Gas: $3.61 a gallon. Organic milk: $7.98 a gallon. Perfume: $650 per 1.7 ounces? Just when you thought your favorite brands might go easy on your wallet because of the slump/recession/general shopping malaise, beauty companies are introducing some of their most expensive products ever. Even moderately-priced lines are getting in on the action, with themes of gold and silver and the use of rare, expensive botanicals.
Girl's Best Friend
Diamonds and platinum are popping up in the strangest places these days. (Diamond-and- platinum vibrator, anyone?) Natura Bisse Diamond Extreme (1) ($318), an anti-aging cream picked up by the exclusive British beauty boutique Space NK, promises unbeatable results due to its high end ingredients and thorough scientific testing. If you want the look of platinum without the price tag, Kenra Platinum Shampoo ($17) and Conditioner ($19) (2) preserve color and come in beautifully sleek packaging. Swarovski crystals give the illusion of diamonds, and with a price tag like $650 per limited-edition bling-adorned bottle of Bond No. 9 (in Bryant Park, Bleecker Street, or Nuits de Noho), let’s hope they trick your credit card into thinking that they're the real thing. Just in time for Mother's Day, Bond offers a specially packaged set of Swarovski Stars Bon Bons (3) ($700), purse sprays for on-the-go glam. Hey, at least they’re refillable?
Silver & Gold
Lining the beauty shelves this season and into the fall are products that have a Midas touch. Chanel's fall 2008 color collection (to be released July 2008) is called Gold Fiction (4), and gleams with the warm tones of the 24K kind. High-end pigments give the nail polishes, highlighting powder, and even eyeliner that authentic look - though fortunately, the prices are the same as previous, non-gold lines. Alongside nourishing nigelle and cameline oils, gold is listed as an ingredient in Yves Saint Laurent's Golden Glosses (5) ($28 each) in bright pinks and reds and warm earth tones. Or sparkle with silver after applying La Crème (6) ($500) from Cle De Peau Beaute. The night cream is served on a velvet tray and applied with a silver spatula to diminish spots, freckles and rebuild elasticity.
Secret Ingredients
Perhaps no other promise can make a woman part with her cash than the promise of eternal youth—especially if it comes courtesy of a rare root or herb sourced from an undisclosed island location and harvested exclusively by Tibetan monks. A favorite of our favorites, Amore Pacific, gathers their secret ingredients from “the lush, rich coastline of the company’s own Green Tea gardens in Korea.” Whatever they grow there, it goes into lotions and potions that smell and feel terrific on your skin, like the $500 Exclusive Time Response Pure Essence 100 Skin Renewal Serum (7). With no Target diffusion line in this designer's future, Tom Ford definitely doesn't design for the little people. We can still swing a small bottle of his Neroli Portofino Eau de Parfum (8) ($165 for 1.7 oz) but will have to save the year's supply ($450 for 8.3 oz) for the never in a million years wish list. Clive Christian holds the title for "world's most expensive perfume" with No.1 (9) ($865). The gold-crowned bottle is filled with rare ingredients like…pineapple? Plum? Carnation!?! Okay benjoin balm and tonka seeds - at least those are two that we can't just pick up at our neighborhood bodega.
