When Hank (Dean Norris) and Steven (Steven Michael Quezada) find a car abandoned by drug dealers, there’s a very peculiar smell in it. Hank compares it to Drakkar Noir, the Guy Laroche classic fougère perfume created by Pierre Wargnye and launched in 1982.
There’s an OPI nail polish on Fatima’s bedside table.
While in New York, Mrs. Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is caught in a complex murder mystery featuring an unknown lipstick, a former student of hers (Elizabeth, the victim), her shady past and her fiancé, co-owner of Lila Lee, a door-to-door cosmetic company. Always willing to help with the investigation, Jessica and the local lieutenant Varick (Herb Edelman) discuss a jewel-studded lipstick case found on the crime scene, the lipstick in it and the one used to vandalise a portrait of the victim in her apartment.
The lipstick Varick is holding is pale pink, definitely not the bright orange-based red on the portrait.
Norman Amberson (Robert Culp), Elizabeth’s fiancé, confirms Jessica’s observation: the lipstick in the jewel case is Midnight Pink [1].
Later in the episode, Jessica’s nephew Grady (Michael Horton) finds a lipstick in the Lila Lee sales kit.
He thinks he’s found the one, but Jessica disagrees. The shade is not the same. “It’s a little bit too pink”, she says, and we, lipstick lovers, are furiously nodding because we know what she means.
This shade is Tangerine Glow. Still not right. But while checking the complete list of Lila Lee lipstick shades, Jessica finds a code number is missing.
She pretends to be a Lila Lee saleswoman whose customers want the lipstick with the missing code and pays a visit to Mr. Hillsdale (Fred Ponzlov), the chemist who created it.
Hillsdale’s reply sounds like a death toll: that colour has been discontinued. Lila Lee Amberson didn’t like how it looked on the rim of a white cup.
That perfect shade, “not too orangey, not too pink”, was called Tangerine Twist [2].
Here lies the solution of the mystery. The discontinued lipstick was used at a photoshoot, confiscated by Lila Lee Amberson (remember that she hated it) and passed to her brother, Elizabeth’s fiancé. At this point the murderer’s identity is clear, right?
[1] Maybelline did a bright pink lipstick with the same name. Maybe this episode served as source of inspiration.
[2] Jafra did a frost orange lipstick with the same name.
Emma McGill (Angela Lansbury) is a musical theatre actress who lives in London. She has a striking resemblance with her American cousin, Jessica Fletcher, whom she’s reunited in a complex plot of fake death.
The large plastic box on her dressing table is Chloé perfumed dusting powder. The lid of the box is decorated with the trademark calla lilies, famously featured in the eau de parfum bottle, too.
Arabella (Michaela Coel) and her friend Terry are back to Ego Death, the London bar where the protagonist’s story starts. The scene above is set in the bar toilet; right behind Arabella there’s a table with some perfume bottles on it. Unfortunately there’s not a clear shot of it, because it would have been interesting to see what perfumes were selected and made available to the customers for a quick spraying.
Two bottles (the first and second from the left) can be identified, though. The first is Dior Fahrenheit, the creation by Jean-Louis Sieuzac and Michel Almairac that has become a unisex favourite since its launch in 1988. The second is Alien by Thierry Mugler, a white floral (jasmine!) perfume created by Laurent Bruyère and Dominique Ropion and launched in 2005.
One of the first places we are introduced to in this show is Ego Death, a London bar with a prophetical name. It’s the place where the protagonist, Arabella, and her best friend Terry (Weruche Opia) often return to in an attempt to exorcise it as a negative symbol and find closure to the traumatic event the show opens with.
In this scene, Terry is retouching her make-up by applying a MAC lipstick in a nude shade.
In the bathroom of Paul’s mother (Arsinée Khanjian) there are Eau aromatisée de roses by Christian Lenart and Toleriane dermo-cleanser by La Roche-Posay.
While at the supermarket with Djigui, Dounia (Oulaya Amamra) takes a lipstick out of a blister pack and puts it on. It’s not a product usually available at supermarkets, though: the red metallic case and the pink dots on it tell us it’s a BeneFit lip balm.
It’s the hydrating tinted lip balm BeneBalm.
While at the supermarket with Djigui, Dounia (Oulaya Amamra) checks her image on a mirror.
Some L’Oreal make-up products are on display; among them, Mega Volume Miss Manga mascara.
With the first money Dounia earns from working for Rebecca, she gets a perfume for her mother – Cartier Must de Cartier. The red box with white front label is supposed to be for the eau de parfum version, but the box seen in the film has an odd shape (it’s rectangular and not square). Is this an old packaging or a fake perfume? In any case, this gift makes the girl’s mother overjoyed.
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