Rise. Fall. Repeat.

Girl's Best Friend: Tattoos are as much Oribe's trademark as the big hair he loves. He largely credits Jennifer Lopez with his comeback. Above, Ms. Lopez's husband, Marc Anthony, captured Oribe and Ms. Lopez in a moment of contemplation.

AS Oribe Canales tells it, the high point of his career as a celebrity hairdresser and his fall from grace very nearly were one and the same. The year was 1993, the scene backstage before a fashion show in New York by Manolo, a Cuban-born designer with an avid cult. Grand enough himself to go by his first name only, Oribe (pronounced OR-bay) was seized by a burst of cocaine-fired inspiration. He scooped up a fistful of his special pomade, a hair cream thickly embedded with pearls, and darted toward the models.

"I just wanted to touch their faces like this," he recalled with the sweep of a palm across his cheek. "The makeup was going to be genius."

The regular makeup artist stalked away. "I was feeling crazy, but it was good crazy," Oribe said. "The models were running away from me. They were scattering in all directions." Like a mad Pygmalion, he lurched after them, smearing their faces with gobs of paste.

When the show was over, Polly Mellen, a famously effusive editor at Allure, rushed backstage demanding, "Who did the makeup?" Oribe stepped up. "The moment was fabulous," he recalled, then added flatly, "Afterward I checked into rehab."

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New Gucci Look

THE fashion world, at least those willing to venture out in the heat, got its first look on Tuesday at Frida Giannini's new women's collection for Gucci. She was showing resort clothes, at the Gagosian Gallery on West 24th Street, which had been outfitted with a polished wood floor and white deck cushions to help transport editors and buyers to a yacht off the Amalfi coast. The breeze was supplied by the air-conditioning system.

...Ms. Giannini will present a complete spring collection in September, but Tuesday's show gave a clue that she favors day clothes with a tailored sportiness: crisp white miniskirts and gold-buttoned jackets, silk shirts in archive-inspired prints with jeans, and bikinis with an up-to-date play on Gucci motifs like the horse bit and striped canvas webbing. The number of casual separates was a plus. For evening she proposed caftanlike dresses in hippie-deluxe patterns, which she generally showed with flat sandals.

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How Much to Tip at a Salon?

The relationships you form in a salon can be the most intimate in your life. Who else but your hairdresser can examine your gray or damaged hair with such practical indifference? As for your bikini waxer, she may not be your friend, but she is your ... bikini waxer. It doesn't get much closer than that. If you're not sure how much to tip these essential people in your lives, you're not alone. We asked Tahnee Seiler, student services coach at the Aveda Institute, and Elie Camoro, a top stylist at Frederic Fekkai, to tell us the right way to tip. They also share some customers' faux pas.

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Beauty's clean-up crew

FIRST there was the nude makeup craze that has stayed on to become a beauty staple. Now comes another trend so basic that it is surprising no one didn't think of it before. The trend is smelling fresh. People simply want to smell clean and both sexes are addicted to it!

Think soap and water, fresh laundry and fabric softener-a whole new meaning to being sexy. Here are some locally available products to make your senses tingle.

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Fashion fore-ward

Comfort, style get in the game

Golf may have a reputation as a male-dominated game, but with scores of women taking a swing at the sport, fashion companies are now offering clothes that are anything but boyish.

Forget the traditional khaki pants and polo look favored by many men. Big-name designers such as Liz Claiborne, Izod, Lilly Pulitzer, Escada and Ralph Lauren, along with labels like Tehama, Clint Eastwood's Colorado-based golf line, extend stylish options for women.

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