Shopping & Services

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• Shopping & Services
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• Best Gifts for Your Garden

  Rolling Greens

  Rolling Greens is for things for your garden you can’t find at Home Depot — exotic plants and cacti, containers, statuary and other garden nonsense in four broad levels, sprawling down a hillside in the outer wilds of Culver City. I went there looking for some Mexican feather grass, that landscaping cliché that has become the staple of every new… More >>

• Best Literary Stew (1975)

  Book Soup

  One of the last large independent bookstores in Southern California, Book Soup, which bills itself as the “Bookseller to the Great and Infamous,” survived the death of longtime owner Glenn Goldman in 2009, as well as the competition from Internet shopping and the huge chain bookstores and their discounted wares. In fact, according to Book Soup staff, the West Hollywood… More >>

• Best Backyard Inspirations

  Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery

  The Japanese garden district on Sawtelle Boulevard in West Los Angeles features three nurseries side by side, companion planted, as it were, for mutual benefit. Of them, Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery is the most artistic. As the name implies, bonsai is their specialty. But someone here has a keen eye for plant arrangements of all types — for the way in… More >>

• Best Glamourpuss Posh Hotel (1939)

  Hotel Shangri-La

  With its $30 million redesign completed last year, the Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica is the epitome of L.A. glamour — something that’s hard to define until you’re practically immersed in it. Built in 1939, the Shangri-La, with a glorious Art Deco design and superb beachfront location, has always seemed special, and it’s only gotten better with the renovation. Remaining… More >>

• Best Tasteful Comic Book Geekitorium

  Secret Headquarters

  Secret Headquarters in Silver Lake is not the oldest, or the biggest, or the cheapest comic book store in Los Angeles, but it is the most beautiful. The impeccable nerd’s version of a man cave, this place is outfitted like a private library, with dark wood shelves, creaky wood floors, a ta , manga — then delve deep into one… More >>

• Best Happy Diggers and Do-Gooders

  The Joyful Activist

  Founded and run by 2001 L.A. mayoral candidate Francis DellaVecchia, The Joyful Activist inspires and facilitates real-deal grassroots change, while sprinkling the eleventh-hour revolution in ridiculous amounts of fun. DellaVecchia and volunteers promote local, sustainable, eco-awesome groups, events and activities, while teaming up with sustainable and environmentally friendly outfits (including Venice Whole Foods and the Westside Permaculture Guild) to organize… More >>

• Best Walking-Vagina Costumes and Other Halloween Must-Haves

  Francisco’s Halloween Shop

  Forget dried-up, yellowed Christmas trees on the sidewalk. There’s no sadder sight than a pumpkin in the Dumpster and empty Tootsie Roll wrappers in your trick-or-treat bag. The fun of shopping for Halloween, however, doesn’t have to end in November. After the seasonal pop-up shops have packed up and left, there are several Halloween stores open all year for your… More >>

• Best Socially Responsible Cell Phone Recycling

  1 Earth Recycle

  Angelenos are quick to slam the noxious mess caused by our friends at BP, but you’ll have to pry our cell phones from our cold, dead hands. Yet, these sleek, chic gadgets leach arsenic and other nasty chemicals into the earth and get ugly when incinerated. Enter 1 Earth Recycle and its nifty cardboard collection bins staked out at the… More >>

• Best Place to Meet a Cute Nerd

  Stories

  Echo Park’s Stories is the sexy little sister of the other indie bookstores in town. Selling primarily used fare, it’s located on the X-marks-the-spot hipster hub of the “Eastside” [Editor’s note: Yes, we’re fully aware we’re not using “Eastside” in the historical sense]. Ratty, tatty ’90s dresses swing on the slender hips of girls born in the ’90s as they… More >>

• Best Skin-care Products You Want to Eat

  Fresh

  To walk into a Fresh skin-care store is to step into the land of milk and honey. Literally. To take but a single whiff of their Nectarine Milk soap is to bid a fond farewell to $13 plus tax. They make a sake bath wash so delectable you want to drink it. (Don’t, even if it is 50 percent sake.)… More >>

• Best Li’L Artisans Market

  Local Artisans Bazaar

  Once a month, about a dozen local craftsmen set up shop next to a spot where locals get their Fix... Coffee, that is. On the last Sunday of each month, from 2 to 7 p.m., FIX Coffee Co. opens its outdoor space to DIY vendors who sell unique, handmade goods at the aptly named Local Artisans Bazaar. Freelance designer Veronica… More >>

• Best Hand Prop Room

  Hand Prop Room

  How can you go wrong with a place called the Hand Prop Room? Even if you’re that rare individual who doesn’t need a hand prop every now and then, this 30,000-square-foot warehouse and rental facility in Venice delivers on all the items you could possibly hold ... in your hands The Hand Prop Room has helped stage films such as… More >>

• Best Excuse to Watch Italian Game Shows

  Italiarama at Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles

  The Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles offers all levels of instruction in Italian language, cooking and culture — from Italian for travelers to singing lessons, to a lecture on the Watts Towers (designed by Italian immigrant Sabato Rodia) followed by an Italian lunch — but the gem of their fall schedule is Italiarama. This 10-week course is designed to… More >>

