Three things you absolutely need for sun protection

Summer's here! (Almost, anyway.) I couldn't be more psyched for many Saturdays spent frolicking in the surf at Zuma, but there's also that "eek" factor having to do with my intense of getting too much sun. The deal with me is that when I was 25 I had the worst kind of skin cancer, that very ugly word beginning with a very ugly "M." Blessedly, it was detected very, very early and everything was taken care of, which means now I've got some bad-ass scars on my back and could very well end up titling my memoir either Holy Moley! or Making Mountains Out of Molehills. Anyway, in my other life as a health writer, I recently wrote a story about skin-cancer prevention and learned a few new things that made me go, "Dude, if I don't already know all this stuff, what are the chances that most other girls do?" And so, here, I give you a little rundown of three things you absolutely need for sun protection. It barely covers all you need to know, and I'd strongly suggest reading this Green Guide story as well. (And this is probably the most important thing I've ever written here, even more critical than that bit about how Evan Dando and Bret Michaels are kind of the same person, so do listen up. Thank you.)

+ Continue reading "Three things you absolutely need for sun protection"

LaLicious goodies for wicked cheap

I was just about to despair at having nearly emptied my latest jar of oh-so-yummers LaLicious Coconut Cream Sugar Souffle Moisturizing Body Scrub. But then, voila, I get this happy email about how LaLicious is having a big fat sale on their travel sets and wash-and-mitt kits - which means that you can get a travel-size thing of scrub plus body butter and body wash and body oil, all for $20. And the wash-and-mitt sets are only 10 bucks, a crazy steal considering the utter deelishness of LaLicious' scents. I'm deeply devoted to the Coconut Cream but might try out the Lily Mango or Island Guava, as I'm really feeling the urge to smell like a Hawaiian beach or a fruity cocktail or some delightful combination thereof at the moment.

Giving the gift of mushed-up stuff

My little sister is the easiest person to shop for - she's 16 and I'm due to hit 30 in...umm...just about two weeks, but we love a lot of the same things (Rilo Kiley! Weeds! Extravagant hoodies!) so there's never any agonizing over what might strike her fancy. One of my gifts for her this Christmas is FarmHouse Fresh's Strawberry Smash, a so-deelish-we-really-want-to-eat-it-all-up moisturizer that's "hand-assembled" from aloe and shea butter and yummy strawberry extract. It's just $20 for seven ounces and comes with that adorable little jute bag, plus the vintage jelly jar is too cute for words.

(For my own personal beauty consumption, by the way, I'm eyeing the Sweet Cream Body Milk, if only for the corked glass cruet and the gift box declaring: "OUR COWS EAT COOKIES.")

Beauty: Smoky Eyes, the Importance of Good Tools and Curve's Toni Halliday

When the good people at Coutorture sent me a Smokey Eye Kit brush set a little bit back as a sort of thank you for being a member from way back when, little did they know they would be tapping into one of my two genuine beauty obsessions. (The other is fragrance, but I won't submit you to my rhapsodies about Serge Lutens and Jean-Claude Ellena quite yet.) I've been a little over-conceptual and vaguely obsessive about eyeliner and getting that perfectly smoky eye, most likely because this is the single most difficult beauty feat for me to accomplish, thanks in no part to being Asian. As it turns out, the axiom is totally true: whether it is painting canvasses or painting eyelids, having good tools in any endeavor is half the battle. These brushes are soft, and they make the job of getting that perfect smoky eye so much easier, with the help of a little of Nars eyeshadow in Nightclubbing, always our defacto glam dark shadow.

The real question, though, is which eyeliner concept are we going for? The Audrey Hepburn classic ingenue wing? The heavy bedroom-eyed flirtatious Brigitte Bardot? The thin-lined-and-nothing-else "scary cool girl who got stoned a lot and listened to heavy metal in the parking lot"? (God, I wonder what that girl is up to these days.) However, the person I nominate for most inspirational eyeliner concept is the person who inspired me to embark on this hot mess in the first place: Toni Halliday of the band Curve, who is the real reason for this entry -- deep down, I really just want to post the video for "Horror Head." Undersung as an alternative heroine, Halliday provided the sultry, throaty alto in Curve's slightly Goth, electroindustrial take on shoegazer music in the early 1990s. I dug up their 1992 debut Doppelganger recently and besides some dated production, it's still as darkly alluring as ever; now I'm waiting for NYLON to dig up some old pictures for their Private Icon series. Till then, bat your eyes to this -- it's totally my alt-90s.

