The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 102

LIFE STYLE COMICS TRENDS r. CTION FRIDAY DECEMBER 14, 1990 Cos Angeles Sfcnes EW HIGHLIGHTS Lover left you? Need a job? A botanica may have the perfect powder or potion. ill ai- Dreams in Bottles IF Ajfl By MICHAEL QUINTANILLA TIMES STAFF WRITER The young woman leaning over the glass countertop at Botanica Cristo Rey in East Los Angeles is distraught. With her baby at her feet, she explains that her philandering husband finds her unattractive. He hits her when she confronts him about his cheating and she is in desperate need of a remedy for her deteriorating marriage.

"This is war," shop owner Juanita Alvarez whispers as she beckons the customer to come closer. There is a store full of ammunition to consider. Will it be the Separar candle, reputed to have the power to put the kibosh on the extramarital affair? Or Destruir Todo a body lotion that, if used by the husband, is supposed to repel the other woman? Or Ven Ami to a liquid bath soap and aphrodisiac that doubles as a floor wash? "Whatever you decide," Alvarez cautions in Spanish, "remember, first God. Always with God. Always." The customer buys the breakup candle on which she will write her husband's name.

If it is burned for five consecutive days, Alvarez says, the cheating husband will cheat no more. Then Alvarez adds an extra bit of free advice: "If this doesn't work, then do what I tell every woman with man problems: Grab a hammer and bust his lips." For 20 years Latinos have been coming to Alvarez's botanica, one of the several hundred believed to be in business in Los Angeles County. These spiritual pharmacies are crammed with candles, herbs, amulets, necklaces, charms, feathers, oils, powders, lotions, soaps, sprays, incense and statues of saints that are said to bring good luck, success and money to believers, as well as cure everything from earaches to broken hearts. The products sold at botanicas are linked to a variety of Latino religious, folkloric and medicinal traditions that range from praying to a statue of Santa Barbara for protection against earthquakes to drinking a cup of steeped zaragatona (psyllium) seeds for relief from indigestion. Some health-care professionals caution that the purveyors of such products exploit Latinos especially newly arrived immigrants by selling products that produce nothing more than pleasant aromas.

And they warn that herbal remedies are no substitute for modern medicine. But many doctors, nurses and psychotherapists who work in the Latino community contend these productsand the rituals associated with them fill psychological and physiological needs that, because of language and cultural barriers, go unmet. In many cases, health-care experts say that newly arrived Spanish-speaking immigrants don't know Please see HERBS, E10 HOME REMEDIES: Products sold at botanicas, sometimes called spiritual pharmacies, are linked to a variety of Latino religious, folkloric and medicinal traditions. While some health-care professionals criticize them, others say the productsand rituals associated with them fill unmet psychological and physiological needs. El CHANGING FACES: Fashion photographers and designers are turning to exotic looks, even plucking non-models some with large noses and crooked teeth off the streets.

Also in favor are ethnic models. El TACTICAL CHANGE: Political analyst Sidney Blumenthal blasts George Bush and Michael Dukakis for clinging to irrelevant issues like national security in their presidential campaigns. The public, he says, wanted them to focus on a post-Cold War world. E6 BOOK REVIEW: John Mortimer's "Rumpole a la Carte" is a set of winsome stories about the disheveled, underemployed barrister. Reviewed by Elaine Kendall.

E22 SANTA'S HELPERS: To help meet the demand for creative talent in the toy industry, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York has added a new degree program in toy design. E26 REACHING YOUTH: Over 22 years, the Challengers Club has earned a reputation for keeping South -Central youths out of trouble through education, recreation and family support services. E28 NEWSMAKERS Write or Even though sex and drug charges against gonzo jour-nalist Hunter Thompson were dropped earlier this year in Aspen, there remain those who love him and those who Thompson fear and loathe him. Says Sheriff Robert Braudis: "I just hope this place doesn't become so uptight that he feels he has to move away." But newsman Bill Dunaway says: "People take him with a large grain of salt." Four in One: One of Buckingham Palace's art galleries was transformed Wednesday into a ballroom when Queen Elizabeth II invited 800 guests to celebrate four royal birthdays. The ball marked the 90th birthday of the Queen Mother on Aug.

4, the 60th birthday of the queen's sister, Princess Margaret, on Aug. 21, the 40th birthday of the queen's daughter, Princess Anne, on Aug. 15, and the 30th birthday of the queen's second son, Prince Andrew, on Feb. 19. Of Note: Two handwritten letters between Sig- mund Freud and Albert Einstein discussing the nature of war sold for $165,000 at an auc tion by Sotheby's in New York.

Einstein's four-page Freud letter of July 28, 1932, asks: "Is there a way to liberate man from the doom of war?" Freud's reply concludes: "There is no prospect of getting rid of this aggressive instinct." Prison Papers: Convicted Watergate figure Charles Colson is making news again literally. He edits Inside Journal, a newspaper for prisoners in six states, which debuted Wednesday. Colson himself spent seven months in prison. Besides entertainment and politics, Colson will stop the presses for late-breaking sports. -Compiled by YEMI TOURE INDEX "Most people are looking for love and money or how to solve love and money problems," says Gil Gonzalez, above middle, who handles botanica sales of candles and charms.

Soaps, especially those promising to bring money, top, are big sellers at botanicas. Sachets of powders, above, promise to attract or repel love, lovers, friendship and good luck. Alven Cervilla, right, measures herbs for a customer at Hierbas de Mexico. Photos by ROSEMARY KAUL Los Angeles Times FASHION The New Models Unconventional Looks Are in Vogue on the Runway and in Photo Layouts I character actors than fashion models. Many maintain the trend was created by Paris-based Japanese designer Issey Miyake.

"Miyake really started it 10 years ago when he showed his collection in Japan using older Japanese people who weren't necessarily models, recalls Larry Chrysler, a California retailer and manufacturer for 34 years and an independent fashion consultant for the last four. "Now it's fairly common for designers to choose models they feel consumers can identify with. They are no longer confined to using billboard-type faces." Fashion photographers have encouraged the trend, as they exercise Please see MODELS, E16 business. But today, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the good, the bad, and the unconventional can walk designer runways and grace the pages of magazines such as Vogue, Elle and Mademoiselle. The trend has been intensifying since 1985, when pudgy, bespectacledeven balding models turned up in shows of top-notch European designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris and Franco Moschino in Milan.

About the same time, magazines such as Details and L.A. Style started opting for more extreme fashion pictorials, with models who looked more like real people. Then came a spate of fashion ad campaigns from Benetton, Esprit and The Gap, using people who looked more like By WILLIAM KISSEL SPECIAL TO THE TIMES Picture a fashion layout with these models: Sebastian is tall, black, and looks androgynous. Yvette is a Latina with a distinctive nose. Evan has a crew cut, and tattoos cover half his body.

These are three of the many unconventional faces that have come out of California model agencies in the last several years. Such young talents are in high demand and can earn up to $100,000 per year for looking different than the standard fashion model. Obviously, the modeling industry is in the midst of a transformation. Beauty is still the heart of the Abby E4 Ann Landers E25 Astrology E21 Comics E20, E21 Doonesbury E25 Dr. Joyce Brot.hnrs E25 Mexican-Filipina model Lisa Ann, above, and Frank Sanchez, right, as photographed by Carlos Reyno-sa, are examples of the new look in fashion..