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Yesterday, I was somewhat surprised to receive an email trying to flog me some new and innovative textured nail polishes. On closer inspection, they were of the “suede” family. Remember suede (not the band, although I hear they are having a revival too)? OPI released that collection a good 18 months ago, so it seemed odd that this type of polish was being touted as something new and exciting. Late to the party? Ot attempting a revival already?
I started wondering at what point we reach saturation levels of trends. I for one am a bit fed up of Shatter/Crackle polish, and having never really been a fan of it in the first place I am quite happy for this trend to be put out to pasture. But yet companies keep bringing it and keep bringing it. I understand why, as everyone was hopping with excitement when Barry M and OPI did it, but really, it’s six months old now and yet they keep on coming. Why?
This made me wonder about consumer habits. Blog authors and journalists do receive samples before things go on the market, as brands attempt to create some form of hype prior to a launch. And this works – the first few times you see it. But honestly – show me one more blog post about radical and exciting crackle finishes and I’ll show you all my teeth in the biggest yawn ever.
So, bloggers have had enough. But what about the general punter who doesn’t read a million blogs and doesn’t collect every single nail varnish from a new range. How do they decide between 17 identical white shatter polishes? Tricky, eh? They maybe look online and decide from a blog post or magazine review as to which is the best. So companies need to keep these products alive.
But why tout something as new and exciting, when it blatantly isn’t? I’ve just become aware of a brand getting all ready to launch a new matte topcoat. Errr, hello, 2009 is on the phone and it wants its trend back…
I also hear from a very good source that magnetic polishes are about to experience a revival. Good. Nail bloggers have been calling for a return of this product for as long as I can remember. So I bet there are companies frantically rushing out their magnetic offerings in order to be the first, or at least gain a corner of the market. Bet you anything you want though that in a few months time we’re all wailing about how we’ve had enough magnetic polishes and want something new. Or not even something new, maybe just not to be assaulted by the same old thing every time you go and read your favourite blogs. Are we fickle? Maybe.
This got me wondering what other trends or products people were bored of, so I asked the good people of Twitter. Here are some of my favourite responses:
- “Pretty sure there’s nothing new to be done in Crackle-Town….Let’s draw a line now.”
- “Ooh! I’m bored to death of shatter polish. And loathe the orange lipstick trend.”
- “Concealer lips! Heavily powdered overly matte foundation. Lilac lipgloss being touted as a “perfect nude”.”
- “Stiletto nails make me gag! I HATE them, I wish Rihanna and Gaga would chop them off!!”
- “Def nudie jizz lips! It looks awful and doesn’t suit anyone! Also very bored with ‘Rihanna red’ hair now! *yawn*”
- “Concealer lips and those massive false lashes which mean you can’t even blink.”
- “I think I might be the only person to say this but I’m sick of uber bright lips! Just so so many, all the same! And coral nails – that uber bright shade between pink, red and orange. Every range has had one. OPI Texas had 2!”
- “NUDE LIPS. Specifically, Mac Snob and all variations of it. It looks hateful on everybody”
- “The idea of the foundation that magically matches your skin tone because it sounds like rubbish to me!”
- “Matte anything. deadface”
- “That crackle stuff, it’s pants!”
- “Fish pedicures!!! been there, done that, bought the t shirt”
- “Crackles. Liquid metal style polishes.”
- “Sloppy ombre nails – it looks like how a child would do their nails”
- “Crackles. Fugly.”
- “Don’t know if it counts but I’ve been totally over French mani’s for a few years now and that’s not changing anytime soon..”
- “Matte top coat, Clarisonic (who the hell can afford that) fashion messy eyebrows done on purpose, socks and stilettos.”
- “Gel lipsticks. Loads of them!”
- “Ombre hair. I see a similar thing when i switch on Jeremy Kyle….called bad roots!”
- “Exfoliating wipes, they are shite”
(I like the last one the best).
So, what do you think? Are you happy when your favourite brand jumps on a bandwagon? If you bought ALL the crackle polishes from your favourite nail company, do you need all the subsequent releases? Or are companies hoping that we live under a rock and just stumble upon their product? I really don’t know. I suppose we should just be glad that the make-up companies didn’t all suddenly decide to adopt that “torture ball” mascara or the “paint roller” foundation as the latest trend.
Your thoughts please… and I’d love to know any trends you’d be pleased to see the back of.
Helen
Black shatter – I remember the first time I heard that, I thought they were describing a cat with diarrhoea.
French tips ARE horrid.
Plus I ain’t swayed by ….suede. *grimace*
I think it’s difficult to judge what is tiresome as it depends on which side of the fence you’re on..
I’m a beauty blogger but my female cousins aren’t and when we talk about beauty products and I mention items that have been flogged to death on blogs (e.g. the crackle polish) they’re really excited about them. I think that’s mainly because they’re not as engrossed in the beauty world/updates as I am and I think that sometimes some bloggers forget this. I know that I do, I’ve told them about products that I’ve seen in press releases and they’ve not found in the shops for months to come.
