No. 7 The Lipstick Index

Makeup is a cheap thrill for penny-pinched shoppers. When the economy is weak, most consumers cut back on nonessentials and instead spend their money on the little luxuries–for example, lipstick. That’s exactly what happened during the 2001 recession, when lipstick sales soared even as the overall economy declined. These days, the so-called lipstick index (a term coined a decade ago by Estée Lauder chairman emeritus Leonard Lauder) seems to indicate more tough times to come. Lipstick sales are up 14% this year. And nail polish, which more recently has become a bellwether of economic turbulence, has risen an even more disturbing 54%. “Nail polish has become the heir to lipstick in this recession,” says Lauder. “I picked up this signal from my granddaughters. All of a sudden, there was all this nail enamel in crazy colors.”

That’s great news for the beauty industry; Estée Lauder just recorded its best North American sales in a decade. As for the rest of us, we may be headed into a double dip, but we’ll go there looking fabulous.