in the first photo is all the product I have left...probably all that's left on the earth...in the universe...when it's gone, it's "Goodbye Cruel World"....sad day.

May none of your lipsticks EVER be discontinued,