By the end of the year, Helena Rubenstein plans to open a space on Spring Street, which will be both store and day spa. Students also viewed. ''The American woman has one quote, unquote, failing, which is a love of selection and variety, '' he said. Photographs of ethnically diverse models line the walls. Then again, a silvery nail polish she likes -- called, she thinks, Obscenity -- is one block south at Face Stockholm. There are magazines to read, and there is icy lotus tea to sip, as a ''beauty partner'' -- please, not a salesclerk -- materializes from seemingly nowhere to explain the 5S philosophy. Find each of these words and underline it. The store's design is, to say the least, arresting: the womblike circularity of the displays; the black, white and red color scheme; the laptop computers (for finding product information on the Internet), and the cavernous space make the store seem like a cosmetics mother ship built by the engineers of the Starship Enterprise. ''An effort to bring the benefits of natural beauty to blind and partially sighted people, '' the store's catalogue explains. ''In a department store, you're assaulted by women spraying you with perfume and almost forcing you into a makeover in an effort to sell, sell, sell, '' she said. The stores are even designed like galleries, with soaring spaces and high-tech installations. Nail polish in square bottle crossword clue. Recommended textbook solutions. A PALE woman in black stands on the corner of Mercer and Prince Streets, twirling like a weather vane.
The biggest news along Skin Row, as the new cosmetics district has been dubbed by the beauty industry, is next week's opening of Sephora, France's largest perfume and cosmetics retailer. Other sets by this creator. Outlets for Mac Cosmetics, Aveda and Origins -- all owned by the Estee Lauder company -- have been around for years, but since last fall, the competition has gone into overdrive.
Allan G. Mottus, editor of The Informationist, a cosmetics industry trade publication, confirms the disaffection. Every store has its gimmick. Nail polish in square bottle crosswords. Perhaps someone will one day write a dissertation about this philosophy, but suffice it to say that it has to do with how you want to feel and knowing which products will help you feel that way. If she walks due west, she can nab a favorite lip liner at Shu Uemura.
''The whole idea is to get individual brands out of the clutter of department stores, '' said John Ledes, editor and publisher of Cosmetic World, a trade magazine. One shopper, a fresh-scrubbed 30-something woman, stepped tentatively into the store, eyeballed the modelesque sales personnel and fled. Something strange is happening in SoHo. The skin trade has moved in. A young visitor from Denmark, she's in hot pursuit of beauty, but she's not sure where to start. L'Occitane, a skin- and hair-care company from Provence, opened a branch on Spring Street in October. Recent flashcard sets. Nail polish in a square bottle crossword. She sits in the window painting henna designs on skin. ''I don't think the single-brand stores can succeed economically, '' Mr. Ledes of Cosmetic World said, adding that Sephora seems to have the best chance in SoHo for long-term success. ''The one-brand stores will have a great difficulty in surmounting that historic habit. Terms in this set (38).
The computer suggested words for how she was feeling, or wanted to feel. Sephora promises a wall of more than 400 lipsticks, a skin treatment library, organized by problems and solutions, and a fragrance organ, a display where shoppers can dab and spritz at will. Shu Uemura, a Japanese makeup artist, opened his high temple of beauty on Greene Street in November. If she might want a little of each -- comfort and firm skin -- presumably, she's on her own. ''Peace and a smooth complexion. Her tattooed and branded boyfriend stares coolly into the distance, contemplating a nonexistent horizon. Finally, ''peace'' and ''smooth complexion'' drifted by in little word bubbles. ''The meatpackers have their district, the financial guys, the garmentos, the flower people -- they all have theirs, '' said Marcia Kilgore, owner of Bliss Spa on Broadway. Later, she might have her skin exfoliated to the strains of Enya at Haven, a New Age day spa on Mercer Street. And in May, Shiseido politely muscled in with 5S (that stands for ''Five Senses'') on Prince Street.
Elaine Good, a makeup artist who has worked in cosmetics retailing and teaches at the Fashion Institute of Technology, says that the SoHo beauty outlets are setting themselves apart from department-store beauty counters by offering nonaggressive service. ''We're for the soul, as well as the body, '' Beth Ofier, Face Stockholm's store manager, insisted, echoing the sentiments of many others who hawk blusher. Whether beauty becomes as integral to SoHo as fish is to Fulton Market is an open question.