Japanese cult beauty brand Shu Uemura has picked a young female artist named Ob to design its Spring Sakura Collection, a magical dream world of princesses and highlighting the blossoming of Japan’s famous cherry blossoms, a much-anticipated event in springtime.
Ob, at age 20, has exhibited her works in several cities abroad, including New York, Basel, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, Taipei and Singapore.
She is a member of the Kaikai Kiki artists collective founded by renowned contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, he of the wildly popular Louis Vuitton collaboration. (Murakami, hinted Shu Uemura senior brand manager Nina Solano, is also set to create something for the makeup brand.)
Ob’s work for Shu Uemura consists of four themes, the designs of which appear in bottles of its popular cleansing oils and matching UVUB mousse PORErasers and BB mousse, compact case, custom case duo, false eye lashes, and three limited-edition lipsticks.
The collection was launched to celebrate Women’s Month, and four Filipinas and their teen daughters represented Ob’s princesses, to underscore that the appeal of Shu Uemura the brand encompasses generations.
They were Tessa Valdes (Ocean Princess) and daughter Annika; Jenni Epperson (Cherry Blossom Princess) and daughter Aryanna; Rorie Carlos (Little Moon Princess) and daughter Maxine; and Anna Sobrepeña (Forest Princess) and daughter Michaela.
Charisse Hernandez-Chua, L’Oreal Luxe general manager, who announced the opening of Shu Uemura’s new store in Shangri-La Mall, attended the launch with new L’Oreal managing director Rowel Vijandre, who said cosmetics retail is always good during an election year. Vijandre is L’Oreal Phils.’ first Filipino top executive.
Archie’s girls
Are you Betty or Veronica?
That was the question posed to girls at the launch of MAC’s long-awaited Archie’s Girls collection, a collaboration that brought back memories of the famous fictional carrot-top’s jalopy, and revived his all-time love triangle with rich brunette Veronica and blonde-next-door Betty.
At the launch in SM Mall of Asia, MAC went all out with the ’50s theme, with entertainers swing-dancing to music from a jukebox, and a retro diner menu that included rootbeer floats, hotdogs, sliders and fries.
The launch was attended by a few celebrities, including Daphne Oseña Paez, Rica Peralejo and G Tongi Walters.
There was also a photo-slash-kissing booth with real-life models playing the comic-book hero and his heroines.
If you’re lucky—the collection is limited, and the pre-order lists were quite long, we’re told—you can still get a hold of the Archie’s Girls collection at MAC counters, categorized into two themes: Betty and Veronica. There are lipsticks and lipglasses, eye shadows, face powders, powder blushes, nail lacquers, etc., in specially designed Archie’s Girls packaging.
Skin as fair as a K-Pop star’s
South Korean brand Laneige makes a bid for women who continue to dream of having a complexion as fair and fine as the K-Pop actresses they see on screen, with the launch of a five-part regimen called White Plus Renew.
On a recent trip aboard a Korean airline, the women and gay men in our group swooned upon seeing the uniformly luminous complexion of the female flight crew. One effervescent guy warned us not to bother him on a stopover at Incheon airport as he swore to hoard all the BB creams in sight. “It must be their secret!” he theorized. The Koreans, after all, popularized BB creams.
Alas, the secret to K-Pop-like fair skin is perhaps more complex than a thin film mask of a BB cream.
Laneige, the premium brand headlined by famous actress Song Hyegyo, claims it has the answer in White Plus Renew, which consists of a Skin Refiner, an Emulsion, a Tone Up Corrector with SPF 40 PA+++, a Spot Treatment EX, and an Original Essence (all sold separately).
The line claims to have Mela-crusher, which “stimulates the activity of lysosomes” to banish melanin located in the cells. It also has green tea polysaccharide extract, an effective whitening agent that’s mild even for sensitive skin.
Laneige is available at its stores in SM Mall of Asia, Robinsons Place Manila, Trinoma, Robinsons Magnolia, Robinsons Galleria (replacing the Shangri-La Mall store, which closed April 1), and SM Aura Taguig (to open May 16).
