Here Comes the Holiday Packaging

It may be blazing hot outside, but for magazines, it’s Christmas in July—the time of year when brands start peddling their forthcoming holiday lines, limited-edition this and rhinestone-encrusted that. It’s also a time of extravagance in packaging, as products are reworked to compete for visibility on shelves and space on consumer credit cards. Even the fact that the economy’s looking more pathetic than Rush Limbaugh’s addiction to painkillers hasn’t stopped beauty companies from splurging on packaging, evidenced by this week’s Sephora Holiday Gift preview: there were lipstick tubes the size of small missiles stuffed with bejeweled eyeshadow palettes (above), and glitter-covered music box makeup kits made of cardboard, complete with tiny plastic blonde divas twirling awkwardly to an unidentifiable tune. We won’t comment on the environmental impact of such flights of fancy, but we’d love to have been a fly on the wall during those design presentations. www.sephora.com