KIEHL’S IS A RARE cosmetics business: a company that eschews marketing, whose wares are coveted by men and women in equal numbers, and that doles out bountiful tubes of free samples. In fact, it’s hard to find another line that matches the company’s reputation, product quality, and faithful following.

So it’s with unfettered glee that we make this announcement: the store, whose full name is the bulky "Kiehl’s Since 1851," opened up shop on Newbury Street on July 3. It’s the company’s second store-opening in an expansion that followed its purchase by cosmetics Ÿber-company L’OrŽal in 2000. And to think that Kiehl’s started off as a family-owned pharmacy more than 150 years ago.

Kiehl’s users include an eclectic list of celebrities from Rebecca Romijn-Stamos to Mel Gibson. In Boston, the line’s devotees have been able to stock up on popular items like Creme with Silk Groom ($16.50 for a four-ounce bottle), Lip Balm #1 ($5 for a half-ounce tube), and Milk, Honey, and Almond Scrub ($12.50 for a three-ounce jar) at local Saks, Barneys, and Neiman Marcus stores (not to mention the bathrooms at the luxurious XV Beacon). But the counters in those places are small, and they offer neither the full selection of products nor the uniquely Old World, unfussy shopping experience found at the company’s headquarters in New York’s Union Square.

Bostonians making their way to Newbury Street’s latest haven for cleansers, creams, and natural shampoos will experience one of Kiehl’s best company policies: generous free samples. The store doles out small amounts of just about anything you request, so you can try it — and quickly fall in love. (I’ll have one of those ... and one of those ... and ...) Watch out, kids: as with ambitious coke dealers who give out free samples to lure repeat customers, the gimmick works. You’ll be hooked and jonesin’ for more.

Hua, a Cambridge writer and graduate student, became acquainted with Kiehl’s thanks to his ex-girlfriend, who would stock up on fistfuls of free samples at the New York store. There was a "facial cleanser with bits of sand in it, or whatever it was," he recalls wistfully. "I would use it when she wasn’t looking, because she coveted her samples." Now, when Hua’s in friends’ bathrooms and notices Kiehl’s products, he’s equally tempted to steal a squirt or two. Do his male friends share his clandestine love of Kiehl’s? "I don’t know," he says. "It may be that there are women in their lives who introduced them to Kiehl’s. But they wouldn’t admit it to me," he adds quickly. "That’s one of the taboo subjects of being a man: staying clean. I get harassed for using facial cleanser."

Well, now there’s at least one safe haven.

Kiehl’s opened at 112 Newbury Street, Boston, on July 3. All profits from the first two weeks of sales will be donated to the Boston Harbor Association.