How In The World Does A Girl Get Her Hands On CG's "Queen Collection!?"

Riddle me this, lambs: The reason companies advertise something is presumably because they want consumers (i.e. you and me) to buy it, right? This is pretty much the kind of thing they cover in the first 10-minutes in Marketing 101.

But evidently the good folks at Cover Girl have some ulterior stealthy purpose in mind by teasing Queen Latifah's Cover Girl’s Queen Collection and then NOT MAKING IT AVAILABLE WHERE ANYONE CAN ACTUALLY BUY IT!!

Now, if you are one of the millions upon millions of "toasted almond" or "cappuccino" cuties, the frustration of shopping for makeup that doesn't make you look ashy or like one of the Twilight undead in a sea of "beige" and "ivory" is nothing new.

Many of us were mixing shades in Tupperware containers in our bathrooms (come on now, I know I wasn't the only one) long before companies like Prescriptives caught a clue that not everyone is the same one-shade-fits-all.

Fast-forward and today there are definitely more beauty products for woman of color at their local CVS, Walgreens, Duane Reade, whatev, but sometimes it requires the skills of a trained CIA agent to hunt down which stores have them in stock. Yes, yes, department stores offer a Benetton rainbow of shades but damn, sometimes a girl just wants a little beauty lift that doesn't require taking out a loan for a tube of lipstick.

Which brings me to the impetus for my rant. In a metropolitan area with a significant minority population -- not to mention one where the nation's first black president and his ultra stylish wife reside literally just down the road -- why did trips to FOUR separate stores turn up hide nor hair of the Queen collection? In fact, NONE of the deeper shades in the CG range were available. Zippo. Nada.

Honestly, in this day and age of 24/7 Sephora-ification, this kind of beauty scavenger hunt is just ridiculous. For an exclusive product launch, sure, but a mass market (supposedly, but not really as it turns out) line. . . . fuggedaboutit.

Apparently the collection is fit for a queen because Miss Dana Owens is the only one who can get her hands on it! Now, who do I see about getting reimbursed for gas after traipsing all over town in my fruitless search?