Hourglass Founder Introduces Trees Bath and Body Line

We’ve been fans of Hourglass Cosmetics since the luxury makeup company launched at Barneys New York in 2004. The packaging is elegant (gleaming metal, faux leather, magnetic clasps), the line well-edited (blush is limited to two gorgeous duos, one for cool skin tones, the other for warm) and the colors so lusciously subtle that application is pretty much mistakeproof.

When we met 35-year-old Hourglass founder Carisa Janes at her company’s sun-filled headquarters in Venice, CA (she lives with her husband in the gorgeous upstairs loft), she said that she’d wanted Hourglass to be a modern line, defined as much by what’s left out of the products — fragrance, oil and parabens — as by what’s included: anti-aging ingredients such as the peptide Matrixyl, a gentle Retin-A alternative, and SPF 15. “I always had bad skin,” Janes confided (for the record, she doesn’t now), “so I made sure that everything in the line is good for your skin.”

Now, Janes, a serial entrepreneur who was involved in the start-up of the Urban Decay, Body & Soul and Sugar beauty lines, is introducing Trees, a unisex bath and body collection that is loaded with essential oils and botanicals. We’ve just taken a break from writing this to apply the “light” body lotion ($32) a blend of grapefruit, mandarin, neroli, rosemary, chamomile, lavender, eucalyptus, orange and sage — and, boy, do we smell good! What’s your favorite scent for fall?

Tags: Barneys New York, Carisa Janes, Chemistry, Cosmetics, Grapefruit, Hourglass, Hourglass Cosmetics, Lush, Measurement, metal, Music industry, New York City, oil, Paraben, Phenols, Preservatives, Retin-A, serial entrepreneur, USD, Venice