If it shimmers, glitters or shines, the product was probably on display at the NACDS Marketplace show held in June in San Diego.

In the beauty care categories this year, shade collections emphasizing metallics in gold, bronze and copper tones proliferated, along with glittering, shimmering sheer shades for lips, eyes, nails, cheeks, even hair.

Among the big launches officially introduced at the show were Coty's The Healing Gardens, a 39-SKU family of home and personal fragrances; Carson Products Dark & Lovely Cosmetics for African-American women; and A.M. Cosmetic's Madison NY, which may be the first multi-cultural full cosmetics line to hit the mass market. More exciting and interesting promotional nail collections than in recent memory were available, and a number of interesting alternative versions of Christian Dior's hot new item, Hair Mascara, could be seen.

If imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery. then Parfums de Coeur and Coty's Calgon should be heartily congratulated because Marketplace was also full of "me too" lines of lightly fragranced body mists.

Parfums also announced what may be the fragrance industry's most unusual and biggest promotion ever. This fall to reward its female adult customers, McDonald's will be giving away free packets of samples of Parfum's Body Fantasies in its most popular flavor, raspberry. The promotion, available at over 12,000 McD's nationally, will reach the 85 percent of the U.S. population who drop in at McDonald's over a 30-day period.
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What else was to be discovered at Marketplace? At this show, Drug Store News set out to emulate buyers' traditional Marketplace search for new and exciting items and promotions. We were particularly looking for new and novel items, as well as promotions with hot new shades or some other key point of difference.

What follows is some of what we discovered in the cosmetics and fragrances arena. Keep in mind, however, that the show is just too big for any one person to cover completely. And it's very difficult to translate the fashion or shade impact of a hot new nail color line such as Pure Ice or capture the intrigue of an innovative display in words.

Among Marketplace's stars...

The Caboodles Bath & Body Shimmers collection is a cute and colorful line from Minneapolis-based Minnetonka Brands. Targeted to teens, it's being supported by print ads and point-of-purchase aids that help the products jump off the shelves.

The ad campaign also ties in to the Caboodles Organizers, made by Plano, Ill.-based Caboodles, which is licensing the Caboodles name to Minnetonka. The colors of the new eye-popping liquid metallic Caboodles mini organizers match the purple, blue and pink shades of the Caboodles body products and the color palette of the lip glosses, making both the Liquid Metallic collection of organizers and the shimmering collection of Caboodles cosmetics/fragrances doubly visible and dramatic.

AM Cosmetics, based in New York, is making a serious bid for the value-conscious youth market. As mentioned earlier, the company is launching the industry's first multi-cultural cosmetics line called Madison NY this year, and, in an incredible flurry of activity, is also introducing major marketing initiatives on a wide variety of brands, from hot new promotions, packaging, graphics and fixtures for its Tropez and Artmatic budget line of cosmetics to new color palettes for its youth line, Sweet Georgia Brown. AM Cosmetics has also introduced a new 1-foot in-line fixture for Sweet Georgia Brown.

Madison NY is positioned as an alternative to the trendy MAC line, popular in department and specialty stores. The line's 300 SKUs include 60 shades for lips and nails and five shades for face. Price points will range from $2.29 to $4.29, and the full line can be merchandised in just 3 feet. The line ships in the first quarter of 1998, but teaser ads are breaking in consumer publications this summer/fall.

AM Cosmetics also owns the Cutex nail color marketing rights, and is planning to relaunch the brand this fall. The shade palette for Strong Nails has been completely updated, and the entire line will now be available at one price point, $3.29. Launching in spring 1998, a Cutex One Coat Nail Enamel collection consisting of 40 shades will be positioned as "department store quality at value prices." Cutex's nail treatments will be relaunched as Cutex Ultra One Coat Treatments, Cutex Strong Nail Treatments and Cutex Salon Set Treatments. For the first time, Cutex will be expanding into the depilatory category with Cutex Naturally Soft.

American International is one of the first manufacturers to create a mass market alternative to Christian Dior's Hair Mascara. At Marketplace, the company introduced two variations of hair color streaking products: Hair Color Candy, a color pomade that comes in eight shades and is applied to the hair with fingertips; and Hair Flair, three shades of mascara for the hair.