“Orgasm.” “Asphyxia.” “Underage Red.” “BleachBlack Dick Weed.”
Beauty products are experiencing the “Miley Cyrus effect”—the need to get edgier every year in order to be noticed. Some of these names clearly cross the line, earning the ire of bloggers, tweeters and petition-signers. With others, cosmetic makers learned the hard way that racial insults can be found in even seemingly innocuous names. Yikes.
With shrinking opportunities to find names that are both titillating and socially acceptable, the trend pendulum will eventually need to swing back to safer territory. It’ll be interesting to see what areas will be mined for novel names. Humor? Science? History? Is it too soon for a red shade called Guillotine?
See Bravo TV’s coverage on this topic here: A History Of Shocking and Controversial Beauty Product Names
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