Rebeca’s make-up artist uses an eyeshadow palette by Alissi Brontë.
Tag Archives: pedro almodovar
Los abrazos rotos (2009)
Lena (Penélope Cruz) is a broken woman: trapped in an unhappy marriage, she desperately longs for freedom and real love. She lives in a luscious house, she’s always dressed elegantly, she’s surrounded by expensive objects, but all this rarely gives her joy.
Perfumes and beauty products follow her in many scenes, as if they were heavy trappings of a fake identity. The triangle-shaped bottle of Lancôme Trésor body lotion makes its appearance for the third time, so now I guess it’s safe to say that this is her signature scent. It’s an unusual choice, because I would see Lena wearing something more peculiar, with more personality, so I guess this is another way to force her into a role she doesn’t feel comfortable with.
In her bathroom there is also Givenchy Ysatis, a floral chypre fragrance created by Dominique Ropion in 1984.
Last, there’s L’Occitane Eau d’Iparie, an oriental woody fragrance launched in 2005.
La voz humana (2020)
The Woman (Tilda Swinton) is applying mascara in front of a round mirror. The bathroom she’s in is tiled in different colours and is full of beauty products and toiletries.
Starting from the left red-tiled niche, I’ve identified:
Rochas Eau de Rochas bath and shower gel
Chanel La Crème Main hand cream
Perlier Honey Miel bath and shower cream and Thai Coco body lotion
Chanel Paris-Biarritz shower gel
Moving right, there’s the blue-tiled niche, where there are two hair products:
John Frieda Luxurious Volume Touchably Full conditioner
L’Oreal Extraordinary Oil oil-in-milk leave-in hair cream
Now there’s the washbasin counter, packed with bottles of medicines.
The first perfume bottle I’ve spotted is Hermès Eau de Citron Noir cologne.
Then there’s obviously the Chanel No. 5 factice.
Next, three products by Natura Bissé from the C+C Vitamin line – face cream on the far left, sun protection at the top left corner of the washbasin and micellar cleansing water next to the tap.
There’s also a bottle of Chanel Les Beiges foundation among the medicine bottles.
All the right part of the counter is for Chanel make-up items. So we can see
Joues Contraste powder blush
Rouge Allure red lipstick
A cream blush
Poudre Universelle Libre loose powder
Les 4 Ombres eyeshadow palette in Tissé Camélia
Palette Essentiel in Beige Clair
Les Beiges compact powder
Le Lift Lèvres et Contours firming cream.
Last, two toothpastes in a silver glass
One is Marvis Classic Strong Mint toothpaste.
The other is Verkos Kemphor toothpaste.
Los abrazos rotos (2009)
Lena (Penélope Cruz) has several beauty products on her vanity.
There’s a can of L’Oreal Elnett Satin extra strong-hold hairspray.
There’s also a Helena Rubinstein skincare product. The bottle pictured above is just for reference, because the one seen in the film is not All Mascaras! make-up remover. If I remember correctly, this was a cleansing milk.
Next to the Helena Rubinstein bottle there’s Lancôme Trésor body lotion.
Tacones lejanos (1991)
There are a cream jar and a box from Christian Dior Hydra-Dior skincare line in Becky’s dressing room.
The squared bottle in the background is Tiffany by Tiffany, housed in a beautiful Tiffany blue display box. This perfume, launched in 1987, was created by Francois Demachy.
Thanks to lepetitcivet for the Tiffany id.
Kika (1993)
Juana (Rossy de Palma) is Kika’s maid: she doesn’t really take care of her look, so Kika (who’s a make-up artist) decides to give her a makeover.
The compact face powder she uses is by Cacharel.
The scarlet red lipstick she puts on Juana is another product by Cacharel. The lipsticks of this short-lived line were contained in beautiful matte metal cases, the tops of which were lip-shaped.
La ley del deseo (1987)
The nurse (Lupe Barrado) who’s taking care of Pablo in the hospital retouches her red manicure with a Christian Dior nail polish.
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988)
The retro-style opening credits of the film (designed by Juan Gatti) contain, quite surprisingly, a real advert of a real make-up item.
It’s the marbled lipstick Glissando, launched in 1964 by the American brand Du Barry.
Available in six shades (“from light-struck pinks to muted ambers to rich reds”), it was housed in an elegant silver and gold metal case.
It’s true the brand started its decline in the 1970s and eventually died [1], but I still wonder what happened here. Did the title designer get away with reproducing an advert of a defunct brand? Or did they just paid what was due to whatever multinational company owned the Du Barry name in the 1980s?
[1] This is not entirely accurate: the brand was relaunched in 2002. But I guess that was the end of it.
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988)
Lucía (Julieta Serrano) is a woman with a troubled past: abandoned by her husband Iván with a child (Carlos, now grown-up and interpreted by Antonio Banderas), she’s spent a long time in a mental institution. Now she’s living with her parents, who try to support her and her extravagant looks.
In this scene, she’s applying her eyeliner. On her dresser there are many beauty products, among which the unmistakable golden spray can of L’Oreal Elnett Satin hairspray.
But there’s also another interesting product – a white jar with pink lid, which screams “Christian Dior skincare”.
It’s impossible to say exactly what product this was, but was for sure part of the Hydra-Dior collection.
It’s not a coincidence that later in the film we see several products from the same line on Pepa’s vanity. Pepa (Carmen Maura) is the former mistress of Iván. She’s another woman “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”, just like Lucía: they’re in love with the same man (who has dumped both of them for another lover) and happen to use the same skincare.
Matador (1986)
When María Cardenal (Assumpta Serna) re-applies her lipstick, we can see it falling on her lap.
It’s Stylo à Levres by Lancôme, a product launched in the late 1970s but still on the market in the following decade.
