Beauty shopping in California
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Black & Blue Tattoo
This women-owned-and-operated tattoo parlor gets it in ink with designs that range from graphic armbands to shoulder-to-shoulder spans of the Golden Gate Bridge. Check out the artists’ work at the shop or online first for ideas, then book a consultation with the artist whose work interests you most. Once you’ve talked over the design, you can book your tattoo – you’ll need to show up sober, well-fed and clear-headed for your transformation.
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Lyle Tuttle Tattooing
This shop was started by tattoo legend Lyle Tuttle, who inked San Francisco, and celebs like Janis Joplin, Cher and Joan Baez. Since his retirement, the shop's owned and operated by Tanja Nixx, who's developed a following of her own for full-color flying carp and Day of the Dead sugar skulls. Tuttle's shop worked with the SF Health Department to set industry standards for safe, sanitary practices, so you're in good hands here.
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Spring
Spring has sprung a fresh new idea: housework shouldn’t mean an instant headache from noxious cleaning fumes. Instead, this store thoughtfully provides all the nontoxic lemon and lavender products you need to clean up your home and your environmental act. The bamboo-fiber bedding is pricey, but Caldrea cleansers and Farmaesthetics soaps in ‘sweet pea’ and ‘cornmeal chamomile’ smell scrumptious and are priced to move.
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Napoleon Perdis
A judge on Australia's Next Top Model, Napoleon Perdis has brought his 'star powder' to Hollywood where he's adding extra luster to Teri Hatcher, Paula Abdul and other famous faces. At his flagship store you can go color-crazy with samples displayed on mirrored tables or ask the non-snooty sales girls for some advice. There's another branch in the Westfield Shoppingtown Century City mall.
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Nancy Boy
All you closet pomaders and after-sun balmers: wear those products with pride, without feeling like the dupe of some cosmetics conglomerate. Clever Nancy Boy knows you’d rather pay for the product than for advertising campaigns featuring the starlet du jour, and delivers locally made products with effective plant oils that are tested on boyfriends, never animals.
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Sumbody
Tans are too LA; in SF everyone is after that dewy, fogged-in-for-months fresh face. This Sebastopol-based company uses natural ingredients like rice bran and honey in the aptly named Rice & Shine facial wash, kava kava in the narcolepsy-inducing Knockout Bath Melt, and coconut cream in sea-salt scrubs that leave you as emollient as a Pier 39 sea lion.
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elizabethW
Thermometers permanently hover around 70°F in San Francisco, but local scent-maker elizabethW supplies the tantalizing aromas of changing seasons without the sweaty brows or frozen toes. Sweet Tea smells like a Georgia porch in summertime, Vetiver like autumn in Maine. For a true SF fragrance, Leaves is as audaciously green as Golden Gate Park in January.
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Strange Invisible Perfumes
Walk-ins welcome at this upscale but accessible perfumery where fragrances are personally crafted. Discover that perfect soulful scent at the consultation bar or wander past cool, lavender-toned walls for an equally fascinating array of naturally fragranced cleansers, scrubs and creams that will leave you feeling neither strange nor invisible.
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Benefit
Get cheeky with BeneTint, the dab-on liquid blush made from roses, or raise some eyebrows with Brow Zings tinted brow wax – they’re two of Benefit’s signature products invented in San Francisco by the twin-sister team. Surgery is so LA: in SF, overnight Angelinas swear by LipPlump and Lindsay Lohan dark-eye-circles are cured with Ooh La Lift.
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Braindrops
New Yorkers and Berliners fly in for original custom designs by top tattoo artists here – bring design ideas to your consultant, or trust them to make suggestions. Piercings are done here gently without a gun, with body jewelry ranging from pop-star opal belly-button studs to mondo jade ear spools.
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Lush
Scrubbing bubbles never looked so good. In fact, the homemade bath bombs loading the bins at this soap-scented store look so fresh, fruity and fancy that you’re almost tempted to take a bite. But no worries here, the fun-loving staff are happy to explain the proper path for primo sudsy pampering.
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Marie Mason Apothecary
The baby-blue walls, white shelves and antler chandeliers here exude the feel of an intimate beach bungalow and create a breezy setting for the exclusive beauty goods available at this Brentwood Country Mart boutique. Look for hard-to-find Trilogy from Australia and local Sage body lotions.
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Apothia @ Fred Segal
Beauty purveyor to the stars for a quarter century, Apothia has all the hottest, hard-to-find A-lister products that the glossies say you can't live without. Best sellers include Bella Bronze self-tanning cream and DuWop pink shimmer lip venom. It's inside the Fred Segal boutique.
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Beauty Collection Apothecary
Glamazons and metrosexuals love the huge selection of brands – from Ahava to Z Bigatti – at this sleek Farmers Market–adjacent boutique. We especially like the products by local skincare gurus to the stars, including Murad, Ole Henriksen and Brave Soldier.
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Palmetto
Jane Kennedy's all-natural beauty emporium lets you indulge all your femme pampering needs, from prettily packaged potions to Julie Hewitt's LA-based make-up line and Commando invisible underwear. Also in Santa Monica at 1034 Montana Ave.
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Larchmont Beauty Center
Not the most chic of LA's beauty emporiums, but well-edited and affordably priced with intelligent service.
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Kiehl's
The entire body and skincare product palette in an old-time apothecary. Free samples.
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