• Best Ink for Celebrity Skin

  Mark Mahoney

  Shamrock Social Club’s motto has always been “Where the elite and the underworld meet,” referencing the tattoo shop’s popularity with both the rich and famous and the rough and raucous. But there’s a reason the likes of Johnny Depp, Angelina and Brad, and one-word starlets like Britney and Lindsay choose Shamrock to get inked. Two words: Mark Mahoney. Reality TV… More >>

• Best One-Stop, Head-Scratching Shopping

  Echo Park Time Travel Mart

  Out of barbarian repellent again? Pick some up at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, Los Angeles’ very own convenience store lost in time. The EPTTM is also the retail component of Pulitzer Prize–winning author Dave Eggers’ nonprofit writing and tutoring center, 826LA. Like the rest of Eggers’ work, it is whimsical and clever and funny, but with surprising depth.… More >>

• Best Excuse to Buy Crime and Punishment

  Book Cellar

  We discovered this nonprofit charity that helps out prisoners, the Book Cellar, a few years ago, and it has a lot to offer — including top-notch used books and a beautiful Saturday half-day escape from the Los Angeles grime. (To get there, drive up Pacific Coast Highway and out Kanan Dume Road to the frontage road just before the 101, or… More >>

• Best ’50s and ‘60s Rediscovered Furniture

  Sunset Bazaar

  Warmly lit like a sleek living room from a swank 1950s pad in the Hollywood Hills, Sunset Bazaar vintage furniture in Echo Park specializes in beautiful woods and 1950s through ’70s furniture crafted from strong, beautiful woods. The place is stuffed with period lamps, chandeliers, art and décor. Original art on the walls includes oils, acrylics and some watercolors, ranging… More >>

• Best Frozen Water

  Neve ice cubes

  Those cloudy crescents your freezer spits out? Please. Priced somewhere between Häagen-Dazs and cocaine, Névé ice cubes have been all the rage at finer bars around town in recent years and are available for retail at four wine shops locally. Made from pure water, frozen for at least 48 hours and said to resist melting much longer than normal ice,… More >>

• Best Decent Tailor

  Sewing With Love

  It is so damn hard to find a decent tailor in L.A, which is ridiculous since the city is filled with immigrants, some of whom brought the maddening, finger-wrecking craft with them. But they seem to lose the art when they get here, adopting sloppy American tailoring tricks. Having tried and rejected ritzy and cheapo tailors over a broad cross-section… More >>

• OCEANS OF POTIONS

  Le Pink & Co. Beauty Apothecary

  The word apothecary stirs memories of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as the place where Romeo buys his fateful elixir. With its vintage striped awning, shabby-chic decor and delicate pink storefront lettering, Le Pink & Co. Beauty Apothecary is more Juliet’s speed. The nostalgic Silver Lake shop caters to those who cringe at the thought of shopping at Rite–Aid and prefer… More >>

• Who the Hell Still Watches Movies on VHS?

  Counterpoint Books

  Counterpoint Books is a cool and quirky used bookstore and record shop that has been around for 30 years on the Franklin Avenue strip in Hollywood. It offers a great selection of used books, CDs, DVDs, out-of-print VHS movies and a large choice of ’60s and ’70s vinyl records including jazz, punk and classic rock, and it’s all painstakingly kept… More >>

• Best Dirt-Cheap Shopping on a High-end Strip

  Heavenly Couture

  Moments after you walk into Heavenly Couture, a young clerk will ask, “Do you know how our pricing works?” Yes and no: I know that everything in the store costs $15 or less, but I don’t know how or why it “works” for them to sell their teen- and yoga-mom-friendly knockoffs that cheaply, and frankly, I don’t want to know.… More >>

• The Dottir Will Sew You Now

  Stella Dottir - CLOSED

  Stella Dottir could easily be mistaken for a Gothic fashion store or psychic business. A musty, musky smell greets you as you enter its dimly lit, boudoir-meets-Barbadian-beach-hut interior. Its Icelandic owner and in-house designer, after whom the boutique is named, is all downtown voodoo cool, with her metal cuff-bound dreadlocks and life story that spans continents, delivered in hushed tones.… More >>

• Design Locally, Wear Fabulously

  Echo Park Independent Co-op

  For too long L.A.’s fashion reputation has been limited to that of being the land of Ed Hardy and American Apparel. Determined to prove otherwise, stylist Tristan Scott and eco-fashion specialist Rhianon Jones decided to set up shop stocking the city’s most daring independent designers. Barely into its seventh month, the Echo Park Independent Co-op has already chalked up a… More >>

• Best Haute Deals

  Runway Outlet

  We’re always down for a little bargain shopping, but occasionally even our favorite second-hand store feels picked over. When all you can find at the thrift store is garb for next season’s ugly sweater party, we recommend heading to the Runway Outlet in Silver Lake for your discount fashion fix. The Runway Outlet specializes in samples from local fashion designers… More >>

• Best Do-Gooder Society in Need of New Blood

  Ebell of Los Angeles

  Angelenos seem to be embracing all sorts of old-fashioned things these days: knitting, pickling, making jam, absinthe cocktails. Why not return to a time when women gathered in the name of culture and public service? Since the 1890s, the Ebell of Los Angeles has brought together women who want to, as its mission statement says, “participate in and encourage the… More >>

