You might think it would be easy to describe big cities in beauty terms. London is the home of punk and bright colours. Paris is red lipstick. New York is the perfect blow-dry and immovable foreheads. But lately, beauty brands have become a lot more specific. If Moscow were a fragrance, for instance, what would it be? Well, according to Guerlain, it’s a blend of plum, white musk, tonka beans, absinthe and pine needles. The house has also done an oflactory distillation of New York (a woody oriental) and Tokyo (a green floral) as part of its new Les Parfums Exclusifs collection (£130 for 245ml, from Harrods).

Susan Posnick is city-hopping, too. With her new range of Coloressential lipsticks, she dashes between NYC, Dallas, South Beach, Milan and, er, Dubai . She has a colour for each city — New York is berry-like, South Beach prettily pink, and so on. The best thing about these lippies is that they should work on any complexion, so if you like the shade, you can swipe it on without worrying (£18; 020 8997 8541).

Then there is Chanel’s Tokyo Happening collection, It was created for the brand’s first ever stand-alone fragrance and beauty store, which opened in the Japanese capital in April. The people at Chanel are no fools, though. They know we all love a limited edition, so the pastel-coloured lip glosses, nail colours and highlight powders are briefly available in London (from £18, from Selfridges). Also bowing to oriental influence is Poppy King, of Lipstick Queen, with her bright red lip pencil, Chinatown (£19, from spacenk.com). There’s an element of Faye Dunaway about the shade, referencing the 1974 film, but it is also inspired, says King, by “the exuberant relationship the Chinese have with colour, red in particular, which is considered lucky”.

Each product becomes an adventure of its own. Sure, it has a lot to do with marketing. But it’s also about building dreams and creating images of our ideal, global-hopping, glamorous selves — and, right or wrong, isn’t that what so much of our beauty life is about?

PULSE POINTS

Pots of charm

The aromatherapist Andrea Garland not only creates her own hand-made range of natural balms — for lip, face and body — but goes one step better; she houses them in vintage compacts, tins and pillboxes. Serious beauty elegance.

Balms in vintage tins, from £15; refills, from £5; andreagarland.co.uk

Hello tokyo

It’s a beauty classic, but now it’s a miniature work of art, too. Shu Uemura has packaged its inimitable cleansing oil in bottles adorned with artwork by Moyoco Anno, the Japanese manga artist (that’s cartoons to you and me). They’re colourful, desirable — and limited.

£52; 020 7235 2375

THE PROFESSIONALS

I am looking for skincare products and make-up for sensitive skin that aren’t tested on animals. I have bought the Beauty Without Cruelty range online before, but is there something available in stores?

Alison, by e-mail

Encouragingly, an increasing number of make-up brands are making a stand against animal testing. The Balm (from Harvey Nichols) — a great new make-up brand, which comes in adorable retro packaging — is gentle enough for sensitive skin, and a percentage of the profits are donated to the dog charity Pug Rescue. Alternatively, the Greek brand Korres (020 7581 6455) is cruelty-free and its natural ingredients soothe irritable skin.

Send your beauty dilemmas to thebeholder@sunday-times.co.uk

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