When I’m not moonlighting as a hoarder of beauty products, I work editing a fashion and arts magazine, which means that I sometimes get to spend time touching obscenely beautiful jewelry. Belmacz is one of my favorites—a London-based gallery curated by artist and jewelry designer Julia Muggenburg, they use some of the most ridiculously special materials (rutilated quartz/ancient Baltic amber/hawk’s eye) to create things that make me wish I was the kind of grown-up with a stacked jewelry box.

The shop and gallery space sits in a Regency townhouse just opposite Claridge’s hotel and hosts rotating exhibitions—currently Danish artist Morten Skrøder Lund. For those who want to wear their precious materials on their face as well as around their hands and neck, Belmacz also has their own beauty line. Inspired by artist pigments, gold-and-gem-flecked products are stored in antique artifacts around the store. Greta Garbo’s jewelry box is used to hold makeup brushes and hand-made eiderdown puffs for powder application.

The Oyster Pearl Powder has been leaving my skin looking radiant rather than clammy and their multi-purpose Halo Balm (blended with crushed pearls, Vitamin E, and rosehip oil) on my lids leaves an angelic glossy finish. I’m also besotted with their gloriously sticky gold-leaf lip gloss range, which comes in seven colors and looks like syrup in the Perspex casing but applies with a buttery, shimmering texture. Infrared is my favorite—it wears like a subtle stain and is apparently inspired by the way in which Renaissance painters mixed crushed minerals with oils to create more sumptuous color palettes. They also have metallic eyeshadows, with shades that reference Greta Garbo (a rich black/violet, Midnight) and David Bowie (coppery Stardust) that can either be layered for a denser color or just smeared across your lids for an iridescent glow. “Glow' is the definitive word for Belmacz Beauty, and I’ll take smearing my body in bits of gold leaf as a happy alternative to wearing one of their more condensed gold pieces on my finger.

—Olivia J. Singer

Photos by Olivia J. Singer. Belmacz is now available at Catbird.