At first I thought
it was just me. As a hypnotherapist, I am sensitive to subliminal
messages and they tend to pop out at me. Subliminal messages are,
after all, my stock and trade. Learning to construct a suggestion so
it bypasses the conscious and enters the subconscious like a gooey
dessert that will stick to your mind is not easy, but a lot of people
make their living doing just that and some of those people are in
advertising.
When I worked in
advertising the goal was to make the product attractive to the
consumer. That evolved to the “must have” doctrine and finally to
outright lying about the product. The product became to hook, all we
needed to do was convince you to try it or that everyone else was
going to have one. That was when it got hard to look in the mirror
every morning. I was selling junk drugs as gold and no one needed it.
It seems to have
taken a second evolution now that you are hooked on needing it. I
mean what kind of a person doesn't trek down to the card store, or at
least the rack in the grocery, and pick out a nice paper card to hand
the people we interact with and care about? Someone who doesn't care,
that's who! Have you ever read the message carefully. In the January
issue of Woman's Day, there are some little blurbs about live
changing moments. One woman is buying one of those cards for her
daughter when she rereads the message in the card. “Reach for the
Stars.” Well, that's a good idea for your daughter. “Be all you
can be,” sort of sounds like the recruitment for the Marines. “Keep
on trying.” This is going downhill. “And one day you'll achieve
success.” Whaaaatttt??? Oh, and by-the-way, “Happy Birthday!”
That is what we used to call a backhanded compliment. It sounds good
but it is a put down. That card didn't make it out of the store and I
say good for her. She is on the track to finding all the subtle
messages women meet with every day.
Oh, we are all
familiar with the screaming “DIET!”, you must be a size 0 and if
you don't look like this you aren't desirable. The not at all subtle
if you aren't under 40, you really should slit your wrists because if
you aren't juggling a poorly paid job so you can buy, buy, buy for
your children you are useless slime taking up space younger people
should have.
But there are even
more subtle ones I noticed as I was looking at the new shades of
makeup. It seems we have 2 color combinations now, down from the 4 of
when I modeled: cool and warm. That's wrong but I'll explain later.
Cool is for fair skinned to light medium skinned women and the colors
are named Rapture and a whole host of Biblical references. Warm is
for dark medium to dark skinned women and has such names as Lust, Hot
and a host of sinful references. Are you getting the message yet?
First let me break
down something in color for you. There is the color and then there is
the base of the color. Cool colors can have a cool or a warm base
just as “warm” colors can have a cool or warm base. There are
really 4 basic skin colors and a lot more variations. Cool bases are
blues, lavenders and purples. Warm bases are peach, orange and
yellow. From there you overlay the primary colors and create the
shades and blends.
But now, you have
fair skinned 'going to Heaven', chaste women and their darker, I mean
warmer because we can't say what is well implied: darker,
counterparts that are hot, sexy sinners headed straight to Hell. Oh
yes, some of the colors are direct references to Hell in warm
category like Sinful Coral. What is sinful about coral?
Is this a
coincidence? Oh yes, just like the message in the card for little
girls is a coincidence. Mothers, as your day approaches be very, very
careful of the double meaning in the gifts, cards and even the nail
polish you buy.
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