By John A. Meyers

When Sue Raffety was attending high school in Blackwell, Okla., in the 1950s, she and her classmates wore heavily caked makeup and ruby-red lipstick. "It looked like hell," recalls Raffety, "and hurt our skin. At the time, however, we thought we were glamorous." Like many women, Raffety has done, well, an about-face on cosmetology, and today she prizes those products that help foster a fresh, natural appearance. As the senior reporter-researcher in the Economy and Business section, Raffety suggested and worked on this week's cover story about one of the cosmetics industry's largest retail companies, Revlon, and its president, Michel Bergerac.

The assignment proved to be alluring. Raffety splashed on dozens of perfumes, smeared herself with lotions and creams and spread on a rainbow of lipsticks and eye shadows. To prepare for her first interview with the president of Revlon, she visited a midtown Manhattan skin-care salon and underwent a one-hour facial that included a massage, a seaweed mask and a herbal-tea steaming. She topped off the treatment with a professional makeup job. "A session like that one can change your whole feeling about the world," says Raffety.

Reporting on an industry redolent of mystery and the exotic, Raffety was most fascinated by Bergerac himself. Her explanation: "I always suspected that people in this business were somewhat artificial--speaking with broad accents, for example, or constantly using endearments like 'darling.' Bergerac could not be more genuine: he is warm and friendly without being mushy, and he possesses a quick, dry sense of humor. I especially enjoyed watching him on his farm as he fed lettuce to his goat Dudley and played with his two baby lambs. Bergerac is as comfortable in the woods as in his Fifth Avenue office."

For Senior Writer George Church, who expounds on trade deficits and inflation spirals with ease, the story of Bergerac and the beauty business turned out to be one of his toughest covers yet.

"The dollar I understand," he says, "but how do you describe the Smoky Mauve look?" Exactly the way, we hope you'll agree, that Church describes it in a cover story that turned out to be as much fun for him as for Sue Raffety.

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