I joined the Mary Kay team in 1991, when I was 20 years old. I am from Dallas, home to the Mary Kay headquarters, so it was inevitable that I would run into a Sales Consultant sooner or later.

Like most red-blooded Americans, I am morally opposed to the idea of a beagle wearing foundation or a mouse wearing mascara; it's unnatural. As such, I only purchase cosmetics that don't test on animals — "cruelty free" products, if you will. But now, a lawsuit alleges that some pretty major makeup companies that…

• The UK supermarket chain Asda has knocked off the Fall '09 Balmain dress that Kate Moss wore out dancing — and burst the seams of — two months ago. Asda's version costs just £16. [Telegraph]

For those who think of Mary Kay cosmetics as nothing more than a pink Cadillac full of mauve lipsticks, think again: when the company's handbook, The Mary Kay Way, came out 20 years ago, Mary Kay Ash's culty brand of get-rich-kinda-quick consumer marketing made it a bestseller. Or, as the blurb would have it, "it was…

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, the Mary Kay cosmetic company — known for its eponymous blonde Texas founder and pink Cadillacs — has more and more Spanish-speaking women in its sales force. As writer Molly Hennessy-Fiske points out, getting a foot in the door at the beauty business doesn't require a…