For 15 years, Elizabeth Spiridakis Olson used a matte lip pencil in a red red called Dragon Girl. According to her, it was “one of the big red and the perfect consistency.”
Mrs. Spiridakis Olson, a freelance creative director in South Orange, NJ, used it almost daily. She held a Dragon Girl Lip Pencil in her home office and another in her handbag. If she loses or lost them, it wasn't a problem. She could always buy more.
When last year one day last year, Mrs. Spiridakis Olson made a hair-raising discovery during shopping at Sephora: The store no longer wore her go-to liner.
Instead, Nars, the beauty company that Dragon Girl made, now sold a similar product, PowerMatte High Intensity Long Dasting Lip Pencil. It offered a different – and inferior, the thinking of Mrs. Spiridakis Olson – red and consistency.
“I panicked,” said Mrs. Spiridakis Olson.
On the NARS website she discovered that Dragon Girl was available about what was invoiced as a final sale. “I bought as much as they would allow me,” she remembered.
Her stock should last her many years. “It is so pigmented, you don't apply it a ton,” said Mrs. Spiridakis Olson. “Do I now know the right way to save this for optimum conditions? No. They are under my sink. “
There is a flowering gray-like market for lip pencils outside of stock and other stopped products. Customers touch eBay and other resale sites to find things such as almonds soap, which have no circulation for years.
They pay many times the original selling price for advantage Hello Flawless Powder Foundation, which was stopped in 2019. There is even an e-commerce site, ended beauty, whose motto “keeps you connected to your favorite beauty products.”
Fans of terminated products, from clothing to cars, gather on pin boards to share and share sourcing tips. Loyal users of Jason Powersmile Toothpasta complained about Reddit that they were no longer able to buy a tube after the company had left the Dentifrice activities in December. Dawn's recent decision to change the smell of his washing -up liquid caused a similar flurry of online kvetching and strategies.
“We all have our thing, and it's like a security blanket, and when it goes away, we panic,” said Beth Sobol, a freelance writer in Manhattan.
For Mrs. Sobol, that thing was that Pantene Nutrient Miracle Miracle Moisture Boost Rose Water Petal Soft Hair Treatment, a hair softener available at her local drugstore who performed wonders despite his cheap price. In 2023 she noticed that it became more difficult to find: Pantene had replaced it with a similar conditioner in a tube that Mrs Sobol found less wonderful.
She started buying every pot in her neighborhood and broadened her search for drugstores in other districts of New York while the supplies were declining. Then she started buying pots from Ebay, Poshmark and third parties via Walmart.
Nowadays, Miracle Moisture Boost is not in stock everywhere. Sellers on eBay count $ 25 to $ 40 for something that has been sold for around $ 9. Mrs. Sobol still trusts it daily, because he has not been able to find anything that works better.
“I found a woman she sold for $ 16,” she said. “I am willing to pay that. But $ 30 plus shipping? I just have a problem that pays so much for Pantene. '
She now has four pots, against 20. If a pot lasts for three weeks, does that mean that she will be out in the spring?
“You let it sound like heroin:”You will have to stop once“Said Mrs. Sobol. “I know it's coming. I have to start stepping with it. “
Michael Williams, who writes the Modenieuws letter ACL, is worried about an accessory that has disappeared – a quilted laptop bag made by Filson. He and other style writers have celebrated it as the perfect travel cabinets, able to fit a camera or computer and to be easily stored under an aircraft seat. After Filson dropped the bag off the line, Mr. Williams to hunt 'them down everywhere before everyone finds out how great they are, “he said.
Alexander Aciman, an editor at Wirecutter, who is owned by the New York Times, is on the trawlen of eBay for old bottles of a lavender-scented after-shave previously made by Crabtree & Evelyn.
It was a favorite of his father, the writer André Aciman. A few years ago Alexander found a dusty bottle in a boutique in Connecticut – his last touch of things.
“I have associated incredibly strong memories with that scent of early mornings in the 90s, when my father taught in Princeton,” he said. “At the time, he wore that scent because it reminded him of his childhood. I mainly try not to lose the scent and keep it some sort of access. “
He added that his grandfather, Henri Aciman, had worn a lavender scent by Yardley London.
For Catherine Pearson, the obscure object of Desire is a certain car model: the Volvo 240 Station Wagon. She has had three of the sturdy, almost 16 feet long cars, which the Swedish car manufacturer stopped producing in 1993.
Mrs. Pearson, a regular designer and florist in Queens, thinks it is great to drag. Later Volvo Wagons she said: “Get less boxy as time passes, which means that you can't get so many things in it.”
She bought her current Volvo after a long search at the Facebook marketplace. It has 180,000 miles on the kilometer counter. “I hope I can keep it going, so that I can be rich enough to convert it to electric,” said Mrs. Pearson.
Those who try to keep themselves in the range of a difficult product to be found can take inspiration from Tab Drinkers, whose loyalty to the NutritionOth is the legend.
The Coca-Cola Company, which had made the soft drink since 1963, finally put an end to Tab in 2020, after years of shortages and rumors about the downfall of the product. Adam Burbach and Jenny Boyter, two members of the Savetabsoda committee, saw the end in advance arriving and storing.
Mrs. Boyter had enough stock in her basement to last a year and a half, if she drank a tab per day. Mr Burbach bought so many 36-can packs on Amazon as the online retailer and his good sentence would allow it, considering expiry dates.
“I thought:” How many tabs do I want in a day, and how long would they be good? “He said.” I thought a year. “
Today, Mrs. Boyter is up to a 12-pack and six separate cans. She drinks the soft drink on her birthday or on vacation. “I had one on New Year's Day,” she said. “Every year is better with tab.”
The stock of Mr. Burbach is up to about 10 cans in his basement fridge. His joy about having a refreshing tab is tempered with the realization that everyone can consume will bring him closer to his last.
“I haven't drunk there for months,” he said. “I feel almost bad drinking.”
Nevertheless, both hope that Coca-Cola will bring the tab back, and they walk through supermarkets in Wishful expectations.
“I went to Kroger today and went through the soft drink, because that is a fantasy of mine,” said Mrs. Boyter. “In my imagination I find the tab and then call Adam.”
