Normally, one hears a lot of complaints about why it took so long to put wheels on suitcases. I often wonder the same thing myself, usually while refusing to open a baby-blue relic of the pre-wheels era that I vaguely remember using for storage somewhere back in the early 90s. My father, helpfully, put this giant, hard-sided bad boy into a shipping crate (weight: 14 pounds BEFORE I stored whatever I stored inside its capaciousness) and sent it to my tiny New York City apartment. Sometimes I reflect on its small, hand-only handle: who carried this thing, fully-loaded, with '60's weight hairdryer and all, over Chicago-sized snowbanks and through the unremitting hell of O'Hare airport, back in the day? And why DID it take so long to think to put little wheels on the bottom.....a few thousand years after the wheel was invented??
It was with the same spirit of wonderment that I contemplated the new beauty vending machine in JFK's terminal 7 recently, stashed somewhere next to a Juicy Couture shop and behind an Embers restaurant. (Digression: when SFO was renovated, they put in: a Napa Valley Market; cleverly designed restrooms with enough door swing clearance to allow one to get in while actually carrying a bag and not fall into the toilet plus stall doors that actually lock and sinks with raised dividers between that one can rest one's bag on without risking a soaking plus leaving a budget to actually clean said restrooms; eateries with things that are actually edible; seating that has some relation to human ergonomics. JFK went from bad to bad. How do they do that??)
But back to the beauty vending machine. Despite the G-d awful non-upgrade to the terminal, featuring absolute shit food, filthy non-working bathrooms that one can't use, and nowhere to sit, they did put in this lovely, thoughtful feature, even if they did hide it somewhere totally random.
How many times have each of us forgotten, or run out of, a mission-critical item while in transit, like cleanser? Or makeup remover? Or sunscreen? This machine is stocked with a thoughtfully edited range of medium to high end products that help out the intrepid traveler in virtually any beauty emergency. Plus just the idea is fab. I bought a Dermalogica cleanser duo (makeup remover and cleanser), which, despite my not needing either at all, was awesome. I also violated a major rule of cosmetics shopping, and bought a Kate Somerville sunscreen without reading the ingredients. While that didn't work out so well (not just oxybenzone, but a whopping amount of oxybenzone, PLUS retinol palmitate.....) it didn't dampen my enthusiasm for the experience overall. After all, its me that exhorts any and all to read the label before buying, right?
It was with the same spirit of wonderment that I contemplated the new beauty vending machine in JFK's terminal 7 recently, stashed somewhere next to a Juicy Couture shop and behind an Embers restaurant. (Digression: when SFO was renovated, they put in: a Napa Valley Market; cleverly designed restrooms with enough door swing clearance to allow one to get in while actually carrying a bag and not fall into the toilet plus stall doors that actually lock and sinks with raised dividers between that one can rest one's bag on without risking a soaking plus leaving a budget to actually clean said restrooms; eateries with things that are actually edible; seating that has some relation to human ergonomics. JFK went from bad to bad. How do they do that??)
But back to the beauty vending machine. Despite the G-d awful non-upgrade to the terminal, featuring absolute shit food, filthy non-working bathrooms that one can't use, and nowhere to sit, they did put in this lovely, thoughtful feature, even if they did hide it somewhere totally random.
How many times have each of us forgotten, or run out of, a mission-critical item while in transit, like cleanser? Or makeup remover? Or sunscreen? This machine is stocked with a thoughtfully edited range of medium to high end products that help out the intrepid traveler in virtually any beauty emergency. Plus just the idea is fab. I bought a Dermalogica cleanser duo (makeup remover and cleanser), which, despite my not needing either at all, was awesome. I also violated a major rule of cosmetics shopping, and bought a Kate Somerville sunscreen without reading the ingredients. While that didn't work out so well (not just oxybenzone, but a whopping amount of oxybenzone, PLUS retinol palmitate.....) it didn't dampen my enthusiasm for the experience overall. After all, its me that exhorts any and all to read the label before buying, right?
