Business Professional

Cover Story

SHMEAR from page 60

ginger foam scrub. Despite being a
novice, Sabon already has been on TV
(mentioned in Sex and the City) and in
magazines (People, Lucky, Vogue).
Best of all, Sabon, founded in 1997
in Tel Aviv, has star power. Fans
include actresses Sandra Bernhardt,
Julianne Moore, Kristen Davis and
Susan Sarandon, and even the woman
whose mere mention of a product can
• mean it sells out in a single day:
Oprah Winfrey.
Sabon prides itself on being "natu-
ral" — not just its products (lots of
soaps, lotions and bath items), but
even its packaging. "At Sabon," the
company states, "we understand our
responsibility to the world in which
we live."
Sabon not only includes minerals
from the Dead Sea, it is "scented
with exotic herbs from the Israeli
countryside and minerals known for
their healing powers," according to
a company brochure. Sabon prod-
ucts are now sold in Romania and
Poland, in addition to Israel and the
United States.
Fans like Oprah and Susan
Sarandon don't have to worry about
money, but the average Jane will be
delving quite deeply into her pock-
etbook for this "soap": the Sabon
Foam Scrub costs $30. You can pur-
chase Sabon at
vvvvvv.sabonnyc.com .
And it only goes up from there.
Consider the Dinur line, for exam-
ple. The 1.7 oz. Rich Moisturizing
Booster will set you back at least
$44.
Mary Glancz European Facial &
Cosmetic Salon in Birmingham has
been carrying Dinur products for 20
of the 36 years Glancz has been in
business. Glancz discovered Dinur
while at the International Cosmetics
Convention in Tel Aviv. She saw the
line, and she knew she had discovered
a jewel.
"I was impressed right away," she
says. She trusted the company spokes-
men — trust, she says, is essential in
her business — and she liked the
product, from the creams to the pack-
aging.
Dinur offers a complete line of skin
care, everything from topical formulas
to help you get rid of acne to creamy
creams that promise to make older
skin more youthful looking.
Dinur, which carries U.S. Food and
Drug Administration approval, offered
one of the first glycolic creams on the
market, Glancz says. Glycolic creams
are there to help you get rid of those
annoying facial wrinkles by

7/16
2004

62

"loosen [ing] the excess accumulation
of dead skin cells to a natural rate of
exfoliation similar to that of a healthy
skin," according to a Dinur brochure.
Dinur further provides users with
something called Vitaplex A, which
the company describes as a "microen-
capsulated Vitamin A which offers an
increased concentration and higher
effectiveness of Vitamin A than in a
non-encapsulated form." There's
Vitaplex A with SPF 15 in a day
cream, the Vitaplex A Eyes and Lips
Vitalizer and the Vitaplex A multi-
vitamin "ampoules."

says. "I even have customers who have
moved to Florida and they're always
asking me to send them. Once you
use them, you want to use them all
the time. That's because you see
results."
Dinur products are sold throughout
metro Detroit, including at Emile
Salon in Beverly Hills and Rosebud in
Birmingham.

A Song Of Beauty

If you're looking for a miracle, look no
further than Spa Parisienne in
Bloomfield Hills, where spa owner
Anca Balasu will introduce you to a
made-in-Israel cream she says is sim-
ply the best on the market.
The Shira ("Song" in Hebrew)
skin-care line — whose official name
is Shira Esthetics — was founded in
1990 and named for the sister of the
company's president and research and
development director, Jerry Nezaria.
It was in Nezaria's basement where
the products were first developed:

•
Strong believers:
ntz
Ahoy M Glancz
rght: Alica Balasu

What Glancz says is most unique,
however, is the Dinur line called
Hydrocare, for super-sensitive skin.
These creams "calm down the skin
without drying or without side
effects," she explains.
There also are products for those
with oily skin ("Remarkable Soothing
Lotion [is] an oil-free lotion contain-
ing Vitamin E, Pro-Vitamin B5,
Vegetal Ceramides which work in syn-
ergy with the Hydrocortisone to re-
establish the skin's equilibrium to
ensure a healthy, lucent appearance").
There are products for those with irri-
tated skin, for those with delicate skin
and for those specifically looking for a
night cream.
There are masks (the mud version,
of course, but also in yummy flavors
like papaya and strawberry), hand
creams and lip creams.
According to Glancz, Dinur can
become addictive. "Once people start
using Dinur, they come back," she

Years before, however, Jerry's moth-
er, Sara Nezaria, began working on
creams using products from the Dead
Sea. A registered nurse and esthetician,
Sara came to the United States in
1989, bringing with her some of the
cosmetics that had so wowed the
women of Israel.
Shira, with ingredients that are
"organic and aromatic," now is sold in
more than 30 countries (Shira spokes-
men describe their success as "mete-
oric"). The company promotes itself as
top-of-the-line in technology (accord-
ing to brochures, Shira "employs bril-
liant chemists who expertly utilize the
latest international technologies in
order to develop the most effective
skin treatments") and top-of-the-line

clientele-wise (its products are found
at "the most reputable spas and
salons," so don't go searching for Shira
at Billy Bob's Cold Drinx-n-Drug
Store).
In fact, if you're looking for Shira
Esthetics locally, there's only one place
to go: Spa Parisienne.
Anca Balasu, who has been in busi-
ness for 25 years, offers such Shira
items as masks, moisturizers and eye
cream.
Balasu is especially impressed by the
Shira Vitality Oxygen Line, which, she
says, provides treatment "smaller than
skin molecules," -which means they
have "a high level of penetration into
the skin." The creams further "stimu-
late blood circulation" and, naturally,
they are "anti-aging," Balasu says.
Shira has toners, a foaming cleanser
and tender little capsules which con-
tain what Balasu says are "some of the
best ingredients I have ever found" in
a skin-care line. They are "oxygenat-
ing," she says, and work wonders on
aging skin.
(Among the ingredients Shira
brochures report are in their prod-
ucts: "Omega-3 fatty acids, oxygen,
Vitamin C, seaweed, aromatherapy,
Dead Sea minerals, glycolic acid."
Everything in the skin-care line is
"exclusively based on minerals and
trace elements from the Dead Sea
and other natural ingredients, such
as chamomile, azulene and sea-
weed.")
Balasu, who also has worked at the
Greenhouse Spa in the Somerset
Collection, says that one of the most
impressive features of the Shira line
is that the creams "stimulate the
blood circulation" and are complete-
ly free of pathogenic material, even
keeping those cancer-causing agents
from penetrating the skin.
The granddaddy (but without any
wrinkles, of course) of all Israeli
skin-care lines is, of course, Ahava.
Available as a reasonably priced
line throughout Israel, Ahava
costs big bucks here in the
United States. A single bar of
soap is $6, while a bottle of
30 "Age defying 3-D Essence
Ampoules" costs $80. The
latter contain Ahava's