• Best Place to Buy a Wooden Duck Once Owned by Jean-Michel Basquiat

  LeadApron

  LeadApron is not your common-or-garden bookstore/art gallery. Venture inside the tucked-away Melrose Place storefront and you’re likely to find objects you never knew your heart desired until now. Like a first-run edition of Pass the Bitch Chicken, by Harmony Korine and the painter Christopher Wool ($250). Or No. 102 of the 172 copies of Jason Rhoades’ 1724 Birth of the… More >>

• Best Dream Maker (1939)

  Rainbo Records

  Your scroungy little indie band just recorded some stellar tunes, and you want the world to hear them ASAP. But you don’t have the business chops to figure out the whole manufacturing thing. Head for Rainbo Records. Hands down, this is the go-to place for pros and wannabes alike, because these dudes have a longtime rep for knowing what they’re… More >>

• Best Fabric of Your Life

  Fabric Planet

  Jordan Shipman opened Fabric Planet superstore on the Westside in February. It’s a spin-off of a store his father, Jacob Saparazadeh, opened downtown eight years ago. The goal of Fabric Planet is to bring downtown pricing to the Westside, and the owners have expanded to include eight sewing machines for rent in a back room, where custom work is done.… More >>

• Best Green Hair

  Richard Saulino

  Fie on foil-wrapped highlights. Why not just blowtorch your head? It’s a high price to pay for sun-kissed locks that eventually end up making you look like a scarecrow. Well, fry no more. Richard Saulino, working at Fred Segal Santa Monica, is the first — and currently only — stylist on the West Coast to do a new, eco-friendly highlighting… More >>

• Best Vintage Shopping-as-Blood Sport

  Jet Rag $1 Sale

  The Jet Rag $1 Sale has been happening every Sunday for years, since back in the days when the Melrose-adjacent vintage superstore was located across the street on La Brea. In recent years, there have been improvements — soft drinks and water for sale, tents to block out the blazing sun — but the basic concept has remained the same:… More >>

• Best Place to Really, Really “Get” the Meaning of Art

  99 High Art Collective

  L.A.’s a stoner town. Dispensaries — with their ubiquitous green crosses, and red-eyed loyalists darting in and out to fill their “prescriptions” — dot the cityscape, making it ever easier for Angelenos to light their collective fire (upon the hand-scribbled authority of a medical professional, of course). Infinitely more than just a neighborhood pot club, 99 High Art Collective doubles… More >>

• Best Furniture Lifters

  Revival Furniture

  Revival Furniture takes cast-off furniture and transforms it into creatively reimagined pieces that redefine modernity and sustainability. The store is located steps from L.A.’s thrift-store mecca, St. Vincent de Paul’s, but contrary to urban legend, the sisters who own Revival Furniture don’t simply stroll across the street for raw material. “That’s cheating,” says Marion Weimer, who works with her sister… More >>

• Best Place to Buy a Bikini That Stays on When You Bail Your Board

  Canyon Beachware

  Canyon Beachware is no secret as a bikini destination, but it’s one of the most knowledgeable shops for women who really want a bikini that fits. Launched in the 1970s, it’s a closet-size space in Santa Monica Canyon where, next to the cash register, stood Patricia Egan — whose daughter, Kathleen Mudd, began working in the store when she was… More >>

• Best Bad-Ass Frocks

  Skingraft

  What do you get when you cross Amelia Earhart, Joan of Arc, the entire Victorian era, the dark end of the color spectrum, the apocalyptic future, and Dracula? You get the emerging Los Angeles design house Skingraft. The name comes from when principal designer Jonny Cota, now 27, used to remake scraps of vintage leather into coats and pants and… More >>

• Best Stogies (1979)

  Leon Cigar

  There are plenty of cigar shops around L.A., some very good, but not many like Leon Cigar. It’s old-school, unpretentious bordering on rustic, and does only a few things very well. Founded in a narrow Koreatown storefront in 1979 by Gilberto Leon, who rolled cigars for a total of 73 years in Cuba and the U.S., Leon Cigar features a… More >>

• Best Bookstore in All of Atwater

  Alias Books

  Used bookstore Alias Books opened May 1, which is a bold move for anyone in an era where bookstores are closing regularly. Alias Books is a small shop in a mid-1960s storefront — and a sister store to Alias Books on the Westside — that carefully curates books on film, photography, art, literature and philosophy. It has no website, just… More >>

• Best Place For Japanese Toys and Video Games

  Sugoi Life

  Sugoi Life is part Japanese pop-culture emporium, part arcade. You might come here looking for a Ghost in the Shell collectible, but you’ll probably end up messing around in the photo booths, trying to win a Neon Genesis Evangelion action figure with the UFO Catcher, and challenging friends to a game of Dance Dance Revolution. The shop has a nice… More >>

• Best Scalp Massage

  Linda Kammins

  Linda Kammins opened her aromatherapy hair salon in West Hollywood in 1987. That it’s still there, holding down the old-school, natural hair-care game in a town of ruthless and expedited impermanence, is an astonishing anomaly, a great, grand triumph, and a testament to Kammins’ follicular mastery. Rooted in the understanding that hair is a living consciousness unto itself, Kammins created… More >>

