Cleansing milk by Comfort Zone features shea butter and buriti oil with the consistency of very thick cream. Available at bluegiraffespa.com.

In the breathless, never-satiated world of beauty, every season brings new enthusiasms. Here are some must-haves for autumn that fall squarely into the category of More Than Just a Passing Fancy. Without intending to limit myself to one continent, I ended up choosing nothing but European imports that struck me as distinctive, most of which have only recently become available here.

Ellis Faas’ eye lights

In the late 1990s, the fashion photographer Mario Testino went to Amsterdam for a shoot and ended up discovering a local makeup artist, Ellis Faas. She has since worked her magic on covers for Italian Vogue and many a magazine spread. But it was only earlier this year that her color cosmetics line, which is sold online and throughout Europe and Australia, reached stores in New York. Her makeup line comes mostly in liquid formulations for eyes, cheeks, lips or eyelashes, for example. The pen-shaped applicators, which you twist to release color, can be housed in a silver carrying case ($35).

For fall, Faas is coming out with Eye Lights, highlighters in silver, purple, bronze, green and a hue she calls “holographic Bordeaux.” At $42 each, they glisten in the right light, but aren’t gaudy. Application should be swift, because they dry quickly, and have staying power. One way to use an Eye Light color judiciously is to apply a dot of it to the middle of the lid that’s already awash in a subtle eye shadow.

Beauty Is Life cosmetics

Earlier this year, it was announced that Shu Uemura Cosmetics (whose eyelash curler is a thing of legend) was pulling out of Barneys New York and other retail stores in the United States. It left a hole in the heart of makeup aficionados nationwide. Bettina O’Neill, the vice president for cosmetics at Barneys New York, was among those who mourned the loss. “It killed me,” she said in an interview. Shu Uemura is still available online, but that’s no consolation for women who like to scrutinize their makeup before buying.

Despair no more. This month, a German cosmetics brand with a range of more than 400 products is coming exclusively to Barneys. It’s called — a bit awkwardly — Beauty Is Life, after the initials of its creator, Beatrix Isabel Lied, who is a professional makeup artist with a Hamburg academy to teach the next generation.

Last month, at a private preview of most of the extensive collection — which includes 60 lipsticks ($28 each) and 84 eye shadows ($25) — it was hard not to be wowed by the kaleidoscopic hues. Some were after-hours daring; others I could imagine becoming slightly edgy staples to eliminate the workday blahs. O’Neill said the line reminded her of a “more modern, newer Make Up For Ever.”

But rich color-true hues aren’t the only reason to take a closer look at Beauty Is Life. Its brushes — 26 of 40 will be sold in the United States to start — can deliver professional results. With the $50 Wispy brush (No. 1379), loose powder or a shimmery highlighter goes on oh-so-delicately. And the line’s false eyelashes ($21 to $30) are otherworldly, especially a flutter-worthy pair made of tiny feathers.

Milk by Comfort Zone

Most cleansers leave my forever-dry face even drier, but not this one: Cleansing milk from Italy made by Comfort Zone, an eco-friendly spa brand. The $38 cleanser — part of the company’s Sacred Nature collection, which features shea butter and buriti oil (from a palm tree called the moriche) — has the consistency of very thick cream, the type I imagine being left by deliverymen on doorsteps. A dollop goes a long way, so the price isn’t as steep as it would seem. This cleansing milk doesn’t strip away every last remnant of oil, and that’s a good thing. Squeaky-clean is great for counter tops, not skin.

Instead, think of it as your grandmother’s cold cream updated to fall in line with the imperatives of our age: organic (meets Ecocert standards), recyclable packaging and luxurious feel. Come winter, when the heat is on and skin falls to a new low of dryness, try the $45 Sacred Nature mask, which left my skin dewy.

Yet, like a bar that doesn’t have a sign on its door, the website for Comfort Zone doesn’t sell its products, so they can be hard to find. The brand is in 169 spas nationwide, including the one at the Westin New York at Times Square. Otherwise, a day spa called the Blue Giraffe in Ashland, Ore., sells it at store.blue giraffespa.com.

Absolue Pour le Soir fragrance

At age 25, Francis Kurkdjian won accolades for his first perfume, Le Male, created for Jean Paul Gaultier and housed in a blue bottle shaped like a torso. By 30, he had won a lifetime achievement award for perfumers. Now 41, Kurkdjian has created dozens of scents, among them, Armani Mania and Narciso Rodriguez for Him (and for Her).

At first, it’s hard to pinpoint just what makes his new perfume Absolue Pour le Soir so unconventional. No doubt its complexity is alluring; there’s a Scotch whisky note on top, a hint of leather, a hard smokiness and something … indescribably raunchy. Clueless, I called a lifeline, the master perfumer himself. “Cumin,” Kurkdjian said, explaining that it’s not often used by perfumers because “if you use it out of context, it can smell like sweat.” Potentially disastrous.

Yet in his hands, it’s subtly erotic, which is exactly what he intended. “Naughty, sexual and very sensual,” is how he described Absolue Pour le Soir ($175).

The perfumer scolded me when I asked whether his fragrance was meant to be unisex. He prefers the term “genderless.”

Why?

He replied, somewhat alarmed at the prospect, “Unisex means there’s no sex.”