A New Unwrinkle

The newest wrinkle in the $2.5 billion cosmetics business is a lotion that camouflages the creases in a woman's face. Last month Helene Curtis got a lead on the market by rushing out its Magic Secret lotion. This week Coty begins shipping LineAway. In May, RevIon will release Liqui-Lift; other unwrinklers will come soon after from Helena Rubinstein, Max Factor and Del Russo of Miami. In the boudoir--and on Wall Street-the lotions look like the biggest thing cosmetically since the royal-queen-bee-jelly fad depleted pocketbooks in the mid-1950s.

The lotions will be high-profit items if the companies can sell enough of them to surmount their heavy advertising costs, which run to $5,000,000 at Helene Curtis alone. "They cost peanuts to manufacture," says one securities analyst who knows. But Curtis charges $5 plus tax for a mere one-fifth ounce--enough for 20 complete facials--and the other lotions will be similarly priced. Cosmetics companies expect that this new version of the skin game could be worth $9,000,000 a year in sales.

Wrinkle preparations are as old as vanity, and over the centuries have been concocted from wax, incense, ale, bread, synthetic hormones, turtle oils and placenta extracts. The latest lotions are made from, of all things, cows' blood. Developed by the research laboratories of meat-packing Armour & Co., the process uses proteins drawn from the blood to temporarily smooth and fill in furrows, much like a glossy, translucent mudpack. The lotions are invisible on the face, because they react to light the same way that human skin does.

They do the smoothing job in about 15 minutes, and one application will cover up the crow's-feet for eight hours. A pat of water can reactivate it for an hour or two. But too much water sluices the lotion away--and many a woman will run the risk of getting all wrinkled in the course of a sudden spring shower.

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