The Daily Feather — Blue Bombshell

If you’ve got it, vaunt it. At least, that’s the attitude middle-aged American women had in the 1950s. As recounted in Mental Floss, in 1953, Edyth Thornton McLeod wrote the following in her syndicated column Beauty After Forty: “If you have gray hair and like it, why not dramatize it a bit? Use a blue rinse. You can have a soft blue cloud effect, or you can make it deep and dramatic and match your accessories to the color.” It all started in 1930 with Jean Harlow’s starring role in “Hell’s Angels.” She was the original Platinum Blonde Bombshell. Hairdressers’ secret was the “blue rinse,” a chemical solution inspired by the established custom of brightening white linens with bluing agents. The risk was taking the rinse too far, which turned that “soft cloud effect” to a frightfully bright blue or even purple. Marilyn Monroe piled onto the craze, assuring the ladies that blondes had more fun.

Until early this year, it was U.S. new car auto dealers who had the most fun. Such was the supply/demand imbalance, they were able to charge more than the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price for 20 straight months through February 2023. While the inventory picture may not resemble a “recovery” in the historical sense, at 39 Days’ Supply, dealer lots have as many vehicles to test drive as they did in February 2021, before the worst of the supply drought set in (orange line). If we had to guess, the data are understating supplies. At 11:02a.m. Friday, spam made a rare welcome appearance in my inbox. Five Star Chevrolet, a Carrollton, Texas dealership, was kind enough to inform me that it had “Huge Inventory and No Payments for 90 Days!” Nope, never owned a Chevrolet or heard of Five Star. This past February, Car & Driver announced Chevy’s Silverado had unseated Ford’s F-150 as the best-selling truck in America. The good news: You can get 2022 and 2023 models financed for 0% with a 36-month term.

While we can’t guarantee it, it’s likely that you’ll also get a nice discount. According to Kelley Blue Book, General Motors increased incentive spending in August…again. To think it wasn’t even a year ago that GM CEO Mary Barra assured shareholders incentive spending had gone the way of the do-do bird. Perspective here is warranted.