1. That old jalopy has had a new paint job and the chrome polished, but it still has all the old mechanical problems and is continually breaking down. It's like they say, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
2. The only things the new manager has come up with to save the restaurant have been to put lipstick on a pig, but slapping on a fresh coat of paint and making a few repairs will do nothing to address the underlying problems.

The idiom is likely modern, appearing initially in the mid-1940s when being said of a woman having her hair washed at a salon; "…who had a face like a very young pig that had managed to get hold of a lipstick."