• BEST NOSE CANDY

  Spice Station - CLOSED

  Art bookstores, record stores, some clothing stores, wine stores — all these are places where browsing can turn into a sensual experience. The senses engaged are generally the more common four, but Silver Lake’s Spice Station, like a culinary perfume store, adds the fifth dimension. Here you can find couples sharing the aromas that pour out of a curated array… More >>

• Best Adorable You

  Kira Kira

  Purikura, Japanese photo-sticker booths, make everyone look cute. Thanks to the magic of lighting, your skin will look clearer and your figure slimmer. If that isn’t enough incentive, you can decorate the photos with cute characters, speech bubbles and other digital odds and ends. For the best purikura selection, head out to Kira Kira in Rowland Heights. A designated photo… More >>

• Best Hippie-mom Men’s Stylist and Licensed Barber

  Daryl Stutley

  Daryl Stutley at Old Town Hair Company in Calabasas, across from Sagebrush Cantina, has a deft hand and a dedicated customer base of women, but men also love her honest wit and great cuts. She’s a rare female licensed barber, and delivers a very close $30 shave for guys who just gotta have it from time to time. She also… More >>

• Best Persian Market and Produce

  Woodland Hills Market

  You can go to Gelson’s and buy the biggest and most beautiful peaches, grapes and strawberries, and one bite tells you how tasteless produce is because grocers today order for size and color, selling us bland beauty. Woodland Hills Market is doing a booming business — and charging rock-bottom prices — selling funky-looking produce and not-so-huge apples, plums, strawberries and… More >>

• Best Place to Say “Budem Zdorovy!”

  Jons International Marketplace

  Past the frozen blinis and falafel (excellent) is a magic door leading to a mini-wonderland of icy booziness. The vodka selection at Jons International Marketplace (“We shop the world for you”) is like discovering your Uncle Mishka’s secret stash of a dozen varieties of vodka. What other store reserves an entire compartment of its frozen-food space for alcohol? Most are… More >>

• Indie-est Indie Bookstore

  Skylight Books

  You may be feeling apocalyptic about brick-and-mortar bookstores; perhaps your doomy self keeps telling you soon we shall sit quietly in front of our computers in the dark facing the comforting Amazon glow, wondering why we have forsaken the soft touch of the page for the cold, hard, lifeless buzz of a screen. Until that day, we can still flock… More >>

• Best Gift Shop That Doubles as a Time Machine

  Shine Gallery

  Shine Gallery is tchotchke heaven: Thousands of kitschy pop-culture artifacts from the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s everywhere you turn. Toys, carnival prizes, pin-up matchbook covers, skating rink labels, campaign buttons, sports pennants, food packages, circus memorabilia, Stork Club cigarette holders, gag gifts, magic tricks, pop bottles, souvenir postcards from God-knows-where. And that’s just for starters. It’s Americana in all… More >>

• Best Knit-Wits

  Sewing Arts Center

  At the Sewing Arts Center, education is the focus, along with sewing machines and fabric sales, monogramming and sewing and quilting services. Since Russell Conti bought the business a decade ago, the retail side of the Center has diminished. “We still sell a lot of sewing machines, but education is what most people come in for,” Conti says. A large… More >>

• Best Romper Room

  James Price

  With the New York Times proclaiming the comeback of the Elaine Benes look and luxury labels steadily taking a trip down memory lane, there has been no better time for designer James Price to shine. A child of the ’90s, he slashes floral-print vintage dresses into button-cute rompers and acid-washed denims into sassy pencil skirts that his buxom fashion icon,… More >>

• Best DIY Die-Hard

  Angry Girl Merchandise

  “Anything on any shirt” is a hell of a promise to make. When Michelle Hundt founded Angry Girl Merchandise in 2000, she had just finished designing clothing for other people for a decade. Her new enterprise cranked out printed T-shirts, printed patches, sweatshirts, hoodies, shorts and other items of custom-made clothing. Thanks to bands’ word of mouth and Hundt handing… More >>

• Best Betty Draper-y

  Francisco George

  Vintage retailer Francisco George lives for fashion. The owner of a highly successful Laguna Beach boutique in the ’90s, he became addicted to speed, went broke and spent a year living on the streets. Now he devours the pages of Vogue and Elle — he subscribes to both — with passion, while also combing markets and estate sales for vintage… More >>

• Best Liquor For What Ails You (1939)

  Vendome Liquors

  You need a gift for that hard-to-please friend, the one who’s got almost everything. It seems an impossible task, but wait, does this friend have any alky tendencies? Or does he just enjoy fine spirits in moderation? If so, then head over to Vendome Liquors — founded in 1939 — the Home Depot of drinking, the Ikea of alcohol, the… More >>

• Best Community Hub for Transformation and Illumination

  Project Butterfly

  Project Butterfly, birthed, nurtured and guided by local luminaries David Miller and Midori Takata, is a hub of New Paradigm community. Project Butterfly hosts lectures, classes, councils, workshops and film screenings led by visionaries, activists, artists and elders in unwavering service to transformation and our collective awakening. A short list of topics engaged includes breath work, life mastery, tantra, conscious… More >>

• BEST OLD-FASHIONED HEALTH-FOOD MARKET (1970)

