Same Thing, Different Color
Choice paralysis? Or, the more options the better?
Seen at Bed Bath & Beyond. I had to restrain myself from buying one of each color in order to line them up neatly in a rainbow spectrum on my desk. They all look so appealing!
Rainbows catch my eye. A rainbow's worth of differently colored products catch my eye.
In some products, a plethora of color choices can be a good thing. When browsing through eye shadows and lip sticks, sometimes you need just that right hue/shade/tint to complement your skin tone.
Seen at MAC. Cosmetics are one of those shopping paradoxes to me. I can spend a lot of time poring over the packaging, glitter content, palette combinations, pigment intensity and clever display stands and then walk away empty handed. I admire cosmetics, I hardly use them.
Or perhaps men's socks. Uniqlo has my favorite sock display to date:
If you can't find a suitable color from here (or the adjacent shelf of even more colors) you are a picky shopper indeed.
But when does adding just another color option become lazy product design? That's something I wondered recently when stepping into a Bath & Body Works, one of my favorite haunts from middle and high school.
1 scent = (body lotion + shimmer mist + bubble bath + hand soap + body mist + perfume + hand sanitizer) x (mini + medium + large)
It has been interesting to watch my favorite scent, Japanese Cherry Blossom, change in absolutely no way except for bottle shape and label design over the past 10 years or so.
Do more aesthetic permutations of a product signify stable success or lack of inspiration?
I don't know.
If I ever go missing, you can find me in the household items section of Target agonizing over which color of Method Hand Soap to buy for my bathroom.