Beauty: Sparkles for your 4th, and some random David Bowie worship

Way back before you could buy glitter gel at Claire's, like '94 or something, I went through a phase of layering Crayola Glitter Glue over my blue eye shadow. Kind of gross, but actually really effective. Now I'm probably too "mature" for both the Claire's stuff and any art supplies stolen/borrowed from my little sister's craft box, but I still fancy shimmery things like Shiseido Silky Eye Shadow, Bare Escentuals Mineral Veil, and sometimes Maybelline Expert Wear Eye Shadow (preferred shade: Antique Jade).

My two new favorite sparkly products, perfect for Fourth of July: FACE atelier's Gold Rush eye shadow line and Rimmel Underground's Light Beam After Dark Lip Gloss. The eye shadows come in six golden shades, each with a slightly metallic glimmer that Pierre La Roche could've used to apply that freaky astral sphere to Ziggy Stardust's forehead back in the day (see left). I'm most into the Bullion shadow, which has a bit of a Creamsicle-dreamy tint to it. (And at first the color name made me think of chicken stock, but then I heard George Clooney in Three Kings barking, "No, not the little cubes you put in hot water to make soup!" and it all came together.)

Equally glammy is the Rimmel gloss in Strobe Light, which is all silvery-shiny and bubblegum-flavored. The coolest part: Push down the little button on top of the cap, and you've switched on a tiny-yet-powerful LED light at the cap's base - all the better for peeking into the little mini mirror attached to the gloss' vial. Genius! And I'm especially psyched to try it out whilst dodging randomly tossed fireworks at Echo Park Lake's annually terrifying D.I.Y. pyrotechnic spectacular tomorrow night.

(Cute nogoodforme.com side note: I still have a few sparklers left from the box that our Kat sent me a very long time ago, during holidaytime of either 2000 or 2001. I might light one up and spell out my name tomorrow night, 'cause capital cursive 'L's are the loveliest letters in all the land.)

Eco-Pretty: Lush Fresh Face Skincare Starter Kit

I've been traveling over the past week, hopping from L.A. to Providence to my Massachusetts hometown to New York City to Boston and back again. Usually my skin is in constant freakout mode while I'm on the road, but this time around it's remained relatively calm and almost entirely blemish-free (despite the fact that I've spent my trip doing stuff like drinking Cherry Coke for breakfast at the Port Authority bus station, shunning sleep in favor of plowing through my 15-year-old sister's O.C. box set, and passing out with my makeup still on after last Friday's show/party/screening at 21 Mercer Street in Soho).

My skin's good behavior probably has lots to do with my using Lush's new Fresh Face Skincare Starter Kit since I've been in the Northeast. I've got the combination-skin kit, which includes adorable trial-sized versions of the Eau Roma Water facial toner, Imperialis moisturizer (with St. John's wort and tiger lily extract), and Angels on Bare Skin cleanser. I'm sort of afraid of the moisturizer, since I'm completely paranoid about straying from my much-trusted Bare Escentuals cream, but I've fallen in love with the Angels on Bare Skin. It's made from ground almonds and rose and lavender - with a bunch of fat little dried lavender buds right in the jar - and it's got a really fun spongy consistency that feels so nice on your skin. The product's not supersmooth, so I like to put a dab on my palm and then swirl it around with a few drops of warm water before smearing it on. It makes your face feel so soft and fresh and most likely won't irritate even the most irritable of skin (such as mine). The Eau Roma Water is lovely as well - it's a blend of lavender and rose water, which is extra-perfect when it's all hot and muggy out and you need to cool your skin down.

Anyway, all this goodness nearly makes up for the fact that I don't have time to get one last Dunkin Donuts tea before heading west, and that the stereo system at the Providence airport is currently playing a very flute-heavy Muzak rendition of "Always Something There To Remind Me." Just so you know.

Beauty: I scream, you scream, etc.

If you live in L.A. then maybe you've had the supreme privilege of eating gelato at Scoops. If you don't live in L.A., then maybe you should move here just so you can eat gelato at Scoops. Owner Tai Kim invents all these brilliant flavor combinations, like Black Truffle with Honey, Goat Cheese and Purple Basil, Almond Creme Fraiche and Marsala, and Pumpkin Tiramisu. The menu changes all the time, but some of my all-time favorites are Lavender Avocado, Brown Bread, and Chocolate Guinness. And one of the cutest things is that Tai has a dry-erase board where you can add your flavor requests. I always ask for Thai Tea, which in comparison to most existing menu items seems really boring, but oh well.

The more ingenious and ice-cream-obsessed ladies out there may want to try their hands at ME! Bath's ice cream contest. Starting last Friday, the L.A.-based purveyors of ice-cream-themed beauty treats have begun accepting ideas for their newest bath bomb flavor. Winners will get a basket of ME! Bath stuff and a year's subscription to the Ice Cream of the Month Club (through which four Bath Ice Cream scoops will get delivered to your door each month). They've already got Vanilla Berry Ambrosia, Lychee Blossom, Gin Martini, and nearly 40 other flavors, so put your thinking caps on.

