I have always been a sucker for makeup kits...all those gorgeous colors, the delicious names, the promise of a beautiful, new you - instant enchantment. I once signed up with a makeup club that promised to deliver directly to my door, every month, a new selection of lovely products from France.

Some kits were makeup, containing eyeshadow palettes in the latest shades purporting to be selected especially for my skin tones. Some were chock full of samples of new bath products...,and that is how I discovered a long-time favorite, Algemarin.

Recently though, my son's very talented wife, a real go-getter of a girl, became involved with Mary Kay - not only involved, but their star sales representative within a matter of months. She offered me a facial and was most generous with her free samples, but still I hung back..

I was even an Avon Lady for a brief while. I enjoyed all the sales meetings, the new campaigns, the introduction of all the lovely new products. I was a very good saleswoman, too, and managed to enlist my entire family as customers.

My only problem was that I was quickly becoming my own best customer. Birthdays, graduations, Christmas, Easter - any occasion was an opportunity to include some lovely tidbit from my Avon cupboard along with the gift.

All good things must end, though, and when we moved to another town, I gave up Avon...but I have never lost my appreciation of the many lovely offerings of the beauty industry.

When my son's wife first informed me she had become a Mary Kay Lady, I was initially nervous. I'd had one disastrous brush with their formulations courtesy of a girl-friend's makeup party some years before.

I knew that all Mary Kay Ladies are taught to offer a free facial to prospective customers so they can experience the wonderful products first-hand. The theory is that they will love everything so much, they will be hooked for life.

Unfortunately, I have extremely sensitive skin, and my face reacted badly to the products demonstrated at my girl-friend's party.

Fortunately, when I explained what had gone before, my daughter-in-law wasn't at all put out. She merely left some samples for me to try out at my leisure.

I tucked them into the back of the vanity, and promptly forgot about them. My kids, as I refer to my offspring and his better half, live quite some distance away, so I was safe from the clutches of Mary Kay for a time.

The next time they visited, though, my daughter-in-law did ask, rather diffidently, if I'd had a chance to try the products. I murmured something vague, and her Mary Kay chatter was then confined to details of her growing business - how well she was doing, how many new saleswomen she had recruited, how she enjoyed each new campaign.

She did manage to slip in a few tales of customers who experienced some difficulties with some of the Mary Kay product lines, and what steps she had taken to rectify the situation, but wisely refrained from suggesting I try anything. She could tell I was still a little gunshy.

Did I tell you she is a very smart business woman?

This pattern continued for several years - this little dance of ours. She would gently proffer the beauty carrot, I would step politely back, we would both smile and move on to other, more pressing matters of hearth and home...and in the meantime, I continued to flirt with the delights of the drugstore counter.

Then, the unthinkable happened. I had to make a flying trip out of town, and, as luck and unnavoidable delays would have it, managed to arrive on their doorstep sans most of my essentials. Space had been limited, and I had packed in quite a rush.

My girl showed me to her 'Mary Kay ' room - a series of drawers and bins and shelves stocked with bottles and boxes - powders, potions, luscious colors, heady scents. I was drawn, irresistably, like a pollen-starved honey bee to goldenrod, to those intoxicating offerings.

Knowing she had finally won, my daughter-in-law graciously opened her trove. My eager hands were soon overflowing with every manner of free sample-size. I surrendered to the inevitable, and jumped in the shower the next morning, laden with trial sizes of every bath and after-bath product imaginable. Enchanting!

As I emerged back into the world of mere mortals, glowing and refreshed, my girl asked if I had found anything I liked. What could I say? We sat together for some time, poring over brochures. Then we sorted through the heavenly bottles and vials on her shelves.

I felt like a pirate, plundering the royal treasury. I needed another travel bag just to carry away my booty - she had one of those, too.

Finally, I could delay the inevitable no longer. I asked if she would consider giving me a facial. Her face lit up. I had given her the keys to the kingdom.

My bathroom vanity is now replete with all manner of paints and powders and potions in pretty pink boxes...and I revel in a new supply of goodies every other month or so. I feel just like Suzie Wong some days - I so enjoy being a girl.