Go Halfsies On … The Beauty Product
by The Hairpin
Edith: Jane! Let’s say we want to buy something really nice and fancy, but it’s too expensive, so we don’t buy it. But we never stop thinking about it, and over drinks or coffee we find out that the other one wants to buy it too, so we decide it’s affordable if we split it, and share this thing. What’s the best way to do this? For instance, ahem, let’s say we’ve both read enough magazine articles and Amazon reviews and everywhere reviews about a certain kind of face cream named after the ocean to become semi-convinced of its magic, except this face cream costs $135 per ounce, which is insane. But if it does even a quarter of the things people claim it does, it would be worth it. But it probably doesn’t, so then that’d be $135 down the drain for a cute little jar that sits in a medicine cabinet gathering dust.
Jane: Blasphemer! It would never gather dust. Here’s the great thing about splitting a big purchase: we both take the risk, but if one of us down the line gives up before it “works” or whatever, the other one gets the spoils. I drink your face cream. I drink it up! See, I am of the school of thought that it doesn’t totally matter if a singular beauty product delivers on all of its promises; it’s more important to have a routine and make an effort. In the long run, the ladies who put lotion on their necks and go to bed with hand cream on just, well, maybe they don’t look younger or more beautiful, but they are a brand of woman and I am buying what they’re selling. Is that terribly shallow? Who cares? What I’m saying is stop being a wimp and let’s do this thing with the magical face cream. Send me a check for $67.50. I don’t have checks, because I am alive in 2011, but I know you have checks because I’ve seen them and they have horses on them. Wait. Can’t we just split the check like at a restaurant somehow?
Edith: I got those checks a long time ago, and I thought the horses were cute, although I somehow missed the life stage where everyone learned how to do electronic checks or order checks from their bank’s website, or whatever it is that everyone else does instead of writing checks. Anyway, if we’re being honest the truth is that I bought a jar of that cream last year and it HAS been gathering dust in my medicine cabinet, because I used it for a couple months but wasn’t crazy about how thick it was and how it didn’t transform me instantly (why??). This came up over drinks with you a couple months ago, and you said you wanted it, and now I’m going to mail it to you, and you are going to give ME the $67.50 somehow, I guess not by check. I hope you like it more than I did! Also, YOU are basically one of the women who falls asleep with hand cream on, for me, if that makes sense. I buy what you’re selling!
Jane: If you’re buying what I’m selling, how come I’m the one sending a check? Just kidding, Edith! I love you. And I would like to hear oh-so-much more about why you didn’t like the cream — but not so much that I talk you back out of sending it to me. In fact, scratch that! It’s the worst. The worst ripoff cream on the planet and I bet the reason they don’t sell it at Sephora is because their return policy is so generous and the cream sucks so bad they’d probably have to create a whole “Magical Cream Return” line at the checkout. So yes, get rid of it in this direction. Great idea. I’ll go to the bank and see if they want to weigh in on our method of money changing hands. If shipping it didn’t cost an arm and a leg, I’d send you $67.50 in pennies because that joke never gets old for me.
Edith: Ahhh, that would be so many pennies!!!!!!!!!
No, but you know this is the first time in the history of our friendship that I’ve been ahead of you on the beauty-product front, so let me enjoy this for a second. […] Okay, so you send me a check (???) for $67.50, and I’ll mail you this 90%-full one-ounce jar of this absurdly expensive face cream. You’re getting the better deal here, I think, except so am I because I always wanted to try it, and probably would have eventually no matter what, and now I get half the money back. And it makes me happy to know we’re sharing something. Is this like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Face Cream or something? JANE what do we buy next, this is fun, I love you!!
Jane: I am building a fort next to my mailbox.
Tied neck-and-neck with slathering things on our faces, our other favorite thing is putting stuff in our faces, so let’s dream big and splurge on something for our kitchens? Or, oops, I mean “Let’s cook up a spectacular kitchen addition.” (The Food Network is on in the background; I can’t help it.)
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