Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America's Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry

Color Stories strips the misconceptions I think that the younger generations are beginning to believe. Gavenas does a great way of illustrating and communicating business strategy in a fundamental way that I don't think could be misunderstood by any audience. As a person in the magazine industry, she strips the fairy tale stories and gets straight to reporting. For those who have been in the industry - it just solidifies your experience and for those who haven't, makes you think twice before grabbing that mascara off the shelf. This book is divided into different sub-industries and gives you a hors d'oeuvre of the larger plate of cosmetics without being too much to swallow. Lastly - I read this book in about four hours and can happily say I haven't spent my four hours any better way in a long time.

I had to do some research on the fashion industry and was really skeptical about reading a book like this. Guess what, this is an excellent insight into a crazy industry , with real business information and it reads well. I have told many colleagues about this book even if they don't need to know about the beauty industry. Plenty of data as well as anecdotal support for ideas. It's very business oriented if that is what you are after. On the other hand if you are just looking for an interesting and amusing insight into one of America's biggest customer segment, you won't be disappointed.

made it on time as well as being a great book that i needed for a school course :) !