Social Media Breathes New Life Into Discontinued Beauty Products Michael Nagle for The New York Times Jennifer Fisherman-Ruff stockpiles discontinued beauty products. IT started with a Chanel lip gloss. After learning that her favorite shade, a light golden brown called Brick, was being discontinued, Jennifer Fisherman-Ruff bought up the remaining 37-piece stock of the product at Henri Bendel. That was a little more than 15 years ago. Since then, Ms. Fisherman-Ruff, 42, a publicist in Manhattan, has stockpiled a variety of products, including a discontinued eye shadow (also made by Chanel) and a custom-blended Prescriptives foundation, seven bottles of which currently reside in her refrigerator alongside the butter and cheese. "When I really like something, I get nervous I'm not going to be able to have it anymore," said Ms. Fisherman-Ruff, who still scours the Internet for ARTec, a L'Oréal shampoo that the company stopped making in 2009. Many women spend a lifetime in search of the perfect shade of lipstick, the ideal moisturizer or the prettiest perfume, only to watch their hard-won favorite go the way of the passenger pigeon. Until recently, these consumers had little recourse other than to register complaints with manufacturers" service centers, but now, thanks to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as company-run Internet chat lines, beauty companies are keeping closer tabs on which products their customers want brought back and are increasingly responding to that demand with reissues, albeit in limited quantities and through select channels. "It's literally reshaping how the market is driven," said Karen Grant, a senior global industry analyst with the NPD Group, a market research company in Port Washington, N.Y. "Social media is changing how products are being developed, marketed and launched." In January, for example, Pantene, a division of Procter & Gamble, brought back three hair-care product lines that had been discontinued - Anti-Dandruff, Ice Shine and Silver Expressions - with a "Back by Popular Demand" marketing campaign that included a 1980s-theme video (made in collaboration with the humor Web site Funny or Die) and a Facebook giveaway. Likewise, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and MAC Cosmetics, two brands owned by the Estée Lauder Companies, recently ran Facebook campaigns called "Bobbi Brings Back: Lip Color" and "MAC by Request," asking fans in various countries to vote on their favorite shades of discontinued products. "The response was even higher than anticipated," said Alicia Sontag, the senior vice president for global marketing at Bobbi Brown. Guillaume Jesel, a senior vice president for global marketing at MAC, likened the company's contest - which logged over 636,000 votes - to "Dancing With the Stars," but for makeup. "It's the same revolution you see in other industries," Mr. Jesel said. You let the consumer take the steering wheel for a while. He added, "It's more interactive and engaging." But perhaps adding to the fervor is the fact that winning products won't be available in stores. Wine, the shade of Bobbi Brown lipstick that had the most votes in the United States, will be available for purchase only online via a Facebook link to start in October, while the nine winning shades of MAC products - a lipstick, lip gloss and eye shadow - will be available in August, also only on the company's Web site. Next February, Bobbi Brown will most likely hold another "Bring Back" campaign, this time with eye shadows, Ms. Sontag said. It used to be that beauty retailers and manufacturers had to adhere to a strict "one in, one out" policy, with low-selling products discontinued to make room for new ones at counters. But by selling these products online or on television - on Saturday for instance, Carol's Daughter will reintroduce its Ocean collection, a three-product bath and body line, on the HSN network - those rules don't apply. "At the shelf, you have to think about turnover," said David Lonczak, the division vice president for eCommerce and digital marketing for Drugstore.com, Beauty.com and Walgreens.com. That doesn't make it possible to carry these tertiary products, but there is still a reasonable amount of business there. In 2009, Drugstore.com made a deal with Proctor & Gamble to carry select Max Factor items after the company stopped sales in the United States. "When products go off the shelf, consumers go online," Mr. Lonczak said. Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article online referred incorrectly to Guillaume Jesel, a senior vice president for global marketing at MAC. He is a man.