D TCDINQ n i iCIESn The Israeli Shmear Campaign Dead Sea cosmetics make it big in the American market. ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM AppleTree Editor W hen actress Halle Berry wants to look beautiful, she gets up, goes to her mirror and — there she is, beautiful. But even a glamorous movie star needs a little help now and then. So after a big night out, Berry turns to her favorite beauty treatment: the Peeling Cream from Dinur, an Israeli- based skin-care line. "I can't_liVe without it," Berry told Star magazine. For so many years, Israel's most famous export was the small and sweet Jaffa orange. Then came all those chatchkes from the Old City, brightly painted pieces of wood bearing messages like "Shalom, Y'All" and "Home of the Cohen Family." Recently, Israeli-made jewelry came of spots, QVC, to that most the cable-TV shopping channel, where you also can find made-in-Israel paja- mas from the Kathie Lee Gifford col- . lection. Perhaps most impressive, however, is Israel's big jump into one of the most lucrative industries in the world: cos- metics. By now; Ahava ("love" in Hebrew) is a well-known commodity among beauty mavens throughout the world. Locally, it's sold everywhere from drugstores to Sephora, the very hip cosmetics store in Novi's Twelve Oaks Mall and Troy's Somerset Collection. Ahava includes a vast range of skin- care, anti-aging products and an extremely popular, and not inexpen- sive, hand cream. But Ahava is just the beginning. Today, new Israeli cosmetic companies are moving by leaps and bounds-into the United States and they are selling, often thanks to salt. A key ingredient in most Israeli cos- metics comes, not unexpectedly, from the Dead Sea. Companies focus on the "miraculous qualities" of something (often salt or mud) they have "extract- ed from the Dead Sea" to use in the products. Among the lines touting use of Dead Sea salt and mud, along with other extracts, are Dinur, Shira and Ahava, all available in the United States and around for some time. Within Israel, even more cosmetic companies exist and are increasing seemingly as quickly as the lines on the faces of all those women who have neglected to apply Dead Sea minerals to their skin. These include the Belmon Nurit Mineral Care line, Crystalline-Health & Beauty from the Dead Sea Ltd., Aromatics from Minerals Health and Nature, Paloma Dead Sea Ltd., Blue Line Cosmetics Ltd., and Dead Sea Premier Cosmetic Laboratories Ltd., among many, many others. Still other Israeli companies have connections with other major international lines, like L'Oreal. Seven years ago, Israeli cosmetics even made it to the Cayman Islands when a Dr. David Melumad appeared there with his new products (not yet available in the United States). Much of this line featured ingredients from the Dead Sea, along with "aloe vera gel from the Jordan Valley." The skeptic, or just a basically thoughtful person, might wonder why on earth anyone would pay a lot of money for two ingredients she could get for pennies (in the case of salt) or free (the mud). But, of course, advo- cates say Dead Sea salt and Dead Sea mud aren't just your average salt arld mud. Unlike most seas, the Dead Sea is amazingly salty — more than 32 per- cent salt, in fact, compared to the typ- ical 3 percent for most seas. But isn't it still just salt, after all, you may ask. For thousands of years, visitors to Israel have insisted that the Dead Sea salt is not like any other salt. In fact, to this day, tourists come from around the world just to immerse themselves in the Dead Sea, where they say they find relief for numer- ous skin disorders, including psoriasis and eczema. The Dead Sea was formed when a COVER STORY 4IN 7/16 2004 60 mountain range rose from the depths of the earth and the Dead Sea basin dropped 400 meters (almost a quarter mile) below sea level, making it the lowest place on earth. Over time, the water of the Dead Sea evaporated with amazing speed, leaving behind all that salt in not that much water. But it's not just extra salt you get in the Dead Sea. There's higher quanti- ties of potassium, calcium, magnesium and bromine, found both in the water and in Dead Sea mud. The ancient Egyptians — those peo- ple who seem to have thought of everything!— were quick to pick up on the wonders of the Dead Sea. Cleopatra was said to import Dead Sea cosmetics for her skin care, and asked Marc Antony to conquer the land so she could have all the Dead Sea creams she wanted. Alas, though Antony was successful in his cam- paign, the makers of the Dead Sea products refused to turn over their until Cleopatra agreed to secrets "lease" the land back to King Herod. Even the Torah speaks of the Dead Sea delights: King Solomon gave Dead Sea salts to the Queen of Sheba when she popped in for a visit. Then, for thousands of years, Dead Sea cos- metics went into obscurity until the Bedouins — and an astute Israeli anthro- pologist and politi- cian — 'rediscovered the Sea's powers. In the 1950s, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi — later Israel's second president — was suffering from eczema. According to legend, he caught sight of Bedouins soaking in the Dead Sea and wondered what the salty water might do for his own dis- ease-inflicted hands. Apparently, the Dead Sea salts completely cured the eczema, and Ben-Zvi went on to advance the benefits of the sea — and dramatically increase tourism to the area. Among the first to pick up on the idea of re-igniting the Dead Sea cos- metics industry were kibbutzim. In 1984, kibbutzim Mitzpe Shalem and Ein Gedi united to form Dead Sea Health Products (DSHP), which became the first business with rights to mine Dead Sea mud. DSHP later went on to expand its line from solely mud products to other cosmetics, many with Dead Sea salt, and was renamed Ahava. What Oprah Loves One of the newest Israeli lines — its New York City store just celebrated its first- anniversary — offer- ing products with Dead Sea salt is Sabon (which translates from the Hebrew to the decidedly unglam- orous "soap Sabon, which is not yet available in metro Detroit, boasts such treats as the rose- petal bath ball and the orange- ").