Beauty Shopping: Shopping for Beauty Products in Zurich

It is often referred to as Zurich’s “Rodeo Drive” or I would call it Zurich’s “5th Avenue”. It stretches from the Railway itself almost till the beautiful Zurich Lake and offers shopping possibilities for everyone from designer fans to beauty addicts to budget shoppers.
The major shopping street in Zurich, well known around the world, is the Bahnhofstrasse (sounds a bit less romantic when translated into English as Train Station Street).

Have you noticed how more attractive and almost hypnotic become shopping windows when they are decorated for Christmas… and it is late evening with the street lights on… you just cannot resist and walk by…. I know it is a mistake to shop in Bahnhofstrasse on Friday evening or on Saturday due to the crowds of shoppers but these are usually the times when I get around to doing it (and obviously everyone else). So doing some shopping yesterday evening I though I should make a couple posts about shopping for beauty products in Zurich.

Boutique Parfumerie: a small to mid-size beauty boutique that offers a selection of brands as well as service with a nice personal touch. You can subscribe to their periodical magazines, become a member of their discount system and benefit from their special offers.

Import Parfumerie: resembles the boutique parfumerie described above. However instead of the additional services offered by the latter, Import Parfumerie offers good prices and claims some of them to be 35% less than everywhere!

Jelmoli and Globus: Are the “Neiman Markuses” of Switzerland. They offer brands and designer clothes as well as a whole floor (and sometimes more than one) dedicated to beauty products: skin care, make up, perfumes etc. Mostly you will find well-known brands and designer beauty products there. The prices can be a bit higher but not significantly.

Manor: Is a step down from the previously mentioned stores but is very similar to them.
Coop and Migros: These two stores are the supermarket type. Here you would mostly shop for your basic beauty products like a shaving gel and locally manufactured products. Though at the central stores you do find a selection of brands like L’Oreal, Elizabeth Arden or Clarins

Reformhaus: That’s where you go to do your organic shopping. Here organic and natural beauty products are offered alongside a selection of organic foods. That’s where you will find Dr.Hauschka line.

Apotheke:(engl. = Drugstore) Mostly offers a selection of cosmeceuticals such as alongside some brands like L’Oreal and Clarins.

Drogerie: Is the store dedicated to herbs and herbal remedies. What only you won’t find here: basic skin care and hair products, natural cosmetics, brands… they are anot very selective :-)

I hope I didn’t leave anything out and mentioned all the major beauty shopping
destinations in Zurich

I will continue my posts on Beauty shopping in Zurich and will give more details in my future posts.

Bahnhofstrasse even has its own site in English.

Beauty Review: Double Wear Makeup by Estee Lauder

Those who have a combination skin type with visible pores, an oily T-zone and prone to break outs are always in search of the best product that would solve these imperfections… or at least would cover them up!
One of the powder foundations for combination skin I tried out recently and used to even out my skin tone for an Autumn inspired photoshoot is Double Wear Makeup by Estee Lauder.

Double Wear
Stay-in-Place Powder Makeup

Promise: Provides “medium semi-matte coverage”, is a “worry-free powder makeup” that “looks natural for up to 8 hours, even through nonstop activity”. It is also promised that you will have “a continuously flawless look without touch-ups”.
I especially liked the phrase “through nonstop activity”. I got an image of me working out in a gym and still having a flawless skin tone and “semi-matte coverage” :-)

Well, though I am quite happy (for now!) with my powder choice and I have never had a better powder foundation, it did not work as well for me as it was promised and as I hoped for.

My Review:

The sales girl recommended Estee Lauder’s Double Wear as having one of the best (and thickest) coverage. “Very good for your type of skin” – she ensured me.

Matte-finish, oil absorbing: Well, most of the powders for combination/oily skin I have tried before including the ones by Maybelline and Max Factor kind of let me down. They never really provided the long term “matte finish” as promised. The same unfortunately happened with Estee Lauder Double Wear. In a couple hours my resistant to oil-absorbing inredients T-Zone was shiny again.

Color: The promise that Double Wear “won’t change its color” is very true. It gives an amazing even color to the skin and it looks as if powder actually blends with your skin. Very very nice but of course only till the oiliness starts to show in the T-Zone.

Smooth application: The fact that it “Glides on silky smooth” is completely true. It gives the skin a very natural even look covering up minor imperfections and minimizing the appearance of pores. However, since it turned out to be not oil-absorbent enough for me, I had to reapply it and do some touch-ups much sooner than 8 hours. I found it looked smothered and unnatural when I did it though. The reason is that it does give you a very thick Double Wear that when mixed with oil and covered with another layer of Double Wear just looks like a mask. So I changed the application strategy and applied it with a brush instead of the applicator-sponge provided with the powder. It works excellent and allows a couple natural looking retouches (before those it is advisable to use a blotting paper on the shiny areas).

What I would Recommend: I think this makeup is ideal for an even tone, matte look and coverage of imperfections for medium oily skin and normal skin.
If you have oily skin:

use mattifying/oil absorbing moisturizer on the T-Zone

keep a pack of blotting paper with you (I love the ones by Clinique)

apply the powder using a brush to allow natural looking touch-ups when needed.