The chairman of Estée Lauder's famous declaration that women buy more cosmetics during a recession because clothes are too expensive is holding true: Sales of high-end makeup jumped by 9 percent in the last year. And shoppers are finding still more lavish ways to splurge. Case in point: La Prairie Cellular Lip Color ($55), a lipstick infused with a farm-raised-caviar extract. "This luxurious lipstick is for the woman who wants it all," LaPrairie says. Perhaps, says Bee-Shyuan Chang at The New York Times, but the "blini and vodka [are] not included."
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