More than makeup must-haves: A peek inside the world of beauty collectors
A peek inside the world of beauty collectors who decorate their vanities—and
their lives—with the world’s most exquisite cosmetics.
By S.S. Fair
Bugattis, Fabergé eggs, Netsuke figurines: People collect all sorts of weird, wonderful things. At a 2009 Christie’s auction, an empty perfume bottle from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé sold for nearly 9 million euros. Crafted in 1921, it was a Marcel Duchamp “readymade”—a work of art made from an existing object, in this case a Rigaud perfume bottle Duchamp had decorated with a Man Ray photograph of himself dressed as his female alter ego, Rrose Selavy.
Maybe the potions and lotions in your possession will never command such stratospheric prices, but money is not always the end game. We collect to adorn ourselves and our surroundings: Imagine, if you will, a scentless, colourless world. Too sad.
Cosmetics brands stoke our collective yen by releasing limited-edition products and collaborating with artists and designers: Limited quantities in finite duration are the hallmarks of all collecting. While I treasure my Roy Lichtenstein-esque Wonder Woman for M.A.C palette, maybe its only value lies in my delight. Ditto Stila’s Stunning in Sayulita palette, reminiscent of Japanese artist Hokusai,
There are countless opportunities for dabblers, aficionados and connoisseurs to obsess over the ever-expanding beauty galaxy. “I buy first with my nose, but then it must charm my eyes,” says Laure Heriard Dubreuil, CEO of The Webster hotel in Miami, whose philosophy even extends to her toothpaste: she uses picturesque tubes of Marvis.
My Tatcha Camellia Beauty Oil and peony-infused Enriching Renewal Cream are delicate in their geisha-inspired design and powerfully efficient. Alongside Neal’s Yard Remedies cobalt apothecary bottles of white tea mists and rose balms, they create a still life worthy of Fantin-Latour. And I’ve never met a Diptyque scent I didn’t love: The new Le Sablier, an hourglass diffuser with Baies scent, is a collector’s dream. So too are Guerlain’s Rouge G de Guerlain lipsticks in bullet-shaped cases with flip-top mirrors, designed by Place Vendome jeweller Lorenz Bäumer.
“I must have every lipstick ever produced,” admits Kathy Citrullo, who often hunts for niche cosmetics at Gee Beauty in Toronto. We are both fans of the modishly austere Clé de Peau line, especially the refillable lipstick cases with faceted gold tips. Its Beauté Noir fragrance was created by Alberto Morillas, the master parfumeur behind Amouage’s Opus VII from the show-stopping Library Collection. Beauté Noir’s “visual identity,” or bottle—a vanity table must—was concocted by designers Benoît-Pierre Emery and Damian O’Sullivan, who have worked for Hermès. Next time I get to Tokyo, I’ll hunt down Cosmo Decorte’s Magical Face Powder, conceived by interior designer Marcel Wanders—it’s too beautiful for words. If Ai Weiwei ever makes a bronzer, I’ll be all over it.
That designers are being named and hailed for perfumes and powders underscores the cult of the personality, and allows beauty brands to reach out to aesthetes in other fields. Perhaps the next Le Corbusier will design a cutting-edge face serum, or a future Salvador Dalí will engineer a Schiaparelli-inspired perfume bottle that will sell for $37,999 on eBay.
“I’m known as the perfume concierge,” says Debra Thier, a style consultant and Gee shopper. “People go up to my bedroom to see what new perfume is on my desk. Right now it’s Le Labo Gaiac 10; I get the most compliments on that.” She also admires Chantecaille limited-edition eyeshadow palettes, which highlight endangered species and the organizations preventing their extinction. She scours the Wall Street Journal’s style section and follows makeup artist Gucci Westman on Instagram for tips and inspiration. “In the end,” she says, “it’s all about the find.”
Yes, the find, almost like landing a woolly mammoth. Collecting is mostly about what you’re looking for, not what you’ve already bagged. Thier is currently stalking cult New York facialist Joanna Vargas’s skincare. Julie Selley, a Grade 1 teacher and a customer at Pir Cosmetics in Toronto (not necessarily in that order), says the store’s owners email her when a particularly exciting item comes in, such as E. Coudray perfumed body oil from Paris. She’s partial to products by Lollia and Tokyo Milk creator Margot Elena, whose motto is “Fight for Good Design.” Amen. Selley also seizes the opportunity to shop for products that aren’t available in Canada when she visits her brother in Malibu.
