Hint: It was on the fashion pages.

Second clue: It wasn’t shoes or the latest handbag sensation.

Answer: It was a dazzling red lippy.

I love a good red lipstick and yes, there are certainly many glorious shades of red, but I felt feminist challenged when I read the accompanying public relations spin for the associated #togetherwemarchon campaign.

The ‘purchase with a purpose’ lipstick was from Elizabeth Arden and it was launched in New York as part of the #metoo anti-sexual harassment campaign.

I’ve read a little bit about the history of lippy and…in brief: “red pigment to make mouth resemble aroused nether bits to attract male of the species”.

What were they thinking? Well, for more than 100 years the folks at Elizabeth Arden have promoted bright red lipstick as a statement of feminine power.

But what next in #metoowilltryandsellyouanything?

How about a matching pair of knickers and bra as a feminist statement? Or, nifty stilettos #cantrunfastenough

It’s not the first time the folks at Elizabeth Arden have trod the feminist market and EA regularly donates part or all of red lippy special campaign sales to raising the living and education prospects of disadvantaged women, and have done since 1912 when EA herself marched alongside some red-lipped suffragettes, which is cool; But, you know, it just doesn’t feel right.

I even watched the lipstick’s promotional video on me and you tube thingy. It still didn’t feel right.

I sensed that Reese Witherspoon, who’s signature is on the new lippy, felt a little uncomfortable delivering the sales pitch.

After all, what colour lippy do you think most of the women hassled to within an inch of their sanity in Harvey Weinstein’s Hollywood might have been wearing? Did wearing red lippy make them feel more powerful? Did it make them powerful enough to stand up to harassment for the past 100 years?

Nah.

Did they stop and think: ‘Perhaps if I wear red lipstick to my meeting with Harvey, he’ll leave me alone?”

Opportunistic?

Generally speaking, men don’t wear lipstick. Go figure.

My idea of a purchase with a purpose is pasta and red wine.

I had a little bit of fun this week when a group of us gathered for a stiff drink or three.

I learned you can hide grey hairs, or as I now call them, tinsel, with a black sharpy texta and that three out of five men believe they’re always right.

But it was a grenade I lobbed onto the table that ignited debate and lowered the tone, as I’m want to do.

“Well, my husband thinks Morton House (formerly Fee and Me restaurant) would make a terrific brothel”.

The very pretty house, on the corner of Charles and York streets, Launceston, was also the site of the Australia’s first anaesthetic administered by Dr William Russ Pugh and, during its restaurant days, hosted Prime Ministers, actors and high flying local and international corporates. It was even Australian Gourmet Traveller Restaurant of the Year.

Straight away you can see the ‘synergies’, as those in marketing might say.

And for some years, my husband was a very salubrious waiter at Fee and Me.

A colleague noted how close his proposed brothel would be to our home.

But then the wisest and most sober among us flipped the logistics, apart from legalising prostitution, where would we we find the ‘men’. Yep, her brothel would be to service women. Now there’s a feminist statement.