"Liam? I might be able to sell him on chapstick but I think he'd be pretty resistant to anything else."

"Then he's an idiot. Though I bet once everyone's doing it he'll start too."

"Maybe it'll start a trend. Unisex makeup use."

"Yeah - that's clearly the way to go here, right? Like, objectively, alertness or whatever else you're going to learn to do is a good deal, if you were selling potions at the same price all the kids who can afford it would get it, and a bunch of them are missing out because they don't want to seem weird! Which is normal! We're fourteen! We're in the middle of the identity formation process and we're very sensitive to the approval of our peers!" Julia read that in a book and doesn't understand it well enough to attempt rephrasing it. "But if everyone's doing it, then the case for it is overwhelming, and eventually it's - a status signal, right, eyeshadow communicates that you can afford to invest in your own safety and alertness and attentiveness - honestly my advice once you've met existing demand might be to give out samples super cheap, so people experience it and know they want it and know it's worth it and see everyone else wearing it. Maybe even give it out to upperclassmen basically for free, or for the price of supervising in the lab while you make it, because if all the upperclassmen have it then the freshmen will think of it as aspirational, right?"

"Not bad ideas," remarks Isla.

"Once I have the concealer working to prevent mals from smelling injuries I'm planning to make that in huge batches but it's not as conspicuous since it's, well, concealer," says Ennis.

"I'd make it conspicuous. I'd make giant batches of glittery gold eyeshadow that does something really good. So everyone knows that other people have it. Especially if it does something like make the wearer less tasty, I don't know how doable that is, maybe it's not a freshman year thing even with mana donations, but something like that, if everyone around you has it then you really gotta have it, right?"

"I don't think I can do less tasty as a glittery gold eyeshadow, but maybe something along those lines'll work."

"Like poison frogs!!! They're really brightly colored to tell predators, don't go for it, I'll give you indigestion. We should all be poison frogs. - sorry. I'm sure your tutors have been on you about this endlessly."

"- actually, they did not have the poison frogs idea. That could work."

"If you want a model poison frog I will be a model poison frog, I brought some neutral outfits in the probably-vain hope I'd be able to accessorize them in here."

"You would make a lovely model poison frog," he assures her, "though it would probably wind up more avant-garde - larger blockier markings, bright contrasts."

Nodnod. "I can pull that off. And everyone'll be talking about it, which is great for your sales."

"I'll look forward to it."

"Hey Orion, do you want some of my periwinkle?"

"Some of your periwinkle what?" says Orion, pulling his head out from the fume hood.

"Eyeshadow!"

"What does it do?"

"This batch, nothing - except make you look nicer."

"I don't really think that's... important?"

"No, but it's fun!"

"I don't know how to put on eyeshadow."

"I can do it for you if you like."

"...okay."

Ennis periwinkles him.

"Once we're allowed to pay in mana he'll do a batch that makes us more alert!" Julia says cheerfully. "I know you're pretty alert already but more can't hurt!"