ROSSELLINI INTRODUCES COSMETIC LINE ACRESS DRAWS FANS TO SHERMAN OAKS.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

SHERMAN OAKS - Actress, model and international beauty icon Isabella Rossellini launched her cosmetics collection Saturday at Bloomingdale's at a gathering of more than 200 fans, admirers and curious shoppers.

Rossellini said she called the extensive line of make-up and accessories ``Manifesto'' as a ``bold and opinionated'' personal statement - essentially that individual style means far more than conforming to today's narrow fashion norms.

``Beauty is not a standard,'' said Rossellini. ``Instead of looking in the mirror and saying 'What's wrong with me?' so that you can achieve that standard using makeup to hide and correct, you use the makeup to state your case.''

Rossellini's ``Manifesto'' comes four years after Lancome cosmetics dropped her as its spokesmodel at age 43, after having marketed her around the world as its symbol of beauty for the previous 14 years.

The move outraged many women as short-sighted. At the time, Rossellini e described the experience as ``very painful.''

On Saturday, the graceful and radiant Rossellini, now 47, downplayed the Lancome controversy, saying she started her own line of cosmetics to stay busy in the industry. In fact, she said she drew on her experience with Lancome in the four years she helped design and test the new products, which she did not merely lend her name to.

``I see it as evolution, not revenge,'' said Rossellini, before signing momentos and chatting with the more than 200 people who lined up to meet her. ``I feel like an actress who now is producing her own films.''

As a promotional gesture in the latest in a series of appearances, 150 women were given free makeovers using the new products.

``I don't normally wear makeup, but her's is very non-makeuppy,'' said Cindy Abrams, 44, of Silverlake after getting a makeover. ``It doesn't make you go out looking like a clown.''

Abrams said she bought nearly one of everything in the line, from lip pencil to eye shadow, which she considered so natural in color and feel that she will begin wearing them daily.

Pauline Wada, 53, of Arleta had a similar reaction.

``I don't do make up but this feels like nothing's on,'' said Wada, grateful that the makeover did not feel caked-on or cause an allergic reaction. ``If I looked in the mirror I wouldn't think it was me.''

The new products adds makeup designer and entrepreuner to Rossellini's eclectic resume. The daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and revered Italian director Roberto Rossellini, she modeled and worked for a brief stint as a television reporter before following her mother's lead into acting.

She has been married to director Martin Scorsese and had a romance with director David Lynch, who directed her in ``Blue Velvet.''

In the Bob Zemeckis' ``Death Becomes Her,'' a comedy satarizing the beauty myth, Rossellini played eternally beautiful potion peddler Lisle von Rhuman, who operates an unlicensed Fountain of Youth for vain Beverly Hills clients.

Rossellini said Saturday she shares nothing in common with von Rhuman.

``She sold her soul to eternal beauty,'' Rossellini said. ``I'm the opposite of her.''

Rossellini said her favorite product was the three-in-one Eye-Lip-Cheek Color.

And in a bid to counter narrow definitions of beauty, ``blonde, blue- eyed, young and skinny'' in Rossellini's opinion, five models of varying age and race, including one with braces, are being used in ads, she said.

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Photo: Actress Isabella Rossellini, right, autographs a photo for Sylvia Forestier of Encino Saturday at Bloomingdale's in the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer