Consuming Beauty

By EVA BEN-DAVID
A 50-something-year-old friend loved the Yves Saint Laurent Lisse Expert Intensive Anti-Wrinkle Cream, recommended for women aged 35 and up. The cream smelled wonderful, felt very soft and was easily absorbed, so make-up could be applied right away. The jar would look very elegant in your bathroom, but the size is somewhat deceiving, as there is not as much cream inside as you might think. Too bad this good product is a bit pricy: a 50 ml. jar is NIS 483. The Shisheido Accentuating Color Stick is a blusher in cream form presented as a stick - much like a big lipstick, only with a flat top. The cream has to be blended in with your fingertips after applying, and I found it somewhat difficult to achieve a natural look with this product. The clear advantage of the stick is that it can easily be carried in your pocketbook, so you can have it handy for a quick touch-up. Supposedly the stick can also be used as eye shadow, but with the color I tried - Rouge Flush Framboise - the result would be way too dramatic. The Shisheido Color Stick is available in four different shades for NIS 250. I'm a big fan of Estee Lauder's Pleasures perfume, and so I was anxious to try the new Pleasures Exotic eau de toilette. As could be expected with such a name, the fragrance is sweeter than the original Pleasures, and the fruity notes, especially that of mango, are very dominant. In addition, you can detect passion fruit, grapefruit, orange, bamboo flowers and other exotic flowers. The scent is light, however, and doesn't linger very long. Although it's not bad, I'll stick with the original Pleasures. The bottle of Pleasures Exotic has the same shape as Pleasures, only with two subtle white flower decorations; the price for 30 ml. is NIS 220, 50 ml. is NIS 330 and 100 ml. is NIS 450. A colleague who tried Dior's new Diorskin Sculpt Line-Smoothing Lifting Make-Up and Lifting Smoothing Concealer was quite happy with these products. The foundation is a little tricky, and you have to make sure you don't apply too much. In fact, any more than a tiny bit makes your skin look unnatural. On the plus side, it does give the skin a smooth look if you spread it as evenly as possible. Wait with the powder blush until the foundation is completely rubbed in, otherwise the blush cakes up in one spot. The concealer got really high marks, and you only need a very small amount to erase under-eye lines; it is also good for covering blemishes and age-spots. The Diorskin Sculpt foundation is available at the SuperPharm chain for NIS 245, and the Diorskin Sculpt concealer is NIS 138. A friend found the new Soft Touch Stay-On Endless Lipstick Color to be long lasting indeed, although you do need to apply gloss or cream on top in order to prevent your lips from feeling dry. The color stays on even after meals, which is an advantage. The lipsticks come in the shape of a pencil and can be sharpened to renew the shape and ensure hygienic use. The Soft Touch Stay-On lipsticks come in six different shades and are sold at NIS 85 a piece. Looka makes such wonderful handbags that it was hard to choose which model was going to replace my old and not-so-practical pocketbook. The Looka bag that now goes with me wherever I go is made of super-soft leather and is cleverly divided into different compartments without being bulky. The inside is more or less the same in all the Looka bags I checked; this particular one has a zippered compartment in the middle that attaches to the sides with a magnetic button, two compartments on each side, a little pocket for your cell phone, a zippered pocket on the inside and two zippered pockets on the outside of the bag where, for example, you can hide your keys. The separate storage spaces make it easy to find everything without having to dump your bag out first. The Looka bags come in elegant colors; prices average around NIS 600-NIS 800 and can go up to NIS 1,200 for evening bags. You can find Looka bags and wallets in Tik Hatikim and Loop.