Gallup 91: beauty care is way to a woman's heart - includes related articles on beauty departments, make-up, lip cosmetics, eye make-up, nail cosmetics chains, and drug chains beauty products sales - DrSN/Gallup Report

The American female is a very desirable customer. As the person usually in charge of most household purchases, this is the consumer that most mass market stores target as their primary customer.

For four years now, Drug Store News has sponsored a national sample of bauty care use and shopping patterns among American women. The study is conducted for us by the Princeton, N.J.-based Gallup Organization.

This year's survey, which is based on a national projectable sample of 500 women, confirms that beauty care categories really are a popular way to a woman's heart.

Merchandised and advertised strategically, beauty care categories like fragrances, lipsticks and mascaras can lure a woman into a store, and once there, of course, she can be tempted into browsing and buying other types of merchandise.

This year Gallup found that, based on their incidence and frequency of use, there are three color cosmetics categories that especially deserve to be highlighted, via merchandising and advertising, in the cosmetics departments of all chain drug stores. These are face, lip and eye color cosmetics.

According to Gullup, eight our of every 10 American women over 18 use face color cosmetics (80 percent) and lip color (80 percent), while seven out of every 10 (69 percent) use some type of eye color product.

In comparison, nail color is currently only used by half the adult female population (51 percent), while nail treatment products are only used by a quarter of the population (25 percent), according to Gallup.

Not only do the face, lip and eye cosmetics segments have the highest population of users, they are also the segments with the highest incidence of use, Gallup discovered.

Eight of all 10 users apply either a face, lip or eye makeup at least once a day.

However, only one-third (35 percent) of all nail color users said they use a color polish "all the time," while 58 percent said they use polish "all or most of the time."

Possibly because very few women are ever entirely satisfied with the skin tones they inherit, 65 percent of all women use either a liquid base foundation, and/or a face powder with a blush.

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