When They Stop Selling Your Favorite Thing

For 15 years, Elizabeth Spiridakis Olson used a matte lip pencil in a shade of red called Dragon Girl.In her view, it was “one of the great reds, and the perfect consistency.”Ms.

Spiridakis Olson, a freelance creative director in South Orange, N.J., used it almost daily.She kept one Dragon Girl lip pencil in her home office and another in her handbag.

If she misplaced or lost them, it was no big deal.She could always buy more.Then one day last year, Ms.

Spiridakis Olson made a chilling discovery while shopping at Sephora: The store no longer carried her go-to liner.In its place, NARS, the beauty company that made Dragon Girl, was now selling a similar product, Powermatte High Intensity Long Lasting Lip Pencil.It offered a different — and inferior, to Ms.

Spiridakis Olson’s thinking — shade of red and consistency.“I panicked,” Ms.Spiridakis Olson said.On the NARS website, she found that Dragon Girl was available on what was billed as a final sale.

“I bought as much as they would allow me,” she recalled.Her stash should last her many years.“It’s so pigmented, you’re not reapplying it a ton,” Ms.

Spiridakis Olson said.“Now, do I know the proper way to store this for optimal conditions? No.

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