I always thought that the shatter thing should only be in a minimum amount of colours..I liken it to work trousers. In my mind, trousers are the base colours in your outfits and your tops are the things that can be any amount of colours.
Going back to things that have been overdone, I totally agree with the nude lip thing. I haven’t seen ONE person wearing a nude lip that suits them..it needs to stop!
Can I add Pippa Middletone’s flat arse to that list please?!
I know exactly what you mean – I think die-hard beauty nuts will be totally sick of repetitive trends, but to those outside the world of beauty blogging will still be “Oooh-ahhhh!” at it all.
With that said, I hate anything suede, jizz-lips are foul and yes, shut up Rihanna’s hair and Cheryl Cole’s volume already!
great post, the comments from your twitter are very amusing lol.
When I heard about the OPI shatter nail polish I thought wow that’s amazing, but I do agree that the new shades constantly coming out are a little annoying. Don’t you think they look kinda chavy mainly the baby pink Barry m 1..
xxx
I have hated concealer lips FOREVER – nothing to do with blogging. Ditto crackle polishes. I’m old enough to remember them from first time around in the 80s. They were glossy then too.
I still like crackles I have to admit – especially gold over red.. current obsession, but really think generally if the bandwagon has already left town don’t try and chase it!
I was really excited by shatter when Barry M first did it, but now so many other brands are getting involved and it’s in so many colours, it’s just gone too far! But I also know that if I wore a shatter coat to school, people would be like “OMG what is that?!” because they haven’t read a million and one reviews of them -.-
Plus..who on earth decided to make concealer lips a trend? They deserve to be severely punished 🙂
Hello Helen,What a well done, thought provoking post! This is exactly why I haven’t been interested in blogging on nail polish. Too many trendy trends like a revolving door! I can’t keep up,nor have any desire too. The whole crackle/shatter polish takes the cake for me. Who wants chipped up looking polish/varnish on their nails? Really,honestly! But it is a consumer world that we live in. We’ve unknowingly been taught to crave the novelty with slick advertising. But I think most of us are tired of it,and with the economy around the globe being what it is. Many of us are saying a big fat,” NO “to the,” revolving trend door”….we all have better things to do with our money,than buy something old that is being touted,”new”. Thank you for bringing the subject up!
It’s a lot more tiresome when you’re being sent all these same same same crackle polishes for free.
The rest of us buy one once we finally see them in the stores.
Lisa, if you read the blog post, you’ll see Helen is referring to emails about crackle polishes. I think I’ve only seen one post featuring them, and, correct me if I’m wrong, I think Helen bought half them – like you would.
Hi!
I love the twitter comments 🙂
Its a tricky one! As a blogger I get sick of seeing the same posts over and over and I’ve even had a moan about it once or twice. That said, I’m not moaning at the bloggers who write about the products, more the companies that don’t know when to stop sending them out!
The reason I don’t get annoyed at the bloggers is because I always blog about things even if they have been covered by a zillion bloggers already because the vast majority of my blog traffic is either by google searches and/or my family/friends who don’t look at other blogs, so I try to remember that whilst I might be sick of seeing something, and other bloggers and hardcore blog readers might be sick of it that a large amount of my readers won’t be.
And concerning the actual issue, I have no idea why companies insist on claiming their products are new and innovative when they are quite blatently not and in my limited experience since blogging it does really seem that nail polish companies are the worst for this!
I think the difficulty for beauty companies is the need to constantly bring new products to market.
Not many markets have to launch innovation at such a constant rate, but because of the media’s – and therefore the consumer’s – desire for new, new, new, a constant turnover of new products is necessary in the beauty industry.
So, there are the companies that lead the way, generating genuinely new and exciting products or concepts not seen before. Then there are the companies that find it hard to keep up with constant innovation – either they don’t have the budgets for R&D or they don’t have the creative ideas.
So when a beauty product comes along that gets consumers leaping out of their seats and hotfooting it to Boots, it makes other companies sit up and say ‘oo, let’s do a crackle nail polish (or other fad product) too!’
Trouble is, it can take at least 6 months to produce a beauty product, so by the time it hits the shelves, everyone’s bored of it!
I reckon it must be a constant dilemma for beauty brands; do they jump on the trend and hope they get there in time before everyone’s bored of it, or do they let the trend pass them by and risk watching all their competitors launch their own versions and enjoy ongoing success with it? Tough decision.
When I was in Selfriges a couple of weeks ago I was amazed to find the girls on the RMK stand were really excited by their new discovery – Barry M Crackle Glaze in Black!!
Great post, and I agree with with Charlie and Jenni’s points above.
Personally, I think if you work in the beauty industry, it’s easy to get bored or over-exposed to certain trends…but the regular Jo Bloggs on the high street doesn’t see 3/4 of the info industry people do! (Can you believe I’ve a few friends who only ‘discovered’ shatter via me at the weekend?)
