Color and Cut
Who doesn’t prefer the spa to the doctor’s office? With that in mind, a rash of enterprising M.D.’s are opening medi-spas – hybrid centers that offer both surgery and noninvasive treatments. This month, dermatologic surgeon Howard Sobel launches his limestone-floored Park Avenue-based Skin and Spa cosmetic-surgery center. In addition to liposuction, facial surgery, and chemical skin resurfacing, a range of gentler options is on offer, including an aromatherapy facial ($115), a French body polish ($70), and a paraffin wrap ($150). Who knows? If you choose those pampering treatments prior to the surgical one, you might just be able to cut down on the anesthetic. (960 Park Avenue, at 82nd Street; 212-288-0060.)
Got Milk?
After years of designing personal and home-care products for upscale spots like Portico and Ad Hoc, Eileen Harcourt is now restricting her creations to her own shop, E Harcourt’s, which is slated to open this month on NoLIta’s Mott Street. The 500-square-foot store – which has an old-world tin ceiling and a mini-pool with floating candles – will feature bath oils, sachets, room sprays, and more unusual offerings like a milk-based skin-care line with body cream and bath salts packaged in milk bottles, and her “Sleepytime” products for insomniacs, which include scented pillow inserts, candles, and colorful bath tablets, all with sleep-inducing essential oils. Let’s hope she has cots in the back for customers after they’ve finished sampling. (219 Mott Street; 212-627-4642.)
Taste the Rainbow
Now that we’ve revisited gold nameplate necklaces and high-volume hair, it’s only fitting that early-eighties-style flavored lip gloss is making a comeback. Stila’s Lip Glaze, which Jeanine Lobell created for Cameron Diaz in Charlie’s Angels, comes in six fruit flavors dispensed from clear pens with brush applicator tips. This season’s M.A.C gloss in Russian Red is spiked with vanilla, and Philosophy’s best-selling Kiss Me balm leaves an orange tang. For a lemon-lime taste, the less-expensive Burt’s Bees Farmer’s Market does the job, while Wet ‘n’ Wild’s Kiwi gloss looks green in the pot but goes on sheer. Lucky Chick’s Lucky Lips Lip Shine, infused with a floral cocktail of mimosa, jasmine, and violet, is selling out at Sephora. “Lip color is darker this season, and gloss makes it not so vampirish,” explains makeup artist Robin Narvaez. If only they’d bring back that bubble-gum-flavored Bonne Bell gloss-on-a-rope we were dying for in junior high.
SARAH BERNARD
Tale of the Tape
White teeth are certainly attractive, but there’s nothing appealing about going to bed with goopy bleach-filled trays in your mouth. So, in the instant-gratification spirit of the Bioré pore strip, Crest has developed Whitestrips, peroxide-soaked pieces of cellophane that are placed directly over the teeth and worn for twenty minutes. (A test run in the office proved that, though wearing tape on your teeth feels odd, the strips are almost undetectable.) “Patients weren’t satisfied with the results of whitening toothpastes, so we came up with a stronger alternative,” explains Dr. Larry Rosenthal, a Manhattan dentist who advised on the development of the strips, which will cost $44 for a box of 56 and will be available in drugstores by November. Next in development: whitening floss, for those of us who are particularly detail-oriented.