For everyone who's ever slicked on lipstick, flirted with eye shadow, or browsed the bewildering array in any beauty department, Color Stories offers an insider's view of all the brainstorming, bickering, and bitchery that go into those little sticks of color and pans of powder.

Former beauty editor Mary Lisa Gavenas takes us behind the scenes during the nine months that culminate in the launch of a season's all-important “color stories.” We discover how one shade becomes the “must have,” why makeup artists never use the same products as the rest of us, and exactly how easy—and impossible—it is to start a million-dollar makeup line.

Backstage at runway shows, we're swept into the catty, chaotic work world of makeup mogul Bobbi Brown and supermodel Gisele Bündchen. At Estée Lauder headquarters, we see the achingly chic Aerin Lauder spin societal trends into a lipstick lineup. We watch magazines cheat to make makeup work for layouts, find out how Cindy Crawford got to be worth every penny of that $10 million contract, and make the pilgrimage to Dallas as 35,000 of the Mary Kay faithful assemble for the fabled annual “Seminar.” Along the way, we also learn about marketing, media, and manipulation of aesthetics, about the codification of physical beauty, and how this industry revolutionized the role of women in business.

Through often funny, occasionally poignant scenes of seduction, courtship, and consummation, Color Stories reveals why we become besotted by beauty products—and why that love affair will never end.