Most of these beauty bounty hunters share a fascination with perfume that began in childhood. Proust had his madeleine, but I smelled Arpège by Lanvin on my mother’s dresser and a magnificent obsession was born. Prescriptives’ Calyx, created by legendary nose Sophia Grojsman (discontinued in 2010, it has just been relaunched as Clinique Calyx), was my first grown-up summer scent. Eventually I landed at the pinnacle, Sisley’s Eau du Soir, which is to perfume as Château d’Yquem is to table wine.
Celine Kaplan works in public relations for celebrated nose Francis Kurkdjian, co-creator of Narciso Rodriguez’s For Her (I die) and Guerlain’s Rose de Barbare (I die more). Kaplan’s perfume passion began with her grandmother, who loved Guerlain’s Vol de Nuit because it was named after aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel—she was among the first stewardesses to work for Air France. “There were no ugly beauty products in her house,” says Kaplan. “Packaging was as important as the juice.”
Erudite blogs such as Grain de Musc, Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This offer a whiff of how seriously perfume acolytes take things. Karen Dubin, a founder of Sniffapalooza, which organizes global excursions and events for perfume lovers, remembers collecting tiny perfume bottles from her grandmother’s travels when she was four years old. Now, her 750-strong collection includes scents from By Kilian and Roja Parfums, and is filed into categories: French, Italian, classics, designer, very niche, mainstream niche. “At one point, it was actually taking over my apartment,” Dubin says. When it outgrew three art deco vanities and multiple Lalique trays, she was forced to resort to “a massive Ikea unit that runs along an entire wall in my living room.”
Such dedication is a means of self-renewal—it’s amazing how, say, Chantecaille’s rosewater can lift the spirits. “It just makes me happy,” Thier says. “Maybe I’ve got too much time or money on my hands,” jokes Citrullo. Or just maybe we’re building our sentimental educations. After all, knowledge is powder…or lipstick, or anything by Tom Ford.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://fashionmagazine.com/beauty-grooming/beauty-collections/&title=More than makeup must-haves: A peek inside the world of beauty collectors&picture=https://fashionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/beauty-collections.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_167747" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Photography by Carlo Mendoza [/caption]
A peek inside the world of beauty collectors who decorate their vanities—and
their lives—with the world’s most exquisite cosmetics.
By S.S. Fair
Bugattis, Fabergé eggs, Netsuke figurines: People collect all sorts of weird, wonderful things. At a 2009 Christie’s auction, an empty perfume bottle from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé sold for nearly 9 million euros. Crafted in 1921, it was a Marcel Duchamp “readymade”—a work of art made from an existing object, in this case a Rigaud perfume bottle Duchamp had decorated with a Man Ray photograph of himself dressed as his female alter ego, Rrose Selavy.
Maybe the potions and lotions in your possession will never command such stratospheric prices, but money is not always the end game. We collect to adorn ourselves and our surroundings: Imagine, if you will, a scentless, colourless world. Too sad.
Cosmetics brands stoke our collective yen by releasing limited-edition products and collaborating with artists and designers: Limited quantities in finite duration are the hallmarks of all collecting. While I treasure my Roy Lichtenstein-esque Wonder Woman for M.A.C palette, maybe its only value lies in my delight. Ditto Stila’s Stunning in Sayulita palette, reminiscent of Japanese artist Hokusai,
There are countless opportunities for dabblers, aficionados and connoisseurs to obsess over the ever-expanding beauty galaxy. “I buy first with my nose, but then it must charm my eyes,” says Laure Heriard Dubreuil, CEO of The Webster hotel in Miami, whose philosophy even extends to her toothpaste: she uses picturesque tubes of Marvis.
My Tatcha Camellia Beauty Oil and peony-infused Enriching Renewal Cream are delicate in their geisha-inspired design and powerfully efficient. Alongside Neal’s Yard Remedies cobalt apothecary bottles of white tea mists and rose balms, they create a still life worthy of Fantin-Latour. And I’ve never met a Diptyque scent I didn’t love: The new Le Sablier, an hourglass diffuser with Baies scent, is a collector’s dream. So too are Guerlain’s Rouge G de Guerlain lipsticks in bullet-shaped cases with flip-top mirrors, designed by Place Vendome jeweller Lorenz Bäumer.