  Follow Your Heart

  Glistening health-food emporiums abound these days, showcasing foods and health-related products as if somehow the idea of eating naturally, locally, organically and mindfully never existed before. To add insult to injury (and justify their absurdly high prices), these same establishments sell dead chickens, cows, pigs and their assorted brethren as “healthy” just because during life they ate nothing but processed… More >>

• BEST HAIR-SALON EXPERIENCE FOR MEN

  Rock Paper Salon

  I was at a house party in Los Feliz a couple of years ago, and looking around the living room one could tell the hostess (an up-and-coming art-world photographer whose day job included — true story — procuring “the rose” for TV’s The Bachelor) was a lady of impeccable, stylish-on-a-budget taste. So of course my first question to her was,… More >>

• Best Wax Job

  Queen Bee Waxing

  We know nobody enjoys a bikini wax. We don’t like spending all day anticipating the pain, we don’t like going bottomless in front of a stranger, and we don’t like staring at the ceiling while some heartless sadist rips out the very fibers of our … being. And we certainly don’t like paying an exorbitant amount of money for it.… More >>

• Best Books the Other BookStores Wish They Had

  Mystery Pier Books

  Candy to a kid can’t begin to describe what Mystery Pier Books is to a book lover. It’s a veritable phantasmagoria of treasures rivaled only by the charm and enthusiasm of the owners, father and son Harvey and Louis Jason, who love to show off the first editions, signed shooting scripts and incredible ephemera they have collected during their 12… More >>

• Best Tinseltownabilia (1977)

  Hollywood Book & Poster Company

  The revitalization of Hollywood Boulevard over the past decade — every week there seems to be a new boutique nightclub or hip eatery — has pushed out a lot of longtime tenants, mostly of the nondescript, tchotchke-hawking variety. While there are still a few shops selling little fake Oscar statuettes and personalized nameplates to tourists, a few real treasures of… More >>

• Best Design Firm in a Booty Jeans Store

  Brainbowinc

  Sometimes you really don’t need to go to grad school. At least that’s the case for Jimmy Thompson and Harry McGowan, two artists–cum–designers who met while attending CalArts in Valencia. After graduating in 2004/2005 with their BFAs and working through various art-world and film production jobs, they decided to lend their artist’s sensibilities to creative direction; in 2008 they formed… More >>

• Best Anime Shop

  Jungle Special Collectors Shop

  Little Tokyo’s anime mega-store, Jungle Special Collectors Shop, is split into two downtown locations. Jungle 1st is located on 2nd Street, inside the neighborhood’s main shopping plaza. Here you’ll find collectibles ranging from action figures to large sculpture-like renditions of popular anime characters. Jungle 2nd, on 1st Street, carries a nice selection of manga and anime DVD releases, along with… More >>

• Best Advanced Animal Health care and Acupuncture

  Advanced Veterinary Care Center

  Most animal lovers would do anything for an ailing pet, and so will the cardiologists, oncologists, neurosurgeons and acupuncturists at Lawndale’s Advanced Veterinary Care Center. This regional-services clinic offers expert care to furry patients and compassionate support for the humans who love them. When somebody I know very well took her 16-year-old Persian cat in for an electrocardiogram, the doctor… More >>

• Best Bookstore to Get Lost

  Cliff’s Books

  Pasadena’s Cliff’s Books, despite its labeled sections, is not organized. The folks who run it aren’t friendly — in fact, one might say they are downright cantankerous. Oh, and Cliff’s Books isn’t the cleanest: I once found a crumpled napkin filled with masticated food behind a row of music books. But Cliff’s Books is vast, cavernous, easy to get lost… More >>

• Best One-Stop Chinatown Quickie-Mart (1985)

  Wing Hop Fung Ginseng

  Wing Hop Fung Ginseng opened in 1985 to advance the practice of Chinese natural medicine, taking a name that translates to “together forever prosper.” But these days, Wing Hop Fung is not just about herbs. This expansive emporium offers teas, fine wine and Asian imports, including a huge selection of bargain-priced housewares and gifts. It’s the Chinatown version of a… More >>

• Best World Records

  Vacation Records

  Vacation Records entered life in L.A. 18 months ago, at the same time as the opening of Origami Records on Sunset, Little Radio on 2nd Street downtown, and the bizarre BBQ-psych-punk hybrid known as Territory Records. Little Radio and Territory are gone, but Origami — ensconced amid all things Echo — and Vacation have thrived with their attention to niche… More >>

• Best Down & Flirty Lingerie Store (1974)

  Trashy Lingerie

  Before there was Trashy Lingerie, there was the Trashy shoe. When Mitchell Shrier first opened his business in 1974, he sold footwear, labeling one of his best-selling shoes the “Trashy.” Soon, he found himself dying stockings to go with the shoe, and began making lingerie to match. Two years later, Trashy Lingerie was born. Trashy’s custom-designed intimates range from the… More >>

• Best High-Class Hoochie-Mama Nails

  Marie Nails

  Looking for cheetah-print nails with rhinestone bow adornments on a hologram background? Marie Nails specializes in the kind of psychedelic, bedazzled 3D claws that could be the star of their own Patti LaBelle show. And unless you are Patti LaBelle, expect to book your appointment about two weeks ahead of time; the wait will be worth it. When your turn… More >>

