bodycare in movies, skincare in movies

The Room Next Door (2024)

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While Ingrid and Martha are frantically looking for Martha’s pills in her apartment, we have the chance to see some corners of her beautiful apartment. For example, one shot focuses on a colourful tin box which holds a bit of everything – stationery, sanitiser, candy and two interesting round containers.

One is Burt’s Bees lemon butter cuticle cream.

The other is Lush Rose Lollipop lip balm.

The tin box originally contained soft “torroncini” by the Italian brand Fiasconaro. This is a special edition designed by Dolce & Gabbana.

bodycare in movies, perfumes in movies

L’enfer (1994)

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There are several interesting items in Paul and Nelly’s bathroom.

On the glass shelf below the mirror there’s a flacon bouchon coeur by Guerlain. Reading the front sticker is impossible, but the bottle could house Mitsouko, L’Heure Bleue or Fol Arôme, the three fragrances this ground glass flacon was designed for in 1910.

On the same shelf there’s a can of Elnett hairspray.

On the bath tub shelf there’s a bottle of L’Oreal Obao bubble bath.

Thanks to Cherry for submitting this post.

perfumes in movies

L’enfer (1994)

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Several scenes set in Paul and Nelly’s bedroom reveal that the woman is a fragrance lover. On a dresser by the bathroom door we can see two Guerlain bottles.

One is the flacon chauve souris of Shalimar, a fragrance created by Jacques Guerlain and launched in 1925.

The other is a flacon bouchon coeur, possibly containing Mitsouko, L’Heure Bleue or Fol Arôme. The same bottle can be seen in the couple’s bathroom.

Other two fragrance bottles sit on Nelly’s vanity.

The bottle with white stopper on the left side of the vanity is Clarins Eau Dynamisante, an aromatic citrus fragrance created by Jacques Courtin-Clarins and launched in 1987.

Next to it there’s a bottle of Rochas Eau de Rochas, a citrus aromatic eau de toilette created by Nicolas Mamounas and launched in 1970.

Nelly’s passion for fragrances can be seen in the decor of the room, too: a poster of Le Galion Sortilège is displayed on the wall behind the vanity. This 1954 advert was created by the illustrator Claude Maurel.

perfumes in tv shows

La nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s’est réveillé E02 (La nuit où Mireille était reparue)

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Whenever I watch a Xavier Dolan film, there’s one thing I am always certain of: I will spot a fragrance in it. Even if this is technically a TV show, the rule still applies  because there’s a scene, set in Madeleine’s bedroom, where two fragrances make their appearance.

One is a Nina Ricci atomiser, used in the past to house several fragrances. There’s no way to know which one it contains, but it’s probably L’air du temps, previously mentioned in The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.

The jar topped with a dove is Avon Flight to Beauty moisturising cream.

Julien (Patrick Hivon) takes another bottle and smells it.

It’s Christian Dior Miss Dior eau de toilette. The bottle that houses this fragrance today is very similar to the original, but I want to believe Madeleine used the vintage version.

Thanks to Zah in the comments for the Avon id.

perfumes in tv shows

Mina Settembre S02E12 (Andare a vedere)

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Titti (Valentina D’Agostino) is getting married. Her bachelorette party is a quiet night in with her best friends Mina (Serena Rossi) and Irene (Christiane Filangieri).

On a glass shelf in her old-fashioned bathroom there are two fragrances by Etro.

From the front label it’s possible to tell one of them is Etra, a warm spicy fragrance launched in 1999. The other one is impossible to identify because the label cannot be read.

beauty products in music videos

On the Set of Madonna’s Vogue Music Video (1990)

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How many times have you watched Madonna’s Vogue, one of the most influential music videos of the 1990s directed by David Fincher? Personally I have lost count. When it was first released in March 1990, it was captivating with its impressive use of black and white and the imagery heavily paying homage to the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka and Hollywood portrait photographers like Clarence Sinclair Bull and Horst P. Horst.

