In recent months, no one can ignore the financial and economic crisis which has been sweeping the world. There are various indexes you could use to monitor the crisis - currency exchange, debt, stock exchange, interest rates - but there have also been light-hearted reports of other indexes which reflect the time - such as the mini-skirt index (hems rise as times get tough) and the alligator index (alligator populations increase because people can't afford them as handbags and shoes).

Another quirky index is the Lipstick index, which says that women will spend more on lipstick during tough economic times. This could perhaps be said of many types of reasonably-priced luxury items, as people try and spoil themselves in smaller ways during hard times.

Is the lipstick index up during this financial crisis? Well Loreal, owner of Lancome cosmetics, posted a 27.7% increase in sales growth during the last quarter of 2008, coinciding with the first quarter of the current economic crisis.

It's good news for the MAC AIDS fund, run by MAC cosmetics, a charity which is run almost completely on the profits made from the sales of just one line of MAC lipsticks, Viva Glam. Hopefully the myth of the lipstick index is true, and the charity is able to maintain its activity levels throughout the recession.

Other cosmetics companies are continuing to invest in new lines during these times. Chanel cosmetics have produced Aqualumiere lipsticks, which have moved with the times, incorporating the traditional lipstick attributes (colour, creamy texture, long-lasting), with healthy skin benefits. They now contain shea butter, Vitamen E and are SPF 15.