Back from vacation, summer behind, here I am in a commuter train on my way to a professional meeting in town. Next to me sits a four year old little princess. The way she swings her leg, just one, tells me she is a bored little princess. Her mom is busy with her baby brother and the rest of the world is bending absently over small shiny rectangular screens. In desperation, she turns to me, saying: “Do you know your alphabet?” I smile at her. That is all she needed. Encouraged, she starts singing the kindergarten alphabet song: A, B C… until she reaches the letter M. Then she pauses as her eyes roll upward in a comic introspective expression. A few seconds later, she restarts from the beginning only to stumble again over the stubborn M that would not let the other letters out. I congratulated her and told her she is doing much better than me. My own alphabet song currently stops at EE.
Indeed the cosmetic industry has developed its own double letter alphabet over the past few years. The trend comes from Asia, were the first BB cream was developed in the 80’s inspired by a balm concocted 20 years earlier by a German dermatologist to protect, conceal, a ...