SUMMER PROMOTIONS: MORE THAN LIP SERVICE

LAURA KLEPACKI

To help boost lipstick sales for the summer season, cosmetic companies and distributors have created a potpourri of programs that include consumer contests, samplings and the introduction of hot new shades.

Maybelline, Memphis, Tenn., is offering customers a chance to win a Caribbean cruise, said Daniel Collins, senior marketing manager for lip and nail products.

The Beauty Cruise promotion, which runs through this month, will give away 50 trips, as well as some cosmetic samples. Consumers can win a trip two ways: through a sweepstakes, with entry blanks available at point-of-purchase displays, or via an instant win coupon found on mascara packs.

In conjunction with the promotion, trial sizes on some new foundation products will be offered. New shades of lipstick, nail polish and eye shadow also will be tested, said Collins.

This will be followed up in September with a Buy One, Try One Free promotion in which customers will receive a free eye shadow, blush, lipstick or eye liner with the purchase of a mascara. The items will be blister-packed together, said Collins.

Kimberly Stewart, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, said the company's Max Factor line has been sampling new shades of its lipstick in food-and-drug combination stores and will continue the program at least throughout the summer.

The samples look like match sticks, and are good for two applications, said Stewart. "There are lots of different shades, and there are trained demonstrators handing out the product," she said.

Pavion Ltd., Nyack, N.Y., has introduced new lipstick lines in its Wet 'n' Wild brand to brighten summer sales, and will be shipping special bulk counter displays of lipstick, lip pencils and liquid lip color.

Pavion's Mega Matt Lipstick, Matte Lipliner and Matte Liquid Lip Color are debuting in six opaque, neutral shades, along with a six-color line of lipstick and nail polish called Earth Tones.

Terry Seidel, health and beauty care buyer at Alpine Distributors, Nyack, N.Y., which services stores in the New York metro area, said, "The cosmetics companies are all trying to do something a little different."

Representatives of Revlon, New York, did not return phone calls for comment, and L'Oreal, New York, declined to comment.