Keeping Up Appearances
On a sunny Wednesday afternoon last week, women playfully dabbed on lip gloss, stroked shimmery Fairy Dust powder across their wrists and forgot about the world’s cares for a few moments in Valerie Sarnelle’s bustling Beverly Hills cosmetics boutique.
Suddenly, a reddish-haired woman in pink Christian Dior sunglasses, pink diamonds, a pink Techno Marine watch and a cavernous Hermes tote bag arrives in pursuit of one more luxury--mink eyelashes. Michelle Diamond wants to buy the $35, extra-furry, super-long lashes, just like the ones she saw in InStyle and on Jennifer Lopez at the Oscars.
Instant gratification will be Diamond’s. Sarnelle slips her a sample pair. In seconds, an assistant clamps them in an eyelash curler and slides them onto Diamond’s glue-lined lids. With lashes fluttering like some kind of butterfly, Diamond skips out of the salon, content that she’ll be glamorous for her Palm Beach Christmas vacation--and still able to perch her shades alluringly on her nose.
Beauty salon owners, spa operators and cosmetics manufacturers are grateful that women are still spending for beauty services and such products as mink eyelashes--things that serve as fun little pick-me-ups that are often personal, psychological and, in many ways, internal. The salves for the stressed-out psyche can be an afternoon at the local spa or a simple $6 bottle of nail polish.
“That’s a cheap thrill in today’s economy, if you think about it,” Sarnelle said of the mink lashes. Her shop in the heart of salon-dense Beverly Hills was unusually quiet for weeks following the September attacks. Sarnelle, who charges $150 for a makeup lesson, has since seen business recover, even amid the recession.
“The dollars were going to other places before,” she explained. “Our clients are so rich, they travel a lot. Now they’re home. They’re afraid to travel and they aren’t spending their money in Europe.”
Women didn’t give up their lipstick in World War II, and they’re not giving up their cosmetics now, particularly in L.A., the center of the nation’s beauty trends. “People are under stress and they want to relieve it,” said Pam Danzinger, a Pennsylvania consumer psychology expert. “When men get stressed, they go to bars, and women go shopping.”
Most discretionary household spending is driven by emotional, not physical, needs. In times of great stress, Danzinger said, we tend to shop for emotional reasons--and off to the cosmetics counter we go for affordable luxuries. Though what’s considered an indulgence is in the eye of the beholder--or perhaps the eyebrow.
At the Bobbe Joy makeup salon in Beverly Hills, monthly customer Lee Kapelovitz is having her regular $40 brow touch-up, one of several services that make the senior citizen feel pampered. “In half an hour, I lose 10 years,” said the bejeweled Beverly Hills philanthropist, who also bought customized makeup. The recession hasn’t slowed her down a bit: “The president said go out and spend, and I’m doing my best.”
Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise that business is way up for nail polish manufacturer OPI Products Inc. in North Hollywood. “Thank God I’m in the beauty business instead of a dot-com,” owner George Schaeffer said as he surveyed sales reports that show October’s sales up 74% over last year. “That’s an astounding number,” he said, noting that the 20-year-old company may see a 20% overall sales increase in salons and stores this year.
Some of that surge he attributed to the sudden interest in a year-old collection of colors named for New York. The $6 bottles of Big Apple Red, Grand Central Carnation, and Berry, Berry Broadway spiked from 10,000 a month to nearly 50,000 as clients painted on their patriotism this fall.
Like cosmetics, manicures, massages and even spa treatments may seem like foolish indulgences, but for some they’re becoming substitutes for more expensive diversions. For example, at a recent Los Feliz gathering of preschool parents, nearly half of the dozen mothers had been to a spa or salon in the preceding month, most as a substitute for canceled holiday travel plans.
Clever spa owners long ago figured out how to package their pleasures as something more than just skin treatments. “We present ourselves as a vacation for the day,” said Jonathan Baker, owner of Encino’s Skin Spa. His spa-as-adult-playground offers waterfalls, outdoor hot tubs, and such coed services as the 21/2-hour, $375 Endless Courtship, an afternoon’s worth of pampering that has inspired a number of marriage proposals.
Baker sees a change in attitude among his clients lately. “They are not coming just for treatments,” he said. “They are coming to feel safe and protected. They want a sanctuary.”
Though fewer people are traveling and booking hotel rooms, the secluded and quiet five-room spa at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills is thriving. “Business has been great,” said spa director Pat Davis. “We are way ahead of where we were last year. It’s more than just a beauty thing. People need peace of mind and a chance to relax.” And some will pay $725 for a special daylong package.
The holiday season is often a test of future business as spas go gangbusters with gift certificates. Skin Spa and Burke Williams spas, for example, set up kiosks this month to sell their certificates in nearby malls.
More women are buying bath products to enjoy the spa experience at home. Creating a home sanctuary with aromatherapy bath oils promises a different mood boost than wearing a new lipstick, said Mark Brooks, a spokesman for NPD BeautyTrends, a Port Washington, N.Y., marketing information service that has been tracking the growing department store sales of body products. “We know that time is more important than money,” he said. The self-soothing products create a way to carve out personal time, so we willingly peel off the Andrew Jacksons. Few women are willing to give up their makeup and moisturizers, even in a recession, Brooks said, but they’ll trade down from a $150 version to a cheaper one. They won’t, and aren’t, however, rushing out in droves to buy Gucci’s Rush, Ralph Lauren’s Glamourous or other designer fragrances this year.
“Fragrance is more susceptible to recession because it is such an image-driven business,” Brooks said. “It’s truly a luxury and it’s sort of an intimate purchase.” A third of all fragrance is sold during December, unlike a woman’s year-round necessities, makeup and skin care.
That sense of need is bringing women back to hair salons after a September lull. “You can go into your closet and wear last year’s Prada,” said salon owner Stuart Gavert, “but roots are roots.” He has been steadily booked at his Beverly Hills Gavert Atelier and at the New York salon he visits monthly.
Men and women are dropping $300 to $400 to have their tresses colored by other top practitioners, such as Art Luna. His West Hollywood salon is designed as a garden sanctuary where clients are tucked away in an alcove to have the hair-dyeing process conducted in private. “I’m going to look fabulous when I get out of here,” said Emily Ruddo, 29, a software sales representative who confessed she treasures the relaxation of having her hair highlighted as much as the beautification.
Across the cobblestone courtyard at the flag-themed Hair America salon, stylist Todd Monroe noted, like Gavert and Luna, that customers are asking for simpler, classic hair styles, a marked shift from garish colors and requests for the latest celebrity ‘do.
“I think people’s values have changed and it’s affected the purchasing of their clothing and how they wear their hair,” Monroe said. “We’re in West Hollywood and sometimes you get some pretty crazy requests. We’re not getting that anymore. It’s none of those ‘N Sync trashy bleach jobs or hair extensions. People are actually wanting to look good again.”