Also, so many brands only ever reach a certain demographic…Before entering the ‘world of beauty’, I’d have said I loved nail polish, but can you believe I’d never heard of Essie then?
Is it the case that what’s new in Chanel polish may never reach Barry M fans (just an example) – Industry peeps just have to get both releases and suffer everything in between?
Aww, first of all feeling really flattered to see my tweet quoted on here 🙂
thank you x I probably check my dashboard about 10 times a day and is constantly fed beauty products but as most people have commented, I tend to forget that I am a minority and that in the case of shatter polishes, some are just beginning to discover and some have not even discovered it yet while it’s been everywhere in the bloggosphere. This is a tricky one: as a blogger and active tweeter, you should be able to express yourself freely and sayy when you’re fed up but then this is turn offends people who are just getting into it. Should one hold back their feelings in case they might offend and ruin the happiness of others?
While we are talking about the crackle polishes, one must remember than when barry m released their black one, nearly everyone I know said ‘yeah it’s wicked but it’s a shame they don’t have it in other colours’ and now that other brands have picked up on it, and that there are more colours you guys complain?
Let the people enjoy their crackle, and let them shout their joy over the roof tops. if there are too many posts about crackle polishes for their liking, fine, people don’t have to comment on them. I love opi but i must admit that when opi released their shatter, i was ‘pff, like i am going to spend 10 quid on that, while barry m does it for £3.99. But hey ho, if people want to buy it, fine by me.
Lisa: would you care to explain what you meant exactly? I don’t think I understood properly x Did you mean a general ‘you’ (as in one) or did you mean ‘helen’ in particular?
Since your a blogger you do get products much earlier than when it’s released to the public. I’m just now starting to get a bit tired of crackle polish. That is the bad manicure. Some bloggers come up with fantastic crackle manicures. I don’t get tired of those. I also haven’t been able to buy OPI or China Glaze crackles onlne. They’re still sold out! The lovely Kae sent me a bottle of Blue Shatter form OPI. Now at least I have one. I am tired of nude lips. The ones where you look like death warmed over and barely that! I was looking through my lipsticks last night and I have a least 6 MAC’s that are so nude and I do look dead. Why the hell did I buy those? I guess all the hype did it. Won’t do that one again.
I have to admit that I don’t have any shatter polishes, I want to get black and gold at some point, but I’ve been waiting and reading blogs to see which brands are the most worth it. (and, sorry, but when I can upload photos again I’m quite likely to blog it…) The nude lip thing is one I’ve never really understood, my reason for wearing any sort of lip product is to look like I’ve got any sort of colour, so smearing concealer or whatever on my lips isn’t going to do the job!
I’m still having fun playing with my crackles, but I liked them initially so that’s a plus. I’ve “been out of the game” with PR, so I didn’t have any but what I’d picked up on my own. I think though that I have all the colors in crackle that I could want!
I will say though that when I wear a crackle mani, I get a TON of compliments and questions about it. Everyone is fascinated by it – that ISN’T in the blogging world.
The things I’m sick to death of are already mentioned – nude lips. YUCK, hate that trend. DESPISE and have for years the french manicure. However – I love seeing funky frenches or designs.
I work in the industry developing cosmetics. In my experience, beauty bloggers are very savvy when it comes to newness and which brand is releasing what and when. This is what attracts readers to your blogs. However, as has already been pointed out, the majority of beauty buyers see a fraction of that. If everyone was ‘over’ crackle, companies wouldn’t be making money on these and therefore wouldn’t bother putting them out there – so of course, people are still interested. Bear in mind, when a technological discovery like this is made, everyone company will want it, and it will be a race to see who can launch it first. With lead times being up to 24 months in some cases, by the time Chanel launch something, Barry M may have already got there first, but by that time, all the development has already been done. Which is why every brand needs a good team to know what suits their customer base and not to get caught up in whatever the latest fad is.
Having said that, in our society now more than ever, customers demand variety, and what is old and boring to someone is going to rock someone else’s world! Some things might not be the newest thing out there, but if it ain’t broke …….
Concealer lips. Nude lips. Foundation lips. I don’t care what they’re called, they look horrible.
Oh and that odd shade of bubblegum lipstick that is just a couple of shades too pale. Yeah, that sucks.
Also, face wipes. The only thing they are good for and cleaning my desk and the inside of my car.
AND brands trying to tout crackle nailpolish under a different name – I’m sure I heard “fractured” somewhere.
OK, I think I’m done now.
Very late to read this I know, but nontheless: great post, very interesting and entertaining read!!!
I may have to start quoting whoever said “been there done that bought the t shirt”, lol!
As for the…crackle debate.. hmm, I’m probably in the minority, but I actually find the newer coloured ones better than the simple black and white older versions, they fit the playfulness of the look much better imo!
So yeah!
Btw, Vex in the City is SO right abt Pippa’s rear, tell em Yinka! 😉
xx