In particular, the final shot of the video [1] basically reproduces one of the most famous photographs by Horst – Mainbocher Corset, taken in 1939.

The German master of light and shadow shot one of his models, Madame Bernon. She was wearing a tightly-laced corset made by the corsetière Detolle to be worn under one of the creations of Mainbocher, the fashion house founded in 1929 by the American designer Main Rousseau Bocher.

If you are a fan of this music video, I bet you’ve never realised that the round bottle sitting on a shelf (left side of the screen) is a real product. It’s a beautiful glossy black Lanvin talcum powder duster. Possibly the fragrance of this perfumed talc was Arpège, the white floral creation by Paul Vacher and Andre Fraysse launched in 1927.

[1] The photo shot on the set of the music video was taken by Lorraine Day.

Thanks to Carolina for submitting this post.

stars' vanities/make-up cases/cabinets in real life

Jane Birkin’s Bathroom (1987)

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This beautiful portrait was taken by Richard Melloul in the bathroom of Birkin’s house in rue de la Tour, in Paris. You may recognise it as the bathroom which appears in Kung Fu Master! (1988) by Agnès Varda. Some of the perfumes and toiletries in this picture can also be found in the film.

On the far left side of the marble shelf above the washbasin there’s a blue jar with silver cap: it’s Guerlain Secret de Bonne Femme face cream. On the same side of the marble shelf there’s a jar of Gessy brilliantine, which I found no picture of.

Next there’s a bottle of Coty cologne. The front label cannot be read, but considering it has a white stopper, it could be Le Muguet.

A bottle that can be seen in Kung Fu Master! is Chanel 8°5 Lotion Fraiche.

There’s also Guerlain Vol de Nuit in the gorgeous flacon rayonnant. This is a 1933 fragrance by Jacques Guerlain.

On the far right side of the marble counter there are several round boxes, possibly containing face or body powders. Among them, there are Les Météorites pressed-powder pearls and Coty Airspun loose face powder, both seen in the Varda film.

On the right side of the marble counter there are several skincare products. Among them, I can see a white jar and a white tube by Clarins (impossible to know what they contained) and Guerlain body creme.

The last product I have been able to identify is a massive flacon goutte by Guerlain, sitting on a wooden counter above the bath tub. First introduced in 1923, it was used for over 30 different fragrances, so there’s no way to tell exactly what this bottle contained.

Thanks to Viola for submitting this post, and to Samuel for the Guerlain face cream id.

cosmetics in movies, perfumes in movies, shaving products in movies

Green Card (1990)

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Georges is checking the content of Brontë’s bathroom cabinet.

The object at the centre is a small spray can of Gillette Foamy shaving cream.

The two white bottles are very intriguing. The citrus front label clearly reads “Bourjois Eau de Cologne”, so this id should be a no-brainer. Too bad that this eau de cologne doesn’t exist! If you look at the screencap closely, you will see that the prop masters took generic white bottles and glued Art Deco-style labels on them. What is surprising is that they used the name of a real brand. I wonder if Bourjois was in the know of this “poetic licence”…

The imagination of the prop masters was put to the test by a very important element of the plot – the infamous Monticello restorative cream for the face, Brontë’s moisturiser of choice.

The only evidence of this brand took me back to American history, where Monticello is Thomas Jefferson’s plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, that has maintained the plantation and kept it to the public, sells skincare products on their online shop, so *there could* be a connection with the face cream seen in the film, although I have found no evidence that the aforementioned cream was actually produced and sold by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

More mystery lies on the glass shelf above. There’s a (soap) box on the right that reads “Natural Seaweed” and the brand is Revive Lab. Again, I found no evidence of such a brand.

What cannot be mistaken is the floral box at the centre of the shelf: it’s definitely a Clinique product, although it’s impossible to identify because the box is never shown in its entirety.

Thanks to Taylor Rowley for submitting this post.

A growing archive of beauty products and perfumes in movies and tv shows