There are not too many items more basic, boring and blah than a tube of toothpaste. But squeeze an inch of Marvis dentifricio on the scraggliest toothbrush and you’re a class act. A cosmopolite. One very cool customer.
Granted, $10 for toothpaste is extravagant, even if it’s made in Italy. It’s almost as crazy as a $4 cup of coffee. But it lasts so much longer than-speaking of Italian pretension-a vente latte from Starbucks.
In fact, here’s a purchase that will actually rid you of that coffee breath and let in the luxe at the same time.
Marvis packaging is a marvel: stylishly old fashioned, a crimped metal tube embellished with a portrait of a nobleman in a powdered wig. All that topped by a colorful six-sided, sculpted top. Take that, globby Colgate.
Leave your elegant tube in plain view and instantly crank up the status level of the area around your bathroom sink. No small accomplishment, that.
Besides being popular with Hollywood stars, fashion designers and such, this is quite possibly the single cheapest thing you can buy at Barneys on Oak Street. And with it comes the privilege of striding, haughtily if you choose, past the store’s doorman, your purchase secure in a chic matte black Barneys mini-shopping bag.
That’s a worldy new you, dangling your Barneys bag, doing a little window shopping at Prada and Hermes just down the block, no one the wiser that you’re a mere wage slave like those unfortunates who buy their oral hygiene products at Walgreens.
All that from such a small cash outlay, and still there’s something more: Say you’ve selected the flavor shown in the photo here (there are four others, if you prefer). The Web site (www.marvismint.com) says that with Aquatic Mint you are sure to savor “a touch of marine freshness, a delicate hint of mint: the perfect combination to feel the caress of the ocean breeze.”
If you can buy the caress of an ocean breeze anywhere in the Chicago area for less than $10, I want to know about it.
– – –
– The world’s oldest-known toothpaste recipe dates from the 4th Century: a crushed mixture of rock salt, mint, dried iris flower and pepper. Later recipes included ingredients such as crushed eggshells, pumice and the burnt hooves of animals.
Source: The Telegraph Group Limited
———-
Read Ellen’s shopping adviser column every Thursday in the Tribune’s At Play section and join the conversation at chicagotribune.com/ellen. shopellen@tribune.com
