It was at a Jay-Z concert that Jessica Richards met Julia Stringer, her partner in the Brooklyn shop Shen Beauty. I thought she was a prim-and-proper English girl, says the American-born Richards of the beauty journalist, whose Green Queen column has appeared in The Daily Mail. We are such polar opposites, it's not even funny. Still, the two decided to have lunch (at Spring Street Natural, naturally), and soon hatched the plan for Shen Beauty, the Cobble Hill emporium named for an Egyptian hieroglyph symbolizing protection of the earth.

David Netto helped design the space, which is stocked primarily with organic products and exclusive British imports like the Lubatti Collection (the recipes of the 1920s skin-care specialist Madame Lubatti, revived by Jo Malone's sister, Tracey); the London facialist Amanda Lacey's line (she's a close friend of Stringer's and Kate Logan's potions, which are made from herbs plucked from her own garden. The original samples arrived stateside in Stringer's hand luggage. We'd rather someone buy one small item and then come back she says. "I think that goes with the spirit of the neighborhood."

While Richards, a Cobble Hill resident, founded the shop as a resource for those living in the area, Shen Beauty has become a destination for city dwellers. Says the model Jessica Stam, I take trips to Brooklyn just to shop there.

By Stephanie Lacava
New York Times