I know!!  But I had a good reason!  Three actually…

#1 – Friendship

My friend Susan, who is a walking miracle and an awesome woman, can’t drive right now.  She had major surgery and is on a no driving restriction for several months.  I’m off work on Mondays so I asked if she needed to go anywhere.  She said the mall.  Everyone around us stopped, looked and laughed.  It’s ironic, but I’m all about a trip to the mall.  I would not buy anything there even if I could, so it was safe.

#2 – Recycling

Aveda will take all of your plastic bottle caps and tops and will recycle them to make caps for their future products.  Most of the local recycling programs only take the big stuff, but not the lids.

I brought in my bags of lids and they gladly took them.  I knew someday I would end up at the mall and decided to collect these until that day came.  Now I can refill my little container that sits next to my recycling bin.  

#3 – Fun

Fun?  At the mall?  Yep.  Fun to me is processing my surroundings.  This includes activities like people watching, looking at marketing trends and seeing current styles while taking photos of all these observations.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to any of these things, however I do challenge some of the marketing and concepts.  Shopping is not evil, but if you need to know my underlying reason for poking fun of some of these products, it’s because they’re so over the top and heavily profit driven.  This is just my quirky view on ‘the mall’.

So.  Here it is.  (a special thanks to Susan for putting up with me)

Angry cartoon women wearing makeup. This was the first thing I saw in Nordstroms.  It’s the new Villain line of Mac makeup put out by Disney.  Now I don’t wear much makeup, sometimes a little eye shadow and lipstick, but I’m really not wanting to look like Cruella Deville, Isma or a wicked witch.  Does evil cartoon characters on cosmetic packaging really make women want to buy this stuff?  Maybe so, but I don’t get it.  The colors are fun and the display grabbed my attention, but I’m ADHD, so any shiny object will do that.  And the cosmetics department is full of highly attractive and graphically stunning displays that don’t require ADHD.

Brushes with genius. This is a set of magnetic brushes.  Smart, maybe, but it’s not creating world peace or curing diseases.  Again, these are good and probably great if you carry makeup stuff with you.

Trash display. I’m not sure what the product is here, but it did make me laugh that it’s displayed right over a trash can.  Interesting merchandising concept.  Maybe not the best subliminal message on this one, but this one?  I get it.

*** Before moving on to the skin care section, I need to say if you are into this makeup thing and you buy Mac makeup locally in Frisco, you should go to Nordstroms in Stonebriar mall and buy it from Farren.  She is an absolute pleasure to talk with and people like her make retail shopping pleasant.  She is also very knowledgable and took time to find all the right products for Susan.  If you’ve never worked in retail, it’s not easy work.  Kudos to all people in retail, as your hard work is noticed.  :)

Did they just call me fat??! Fat girl scrub?  Fat girl slim?  Fat girl sleep?  Okay, if I’m fat, I really don’t feel to good about being called that.  And can someone explain to me why fat girls need all this stuff?  Just don’t get me started on the bottom shelf here with the body butter…  Completely baffled on this one.  Please explain to me how this is a good marketing plan.  It reminds me of that movie Crazy People, where they had all those honesty ads.  Good movie, but do people want the truth?  You can’t handle the truth!!  Oh, sorry..

Over-the-counter prescription. Hmmm, I have a desire to get a bow and arrow and shoot the apple off Dr. Perricone’s head.  Nothing against him, it’s all about the floating apple.  For $95 you can get “bright eyes and glowing health”.  I’m not a fan of the loosely used word ‘prescription’.  I guess anyone can prescribe anything, as long as it’s not a controlled substance.  This guy is probably the center of many jokes at the DEA office.  And why is the eye care kit bigger than the total body kit?  That scares me.  Time to leave Nordstroms and head out into the great, big mall.

Oh, the irony. Apparently I look down when I walk because I find all kinds of interesting things.  I’m not sure if I’m subconsciously looking for stuff on the ground or if I’m just looking to see where I’m going.  At the top of the escalator, there was a rose petal.  The proverbial rose petal trail, luring me into the well organized little spaces, walls lined with magical products that will enhance my life.  Surely it will enhance the life of everyone I know, because this is the place where I must buy many gifts, according to the signage.

White market, black market… pink market. Oh no!  Pink has crept its way into the black and white store!  Equal opportunity colors?  Maybe I don’t want to buy pink stuff from a store called black and white.  Oh well, they do say that pink is the new black.  Now we know where that originated.

Pit stop. Okay, I had to go into the Apple store.  It was right across from the other makeup store.  I played with the new MacBook Air and the iPads.  Cool stuff, but nothing I need.

Christmas is coming… It’s not even halloween yet, and most of the stores are merchandised for ‘the holidays’.  Stocking stuffers of every kind, 3 for $10.  I’m thinking some printing company just made a big bunch of these signs and sell them to retailers at a discount… 3 for $10.

Looks like Dasher is making a little money on the side this year, but who can blame him?  He’s got a family to feed and working one day a year won’t pay the bills.

Ahh, the line of Bath & Body Works ‘holiday’ line.  The line is call Philosophy, which leads me to think they have pondered several marketing angles and the Philosophy is to sell as much as possible.  A product called Silent Night.  So if I rub this on my kids, I can have a silent night?  Cool!

The problem with seasonal stuff is that you really end up liking it, but then it’s not available come January.  So you decide to wait until the next holiday season to buy more, only to find that the marketing and product design people decided to take a different route this year.  Bye, bye stuff you like.  Welcome to the product cycle.

The end. Not really, it’s just the beginning.  The cultural Christmas chaos is here in its infant stage.  These things are not bad, but when purchasing items for yourself or gift giving, here’s a few things to think about.

• Are you buying something for a person because you feel like you have to?
• Is this a company or product you want to support?
• Is this going to be something they (or you) need or want?
• Is the retailer doing some good in the world?  Being green or helping people in need?

Please enjoy the holidays responsibly.  ;)