• Best Westside Frozen Pupusas (1990)

  El Camaguey Meat Market

  El Camaguey Meat Market is a Westside mainstay and emporium for all things Latin American. I usually stop by when I have a hankering for Bolivian beer to wash down a slab of fresh chicharron. But I could always get a bottle of Imperial and reminisce about the humidity and bad roads in Costa Rica. Whether you’re looking for a… More >>

• Best Place to Buy Nutella

  Super King Market

  If you live anywhere near the San Gabriel foothills, you will be familiar with the drive north up Lincoln from the Rose Bowl or thereabouts, into the giant, impossibly crowded parking lot across from a tiny carniceria, and into the cavernous interior of Super King Market. It is a huge semi-warehouse of a place with three locations, two in this… More >>

• Other Best Wax Job

  Raya

  When I get a bikini wax at Raya, I sometimes feel as if I am in the girlsploitation film Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, especially when the Russian ladies bark out, “Roll over, now! Rip!” But I keep coming back because my pain tolerance is so high (kidding!). I keep coming back because you can almost always make a… More >>

• Best Place to Grow Your Own (1927)

  Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden

  Located strangely enough in Claremont, not Santa Ana, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden is devoted solely to our Southern California native flora. It has more than 2,000 species of our local plants. See what would actually be growing here without watering before we arrived and started pouring asphalt and laying down PVC. Then go to the adjacent Grow Native Nursery.… More >>

• Best Miles of Feet

  Tibetan Herbal Feet Soak

  There’s a reason Marsellus Wallace, the fierce mob kingpin from Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, had a man thrown off a fourth-story balcony for giving his wife a foot massage: They feel damn good. If only Mia Wallace had access to the San Gabriel Valley foot massage kingdom back in 1994, she could have saved everyone a lot of pain and misery… More >>

• Best Giant Thrift Store

  Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store

  One of the best things about not having much cash — really, when you think about it, the only thing — is the excellent excuse to spend it at the large-scale second-hand fantasyland Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store in Lincoln Heights. The thrill of furnishing an Eastside apartment with less than $200 is comparable only to the… More >>

• Best Place to Soften Your Skin, Naturally

  Green Line Beauty

  Green Line Beauty, conveniently located next to almost macrobiotic, always delicious M Café on Melrose, houses a vast, varied and kick-ass assortment of natural skin-care products, for face and body, man, woman and child. Green Line rocks because its products — all natural, free of chemicals, parabens and sodium laurel sulfate — span the entire spectrum of skin-care needs, wants… More >>

• Worst Store to Wear That New Ed Hardy Shirt That Makes You Look Really Rad

  Natural High Lifestyle

  Conventionally grown cotton is drenched in more pesticides than any single crop on the planet. It’s an environmental atrocity that wreaks wretched havoc upon the soil and surrounding ecosystems, to say nothing of the toxicity — physical and energetic — it bleeds into the body. Natural High Lifestyle offers a complete array of its eponymous line of organic cotton, hemp… More >>

• Snappiest Clip Joint (1927)

  Sweeney Todd’s Barber Shop

  You can stumble into Sweeney Todd’s Barber Shop looking like a bum, and stroll out clean and handsome, ready for your close-up in RKO’s next picture. Originally opened in 1927, remodeled in the early ’50s and under its present ownership since 2007, this is an authentic barbershop straight out of the past; you half-expect Rod Serling to be standing in… More >>

• Best Decor on the Macabre

  Gold Bug

  How many retail stores have signs saying “Please don’t touch the taxidermy”? If your decor needs a touch of the macabre — or you’ve always wanted to live like the Addams Family — Gold Bug is the place to shop. It helps if you like insects, of which there are many in varied forms (all dead). The store’s knowledgeable staffers… More >>

• Rubber Retro Bygone Stampers (1935)

  Hollywood Rubber Stamp

  Most people head to Hollywood Rubber Stamp to get a custom-made stamp quickly, at prices starting at just $7. Prop masters for films including National Lampoon’s European Vacation have sought its services whenever they needed to literally make a mark on set. Unknown to many visitors, however, is the history of the desolate building. During WWII, the premises was used… More >>

• Best Place to Become a Snobby Prick About Tea

  Art of Tea

  You’ll travel to many places during the Art of Tea’s tea sommelier lessons: Asia, Africa, India, the Middle East, the restroom. You’ll travel vicariously, however (except for that last one), through cup after cup of tea. Taught by the company’s elegant, mild-mannered CEO Steve Schwartz, who has a background in ayurvedic medicine, classes are a multisensory experience. People learn how… More >>

• Best Architectural School You’ve Never Heard Of

  Woodbury University’s Architecture School

  Rather than chic-for-the-elite, early modernists were concerned with bringing good design to the masses. Surely then, Gregory Ain would appreciate Woodbury University’s Architecture School. It’s underrated, innovative and blue-collar. Norman Millar, the dean, says 70 percent of its undergraduates are first-generation college attendees; Latinos comprise 40 percent of the student body and 90 percent of the students are on scholarships.… More >>

• Best Gee-gaws, Gizmos & Grommets (1938)

  Koontz Hardware

  When Koontz Hardware opened for business in West Hollywood in 1938, Home Depot, which didn’t build a store until 1979, wasn’t even a concept. Serving customers all over the Westside, Koontz’s huge inventory of screws, washers, lightbulbs, hammers, saws, doorknobs and innumerable gizmos quickly made the store a favorite with contractors, regular folks and, of course, celebrities. It’s said that… More >>

• Who Knew Westlake Villagers Read So Much?

