Ulta Cosmetics Store. The other side of the moon.

 I have heard that only one side of the moon is observable from earth, and that another dark side exists that we never see. I thought about that yesterday when the wife dragged me into the Ulta Cosmetics Store on Hulen.

I had no idea this world existed. 15,000 square feet with shelves packed with every imaginable beauty product and I saw things I had never seen before.

Like the skin care product with sand in it. Sand on paper I have seen, sand on beaches I have seen, this was sand in a "seaside facial scrub." Right next to the sand scrub was the "sea foam" cream. It had little bubbles in it.

I walked around. A video monitor with a scary-looking guy named Napoleon hawking his wares caught my attention. I stood and watched him apply his Napoleonic line of makeup to his model-victims. His method of applying the make-up was interesting. He'd dab the makeup on the back of his hand like a landscape artist does a palette, then dab-dab the girl's eyelid for about 10 seconds, and this while talking, looking back at the camera -- at me -- about the transformative effect of his products.

He was scary. Really.

Did you know that there are dozens of varieties of hair blowers, curlers, and hair irons? There were a hundred varieties of brushes. That's varieties. The brushes themselves were in the thousands. And that's not counting the combs.

Color is of obvious importance in cosmetics and every beauty product company has its own color. Ulta itself likes the pink hues, Bare Essentials: earth tones, Clinique: white, Max Factor: black. And then there is the accompanying theme word: sea is big, as is aqua, health, bare, shine, sheer, and beauty, of course. You can see the connection, sheer goes with light beige colors, sea with blues. Anything with the word spa in it is popular. Then there are the foreign words, well, actually French words, like femme, homme, sol and l'eau.

There are no German words, only French and a few Spanish., which I can understand, who wants to buy a product that begins with "Ich?"

The shampoo and conditioner aisles are a wonder in their variety of names, shapes, and colors. Nothing like the half-gallon jug I bought at K-Mart, my side of the moon.