When she began modeling more than 20 years ago, Trinette Faint resolved to someday open a store with beauty products and other notions for women of all backgrounds, skin tones, and hair types.  Faint knew what it was like to have to improvise because the right foundation or hair product wasn’t available.

“I had this idea that wouldn’t it be great if there was a store where obviously black women — but all women — could get anything they needed, from hair and makeup to nylons and Band-Aids that are the right shade,’’ says Faint, 38, a native of Joliet, Ill., who lives now in Medford. “There are tons of little things that can make your life so much easier, and make you feel like someone really thought of what was missing out there that could benefit you.’’

In December, Faint, whose resume includes three years as Matt Damon’s personal assistant, launched Love Hue (www.lovehue.com), an online boutique that helps fill the niche she identified long ago. The site includes makeup and skin care and hair care brands for women of all shades and hair types. Brands include Zhen Beauty (cosmetics and skin-care products designed for Asian women); Curls (a hair care collection originally developed for biracial and multiracial women); Nvey Eco and other organic lines; and non-organic selections from names like Julie Hewett, whom Faint befriended on the set of “Ocean’s Eleven.’’ Many of the products cost between $10 and $25, and none is more than $42.

• coats the hair making it appear shiny
• conditions and moisturizes the scalp
• darkens and strengthens the hair

Have you ever read the ingredients to your favorite beauty products only to discover the word “urea” on the label?  If so, you’re probably wondering why that word sounds so familiar…then it hits you; urea sounds like urine!  As gross as it sounds the majority of your favorite products do contain urea, but before you throw them away in disgust, you should keep reading.

 Urea, also known as carbamide, is an organic compound that is essentially a waste product of digested protein that gets filtered through the kidneys and is expelled from the body through urine.  However, the urea that is often found in cosmetics is made from synthetic ammonia and carbon dioxide.

 Initially, urea was discovered by the French chemist Hillaire Rouelle in 1773.  Just 55 years later it became the first organic compound to be created synthetically.

 So why is it used in beauty products?  Urea slows down the loss of moisture from a product; when used in skin care products it increases the water content of the top layers of the skin.  Urea also minimizes the change in the acid/base balance of a product when other ingredients are added to that product.

 One important factor of urea is that it acts as a preservative; it helps to control the growth of bacteria and other microorganisms.  Without urea, our beauty products wouldn’t last nearly as long as they do once they are opened.  

If no one responds to your call, go forward alone.

If no one talks to you, oh luckless one,

If everyone turns away from you in fear,

Reveal your thoughts and express your ideas to yourself.

If everyone leaves you while you are travelling a dangerous road,

If no one wants to look after you,

Walk on alone, on the road strewn with thorns, trampling on them with bleeding feet.

If no one shows a light, if in the dark stormy night everyone shuts their doors,

Use your rib as a torch, lit from the fire of thunder.