  Book Nook

  Run by Friends of the Library in an annex next to the beautiful Westlake Village Library, Book Nook sits on a pretty garden square filled with fountains. This is a nonprofit, and the price is right. Martha is the highly competent manager who can answer all your questions, in this room crammed with books in a well-arranged system overseen by… More >>

• Best Hair Straightening

  Kazumi Morton at Gavert Atelier

  Tired of flat-ironing the bejesus out of your hair? Instead of looking like you’ve donned a Cher fright wig, opt for a Milbon Japanese thermal straightening by instructress, color expert, aesthetician and self-admitted “control freak” Kazumi Morton at Gavert Atelier, where she’s been a frizz fighter for 11 years. The beauty of her work is that it isn’t Aniston-obvious or… More >>

• Best In-Home Cat Sitter

  Sittin’ Kitty

  When it comes to caring for their feline companions, L.A. cat owners tend to be a tad neurotic. Out-of-town travel cranks their anxieties up still further. Boarding a pet is stressful for the little critter (and expensive for the human), and who among us completely trusts our neighbors not to leave the patio door open? The solution is Sittin’ Kitty,… More >>

• Best Yoga Sans All That Yoga Crap

  Earth’s Power Yoga

  To some people, yoga isn’t about opening chakras or energizing kundalini — rather, it’s about defining abs and building granite-crushing buttocks. Earth’s Power Yoga is the place for these athletes. Billing itself as “the toughest yoga class on earth,” it is frequented by boxers, runners, weightlifters and, of course, actors, who rely on the vigorous vinyasa-style classes to give them… More >>

• The Odd and the Beautiful

  Iko Iko

  The only things that set Iko Iko apart from a contemporary art gallery are its lack of pretentiousness, affordable prices and the utilitarian purpose of most stuff on display. Owner Kristin Dickson has scoured the United States and Japan for finely crafted, design-driven curios that range from the bucolic to the bizarre. Piles of hand-dyed Bluefaced Leicester sheep wool —… More >>

• Best (Almost) Finless Surfboards

  Mollusk Surf Shop

  The surfboard looks nothing like the ancient Hawaiian aliaias it’s based on — or any other board, actually. Sold at Mollusk Surf Shop, it’s more sculpted than shaped, more tail-punched-out than left in, and it features sets of canyon-like channels and ribs across its belly. Then there’s the matter of the fins. Forget the standard six inches that stabilize surfboards… More >>

• Best Vintage Shopping Experience

  Lemon Frog Shop

  Shopping for vintage can be a downright dirty task; rarely are the most crave-able items presented in a clean or even semi-organized state for the true lover of yesteryear fashions. Especially when it comes to footwear, shopping comes down to either stressful online auctions or literally wading through piles of dirty laundry. Not so at the delightfully organized, attractive and… More >>

• Best It-Girl Frocks

  Unique Vintage

  Remember when women had curves? Us neither. But Burbank’s Unique Vintage will remind us. This little one-stop dress shop is a throwback to the Louise Brooks ’20s, Bettie Page ’50s, Mad Men ’60s, all those great fashion decades before the invention of the skinny jean and the Ugg boot and the consequent decline of civilization. Mall stores just don’t sell… More >>

• Best Stylish Mash-ups

  1 Man’s Trash

  Most fashion purists would think twice about stepping into a vintage store that blasts hip-hop tunes over its sound system. But this mix of old and new is precisely what gives 1 Man’s Trash its groove. Owner Erik Dixon’s modified vintage coats have attracted a star-studded clientele that includes Usher and Ellen DeGeneres. A plain denim jacket becomes a fashion… More >>

• Best Refinery

  Golyester

  If you merit a bumper sticker that says, “I Brake for Vintage Clothes,” Golyester, jam-packed with one-of-a-kind, high-quality fashions, is for you. But be forewarned: These aren’t Goodwill schmattas. The finds can be pricey but worth it. Owner Esther Ginsberg (as in “Golly, Esther”), who originally opened her store in Venice circa 1978, selects unique items with what she calls… More >>

• Buddha Was a Teenage Fuckup, Too

  Against the Stream

  It was a shockingly aberrant youth: Suicide plans at age 5, dropping acid by the time he was 10, alcoholism, crack, heroin, serving time for felony robberies and violence. But from that abyss, Noah Levine emerged as one of the country’s most respected and popular teachers of Buddhist meditation. He’s written two books (Dharma Punx tells his story), with a third due… More >>

• Best Legal Way to Learn to Tag

  ArtRebel

  Sherman Oaks’ ArtRebel offers a number of nontraditional classes for kids, teens and adults, many with a somewhat new-agey spin — Green Rebel teaches young ’uns to make stuff out of recycled materials, Yogart Price combines yoga practice with “chakra color therapy” and group painting — which makes it all the weirder that it also offers a course in the… More >>

