I was just sneaking a peek into Free Gift with Purchase: My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup by Jean Godfrey-June and I came across a passage where she gets a free makeover as a teenager at Merle Norman.
Question: Is Merle Norman still around?
Answer: Yes, it is. They're going Mod for Fall. Their unfortunate campaign includes that terrifically terrible picture.
Anyway - Merle Norman was one of the fairly larger stores in the Broadmoor Mall (or rather, the Broadmoor Hall, as we liked to call it, since the Hobbs Mall was truly just one long hallway), and I'm guessing the franchise dotted the west - a subway-esque sort of operation to Avon's Pizza Hut, if you will.
At the age of 11, my best friend was a doctor's daughter with a huge perm and an affinity for spelling. We'd actually become friends by studying together for the bee - she with her perfectly-matched boutique separates, me with my JCPenney Girls' Slim jeans. Her mom had popped out 6 kids and looked like she'd barely aged a day over 20, when in reality, she was 33 with blonde hair and an incredible social schedule. My mom was 41 with a black bob and a wardrobe full of laboratory scrubs. Needless to say, the BFF and I were poorly matched, but I made her laugh, so she kept me around.
Many days, we would go to her house for lunch, and on Fridays, we would go to the movies and have a slumber party. She would loan pajamas, we would make horrible prank calls - I mean, this was the girl that toilet-papered a boy's house with me at 5am, only to be picked up by the cops and grounded all summer. One Saturday, we went to the Hall, ate at that fine dining establishment, Furr's, and her mom brought us to Merle Norman.
BFF sat in a chair, her mom instructing the counterwoman that her daughter needed a lipgloss and to make sure it was ok for her to wear it to school. The woman picked out a cherry-plum and orangey gloss, charged her for the two, and we were off and along our way, probably stopping by Sonic on the way home and ordering slushies.
The entire ride home, I was quiet. I was so jealous of the BFF's acquisition into makeup land, but I was out of my league. While my mom didn't forbid makeup, we never seemed to get around to buying me any. I would play in hers, usually just washing it off and spraying myself with the plethora of perfumes she'd stashed under the sink.
Shortly after the Merle Norman visit, I began a ridiculous descent into cosmetics - specifically ice blue eyeshadow, and hung out with girls who would, later in life, check into rehab or drink too much on the weekends. The BFF chose a better-suited best friend that wore cakey foundation, and we'd had different teachers in 6th grade (not to point fingers at the atrocious school system I'd grown up in, but she was in Mrs. Bradford's class that year - a class that was comprised of all the pretty, popular, and wealthy kids; whereas, I had Mrs. Williams - a class that was largely African-American and poor). Sometimes I think about all the makeup I horde, all the makeup I purchase, how I have become a snob for fragrances. It's no wonder. Growing up in a region that prized beauty more than brains, being rewarded through admiration for certain compacts, certain brands... we are who we are, although it takes years to acknowledge that who that is, is actually not so terrible.
Now. Back to getting free Chanel...