Samurai Shopper | Give Greece a Chance

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By S.S. FAIR

 

Apivita Queen Bee Firming and Restoring Night Cream

 

Much as I long to live in a blinkered bubble of my own devising, the Samurai Shopper cannot ignore the endless news loops of Mitts and Newts, unemployment statistics, and the imminent collapse of the Eurozone due to fiscal laxity and mounting sovereign debt that will topple the civilized world –– and also America.
I’d love to say it’s all Greek to me, but it isn’t. It’s Italian and Spanish too. The satirist Juvenal dismissed his Roman countrymen as being overly fond of bread and circuses –– that sounds like modern-day Americans and Eurozonians too. A pile of McRibs and a klown kar krammed with Kardashians makes global apocalypse seem so fifty years from now. This impending world crumble started, ironically, in democracy’s birthplace ––
Greece. But all I am saying (with apologies to John Lennon) is give Greece a chance.
The Greeks gave us Epicurus, the first philosopher foodie. They gave us drama and comedy and a pantheon of fascinatingly neurotic gods like Chaos, Eros and Hermes –– the latter is still ruling the world of luxe accessories. True, Greeks peaked in 776 B.C. with the Olympic games, and what have they done for us lately? Well, they brought us Jennifer Aniston and Tina Fey. Greek yogurt? Fantastic. And some Greek skin-care lines are as fine as the lines creeping up your face.
Korres, born in the oldest pharmacy in Athens, has a prodigious selection of makeup and skin-care products at their-free standing stores, all based on homeopathy. I like their Wild Rose Illuminating Powder and Wild Rose Mineral Foundation, SPF 30. Sponge, available at Barney’s, cranks up the organic factor with Ladi Avocanto, an avocado/olive oil that works wonders on dry skin. Sponge’s aromatherapy mists are soothing and sniffy in sweet basil, jasmine and more of that wild rose.
Apivita does a wide range of products for men, babies and Greek goddesses. Their Queen Bee line (fittingly at Patricia Field) incorporates royal jelly and honey in serums and moisturizers that are aromatic freshness for dry dull dehydrated skin. Apivita’s Express Beauty line of pocket-sized, one-time use masks and eye patches let you sample the wares with a budgetary discipline that the Greeks apparently lack. Apivita also does a medicinal line based on propolis –– an old fangled, newly rediscovered resin –– that accumulates in honeycombs and acts like a natural antifungal and antiseptic.
As the greatest Greek Socrates once said: Beauty is a short-lived tyranny. So get it while you can.