• Best Private Press

  Fresh Pressed

  Jonathan Sample, co-founder of Hollywood’s Fresh Pressed screen-printing workshop, has lofty aims for his little storefront, founded in 2007. “We’re really set up to make screen-printing available to the masses — everyone who works here is an artist or a designer. We all have an affinity for lost arts — screen-printing, engraving, letterpressing.” Small quantities of screen-printed T-shirts are produced… More >>

• BEST POT SHOP (1937)

  Surfas

  We all know that too many cooks can spoil the broth. And in these days of celebrity chefs, who doesn’t want to be a cook? If you do, one of the best places around to get cookware like those chefs are using is Surfas, established in 1937 but in its present airy, domesticated-warehouse Culver City space for five years. Food… More >>

• Best Un-Centric Guitar Store

  The Fretted Frog

  In a market thoroughly overpowered by Guitar Center, it’s tough to find a low-key, specialized guitar shop, a place where one can browse, say, hand-crafted banjos or elegant 12-strings without some hairsprayed Sunset Strip victim next to you practicing his hammer-ons, Marshall stack on 11. The Fretted Frog is the brainchild of French expat Roland Belloir (the “Frog”) and his… More >>

• Best Shopping on the Other Side (1991)

  Necromance

  Thanks to Ed Hardy and one too many trendy discount shops, Melrose has been dying a slow and painful death for some time now. Ironically, Necromance — L.A.’s premier one-stop shop for all things dead, morbid and museum-like — is thriving. So much so that owner Nancy Smith opened a second shop a couple spaces down not too long ago.… More >>

• Best Lessons in Hilarity

  Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre

  Want to hone your sense of childlike wonder and imagination? How about a chance to break into the exciting world of comedy? Maybe you’re just looking for a bunch of like-minded creatives to bounce some ideas off of? Check out the formal classes offered by the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Franklin Village. Tuition is affordable for even the laziest… More >>

• Best Rose Bowl Flea Market Alternative

  Pasadena City College Flea Market

  Often overlooked by Sunday morning bargain hunters, Pasadena City College’s gem of a flea market is likely to yield just as much booty — and half as much claustrophobia — as its behemoth cousin at the Rose Bowl. Lay out $2 for parking and lose yourself in accessibly priced vintage clothing, cuckoo clocks, sepia-tinted postcards, ancient comics, creepy rag dolls,… More >>

• Best Vintage Glasses and Sunglasses

  Hotel De Ville Vintage Eyewear

  Finding the right grown-up glasses today can be a chore, but if you venture to one of the three locations of Hotel De Ville Vintage Eyewear, ye of little sight will find yourselves richly rewarded. Here you will find an incredibly satisfying selection of optical fashion in an intimate setting that is even cooler than wearing frames filled with window… More >>

• Best Cut Rates

  Aveda Institute

  UCLA isn’t the only educational institution in Westwood. Since 2008, the high-end Aveda beauty product line also has its own campus, in the form of a discount salon and stylists’ academy, catering to Bruins and bargain-seekers alike. From the lobby, the Aveda Institute might look like just another full-service salon, but inside is a sprawling hands-on classroom, and the folks… More >>

• Best Handmade Accessories and Fashion

  Luxe de Ville

  Amid the shifting storefronts on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park is Luxe de Ville, an extraordinary boutique that has stood steadfast for 16 years. Offering a choice selection of custom and vintage garments for men and women, Luxe de Ville also has a seriously hip selection of handmade jewelry, belts, hats, shoes and sunglasses. Oskar de la Cruz, the ever-present… More >>

• Best Life in the Fun Lane

  Corbin Recreation Center

  If the soul of Southern California suburban life is found in the San Fernando Valley, then the heart of that suburban soul lies in the Valley’s historic and varied amusement centers. You can’t find a better den of recreation, mild athleticism and comfortable hanging out than the Corbin Recreation Center complex in Tarzana. Built in 1959, it’s attached to that… More >>

• Must Be This Hip To Enter (1986)

  La Luz de Jesus Gallery

  La Luz de Jesus Gallery was opened in 1986 by collector Billy Shire, known as the Peggy Guggenheim of lowbrow art. It brought to prominence the key artists of what is arguably the most important art movement to come out of California in the past few decades. Naturally, it has what is arguably the city’s most important gift shop. Attached… More >>

• Tune in, Turn on, Put a Dab Behind Your Ear There’s a reason boho perfumer Sanae Barber decided to call her company Sanae Intoxicants. “It was because of the way people were responding to them,” says Barber, who blends her fragrances in Los Feliz. “They w

  Sanae Intoxicants

  There’s a reason boho perfumer Sanae Barber decided to call her company Sanae Intoxicants. “It was because of the way people were responding to them,” says Barber, who blends her fragrances in Los Feliz. “They would have these very elated or emotional reactions, almost like they were experiencing a natural high.” Born in Japan to globetrotting parents, Sanae (whose name… More >>

• Best Secret Weapon for Winning the Halloween Costume Contest

  Revamp

  Revamp would deserve a Best of L.A. slot if it were just the go-to spot where fashionistas with a thing for vintage flock to have new garments custom-created based on the styles of the past. But Revamp also hosts intensive period-specific hair and makeup courses in its downtown loft space. Held once every two months, the three-hour courses are $50… More >>