Burbank Glamour with Bésame Cosmetics

Our LA correspondent finds old-school glamour in modern brand Bésame

Ads that seem to spring up in your feeds immediately after you’ve just had a conversation about something specific annoy me and they creep me out. But lately there have been a few ads for chic things that have caught my eye. Like this one ad for cake mascara…

The packaging (an embossed tin!) was alluring and seductive – ornate font, gold on a deep red background. The very idea of cake mascara – like a block of Japanese calligraphy ink – made me think about the ritual of applying it, a process that takes time and a steady hand. I didn’t click on the ad out of a stubborn personal principle, but I did go to their website. 

Bésame Cosmetics. I had never heard of them. But then I’m not a makeup connoisseur. I don’t wear much, and I know what I like. Tinted moisturizer, regular mascara that comes in a tube, and lip gloss are pretty much it for me. And when I find a product that I like, I stick with it – sometimes for decades. Like the Clinique Naturally Glossy mascara that I’ve been wearing since high school – and that’s more than 40 years. Boring! Even if I must dress up for an event that requires more effort, I will just increase the layer of mascara and not blot the lipstick. My normal routine is to put on lipstick and then wipe it off leaving a stain which I then put lip gloss over. It does take some work to look natural.

One day in 1983 when I was just starting my adult life I went to Bloomingdale’s – probably to buy some more Clinique mascara and get a “free” goodie bag with it. I was called over from another counter to get a free makeover. I thought, well, why not? Maybe I could do with a look, part of that dress-for-success strategy that was so popular with ambitious yuppies taking over the city at the time. The man that fussed over me for 30 minutes and ignored my request to go light applied several layers of foundation, contouring blush, regular blush, lip liner, eyebrow liner, eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara and of course, lipstick. This was the 1980s so you can imagine what this looked like. Like a reject extra from Dynasty minus the big hair and gaudy clothes. It was horrible. Garish. I kept my head down as I rode the subway downtown – praying that I didn’t run into anyone I knew – and vigorously washed my face as soon as I got home.

I forwarded the mascara ad to Rachel, who has encyclopaedic knowledge of all things beauty and fashion and can elevate the study of makeup to an academic high art form. I thought she would appreciate the presentation. And no surprise, she already knew about Bésame lipsticks.

I saw that the Bésame flagship store was right here in Los Angeles – well, Burbank, but close enough – and only eight miles away from where I live. I told Rachel I would check them out and get her a lipstick. I was also looking forward to a little retail adventure.

With all this virtual living during the pandemic, I missed shopping. Especially the physical kind of city shopping I did in New York when you could just step outside and wander into so many unique and precious little shops. I lived on Prince Street in trendy Nolita for over 25 years and in the 1990s many places like that existed. Before the chain stores overtook the beloved shops and the storefronts became a corporate retail formula. 

The Bésame shop is on Magnolia Boulevard, set amidst other fashionable shops and restaurants that are now starting to open up again. The interior is small but elegant, with every detail suggestive of a more glamorous time in Los Angeles but the brand was founded in 2004 by Gabriela Hernandez. Inspired by her grandmother’s beauty products, she created a line of makeup influenced by history – made with superb, modern, high quality ingredients. There are display cabinets that feature her collection of beauty products from another era and if you’re as old as I am, you’ll remember some of these from your mother’s dresser.

I arrived at the motherlode. Lipsticks. Rachel said she was torn between Bésame Red or Victory Red – opting for the former since the word “victory” has been hijacked by Nigel Farage and his right-wing Reform UK party and therefore anything with that word is now off-putting. I got both (fuck Nigel Farage) – and Blood Red for myself.

I also couldn’t resist their cream rouge which, like the cake mascara, comes in an embossed tin. And it doubles as lip stain so that fits into my daily effortless beauty ritual.

As for that cake mascara, I passed. Sure, it was gorgeous in its pristine state, but I can only imagine what kind of mess I could make of it, adding water* and sloppy brush marks day after day. I’ll stick with my low-maintenance, modern mascara in jet black for now, which, along with Bésame cream rouge and red lipstick, makes for a perfect LA-natural look.