“I must have every lipstick ever produced,” admits Kathy Citrullo, who often hunts for niche cosmetics at Gee Beauty in Toronto. We are both fans of the modishly austere Clé de Peau line, especially the refillable lipstick cases with faceted gold tips. Its Beauté Noir fragrance was created by Alberto Morillas, the master parfumeur behind Amouage’s Opus VII from the show-stopping Library Collection. Beauté Noir’s “visual identity,” or bottle—a vanity table must—was concocted by designers Benoît-Pierre Emery and Damian O’Sullivan, who have worked for Hermès. Next time I get to Tokyo, I’ll hunt down Cosmo Decorte’s Magical Face Powder, conceived by interior designer Marcel Wanders—it’s too beautiful for words. If Ai Weiwei ever makes a bronzer, I’ll be all over it.
That designers are being named and hailed for perfumes and powders underscores the cult of the personality, and allows beauty brands to reach out to aesthetes in other fields. Perhaps the next Le Corbusier will design a cutting-edge face serum, or a future Salvador Dalí will engineer a Schiaparelli-inspired perfume bottle that will sell for $37,999 on eBay.
“I’m known as the perfume concierge,” says Debra Thier, a style consultant and Gee shopper. “People go up to my bedroom to see what new perfume is on my desk. Right now it’s Le Labo Gaiac 10; I get the most compliments on that.” She also admires Chantecaille limited-edition eyeshadow palettes, which highlight endangered species and the organizations preventing their extinction. She scours the Wall Street Journal’s style section and follows makeup artist Gucci Westman on Instagram for tips and inspiration. “In the end,” she says, “it’s all about the find.”
Yes, the find, almost like landing a woolly mammoth. Collecting is mostly about what you’re looking for, not what you’ve already bagged. Thier is currently stalking cult New York facialist Joanna Vargas’s skincare. Julie Selley, a Grade 1 teacher and a customer at Pir Cosmetics in Toronto (not necessarily in that order), says the store’s owners email her when a particularly exciting item comes in, such as E. Coudray perfumed body oil from Paris. She’s partial to products by Lollia and Tokyo Milk creator Margot Elena, whose motto is “Fight for Good Design.” Amen. Selley also seizes the opportunity to shop for products that aren’t available in Canada when she visits her brother in Malibu.
Most of these beauty bounty hunters share a fascination with perfume that began in childhood. Proust had his madeleine, but I smelled Arpège by Lanvin on my mother’s dresser and a magnificent obsession was born. Prescriptives’ Calyx, created by legendary nose Sophia Grojsman (discontinued in 2010, it has just been relaunched as Clinique Calyx), was my first grown-up summer scent. Eventually I landed at the pinnacle, Sisley’s Eau du Soir, which is to perfume as Château d’Yquem is to table wine.
Celine Kaplan works in public relations for celebrated nose Francis Kurkdjian, co-creator of Narciso Rodriguez’s For Her (I die) and Guerlain’s Rose de Barbare (I die more). Kaplan’s perfume passion began with her grandmother, who loved Guerlain’s Vol de Nuit because it was named after aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel—she was among the first stewardesses to work for Air France. “There were no ugly beauty products in her house,” says Kaplan. “Packaging was as important as the juice.”
Erudite blogs such as Grain de Musc, Bois de Jasmin and Now Smell This offer a whiff of how seriously perfume acolytes take things. Karen Dubin, a founder of Sniffapalooza, which organizes global excursions and events for perfume lovers, remembers collecting tiny perfume bottles from her grandmother’s travels when she was four years old. Now, her 750-strong collection includes scents from By Kilian and Roja Parfums, and is filed into categories: French, Italian, classics, designer, very niche, mainstream niche. “At one point, it was actually taking over my apartment,” Dubin says. When it outgrew three art deco vanities and multiple Lalique trays, she was forced to resort to “a massive Ikea unit that runs along an entire wall in my living room.”
Such dedication is a means of self-renewal—it’s amazing how, say, Chantecaille’s rosewater can lift the spirits. “It just makes me happy,” Thier says. “Maybe I’ve got too much time or money on my hands,” jokes Citrullo. Or just maybe we’re building our sentimental educations. After all, knowledge is powder...or lipstick, or anything by Tom Ford.){kind=link}