Love Of Art

SHU UEMURA BOTTLES BEAUTY

Shu Uemura is looking particularly animated these days. To celebrate the 44th birthday of the Japanese cosmetics company's original product, the famed Cleansing Oil, 75-year-old founder and creator Shu Uemura went the Louis Vuitton-Takaki Murakami route: he asked young Tokyo artist (and Murakami protegee) Ai Yamaguchi to create cartoon-like graphics for the limitededition bottles. The resulting packaging for the four formulas—of which only 100,000 will be made—brings the classic clear-pump containers up to the second with their wistful Pop images of partially clad Edo-period courtesans. "I've been nurturing it for such a long time. I take better care of it than I do myself," Uemura says of the facial oil he invented while working as a Hollywood makeup artist in the 1950s. Although it's taken decades to convince women of the benefits of washing their faces with oil, today one bottle is sold every 30 seconds. A portion of the proceeds from the $65 limited-edition cleanser will go to international charities supporting children and art.

Shu Uemura has also tapped Yamaguchi to paint the murals for his new San Francisco store, opening later this month in Pacific Heights' budding boutique district. The designs will echo the ethereal, ultra-modern maidens with which she decorated the walls of the West Hollywood boutique last fall—the perfect backdrop for the store's high-impact palette of minimally packaged makeup. It's yet another expression of Uemura's dedication to all things visual: "Art is the way of life," he says.

CHRISTINE MUHLKE

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