Excerpt:
THERE'S A DERMATOLOGIST-RUN SPA on practically every corner these days, but in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, where Polish is the language spoken on the street and beauty is taken very, very seriously, women skip the packed waiting rooms and men in white coats in favor of a more parochial way of dealing with life's dermal glitches.
The Eastern European beauty ethic launched the careers of skincare gurus like Estée Lauder and the late Helena Rybenstein (along with, it seems, nearly every aesthetician in America). Slavic beauties, like Estonia's Carmen Kass, Poland's Malgosia Bela, and their predecessors, Czech girls Paulina Porizkova and Eva Herzigova, have long inspired us to buy lipstick and moisturizer. And now a new crop of Slavic beauty salons from Greenpoint to Beverly Hills (where Russian Vera Kantor pampers Hollywood with her spinach-and-pumpkin facial) are sharing their best beauty secret once more: No matter how advanced skincare chemistry becomes, Mother Nature still knows best.
"Beauty was a big priority for us, but with government rationing, we had to be resourceful," says Kantor, reminiscing about her childhood. "We used oatmeal and yogurt as face masks, honey and almond for exfoliants, arnica from the garden for healing, and chamomile tea for cleansing the pores."
"We were taught about cause and effect," says Lena Makushina, a Russian facialist, formerly of Manhattan’s Bliss Spa and now from left: Carmen Kass, Malgosia owner of Maksim day spa. Bela, and friends. “If you looked after your skin when you were young, you wouldn't have to fix it later."
In Poland, patience in skincare is a virtue. Informal education begins at 12 or 13, but the real training to become an aesthetician takes two years and includes more medical and clinical components than the American equivalent.
While dermatologists may show clients a prescription, and the door, after a 10-minute visit, the Slavic method requires a time investment to give skin the attention it is due. "I found one of the Polish aestheticians, late one evening, on her hands and knees scrub- bing the floorboards of her treatment room with a toothbrush," remembers Marcia Kilgore, executive director of Bliss. "How 24h lucky would any client be to have that attitude working on her face?"