Contest winners will be announced July 18. In the meantime I'm loving ME! Bath's new Hawaiian Lei Body Wash, which is yummily infused with hibiscus and orchid and white ginger extracts and makes me want to sip fancy tropical cocktails whilst in the shower.

Hawaiian Style (Not the Saved by the Bell movie)

Every summer I make a secret wish to go away to Hawaii for a very long time, which never actually happens. Probably because I haven't ever taken much action beyond the making of the wish. But instead of doing productive stuff like looking for flights, lately I've been watching Blue Crush and listening to "Hawaii" by The Strokes and playing around with beauty products that smell like blissful tropical paradise.

My favorite's Pacifica's Waikiki Pikake perfume, a blend of jasmine and sandalwood that makes me feel like I'm swimming in flowers. Then there's Astara's Green Papaya Nutrient Mask, made with passionfruit and mango and papaya and pineapple, one of the only masks I'll ever use on my cranky skin. (One of my favorite things is that it makes you look almost exactly like the Wicked Witch of the West, but then when you rinse it off your face is sooo soft and lovely.) And lastly, LaLicious's Coconut Cream body oil. I love all things LaLicious, especially their Sugar Souffle Moisturizing Body Scrub, and this oil's so pure and simple and yummy that I sort of want to eat it up like that Sharon's Coconut Sorbet I'm currently so addicted to.

Love: Gwen Stefani's Eye Makeup in "4 in the Morning"

Gwen's given up the whole "Elvira in Scarface" thing in her new video for "4 in the Morning," the latest single off of The Sweet Escape. I was admiring her gorgeous eye makeup in the video with her super-lush eyelashes and fiercely emphatic eyeliner when I got to the part with Gwen in the suit and tie and then I realized it reminded me of Madonna circa 1991, during her whole Truth or Dare/"Justify My Love"/Bedtime Stories phase, when arty bisexual chic was in and pop starlets cannibalized old matinee idols and Fellini instead of Malibu Barbie. Check it out...here's Gwen in her new video:

And here's Madonna spoofing her "Justify My Love" video on SNL, just 'cause we're old school that way:

And of course, here's Marilyn Monroe, the woman who inspired them both:

A Little Bar of Soap

My shower is stocked with about a thousand different body washes and scrubs and salts and serums and gels, so many bottles and jars in myriad shapes and sizes that it kind of looks like Snape's potions closet in Harry Potter - only without the hotness of Alan Rickman and his Trent Reznor hair.

But sometimes you just want a little bar of soap, even if it's just to tuck away in your bureau drawers to make your clothes smell like flowers. And Mama's Day isn't too far off, remember, and what mom doesn't fancy pretty soap? A few gifty bars we love a lot: MOR's Marshmallow Ovals, Gudonya's Strawberry Fields Floap (vegan and handcrafted and naturally floaty), One With Nature's Rose Petal, Lavender, and Lemon Verbena bars (made with minerals straight from the Dead Sea), Gianna Rose Atelier's Owl Soap (because we adore all things owl, and because white lychee scent = yum), Fresh's Fig Apricot Petit Soap, and La Luz's Guava Flower bar soap.

Be mine, Valentine

Okay, so we first fell for Valentine Soap because of those darling little bird illustrations on the letterpress-printed packaging (the secret subtitle of this blog being "Things With Animal Motifs That We Seem To Like A Lot" and all). But when we learned the story behind Valentine, we knew our love would not be fleeting. Founder/owner Adele Peters started making her own soaps so she wouldn't have to deal with the icky toxic ingredients that go into some commercial products - she uses only all-natural stuff like coconut and olive oils, organic orange peel, essential oils, herbs, and botanicals, which makes Valentine better for your body, better for the planet, and better for the bunnies. (And you know how we love the bunnies.)

Turns out we discovered Valentine Soap just in time, as Adele's going to be discontinuing the line a bit before coming back next summer with some new additions like salt scrubs and shower gels. But all you L.A. ladies can still get your Valentines at these lovely boutiques: Matrushka and Uncle Jer's in Silver Lake, Oou in Los Feliz, and Soolip Paperie & Press in West Hollywood.

Random Picture Entry: I See This Haircut Everywhere I Look

You know, the long, straight hair with fringe, as sported here by actress and chanteuse Jane Birkin:

Or chanteuse Francoise Hardy:

On chanteuse Nico:

Or on modern-day chanteuse Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power:

It helps to have hair with texture that's healthy and wonderfully straight (or straightened, as the case may be.) And it wouldn't hurt to be a chanteuse, I suppose.

Jo Wood Organics

We're not sure if we'd be so intrigued by Jo Wood Organics if it weren't for the Rolling Stones connection (Mr. Jo is guitarist Ronnie Wood himself), but we love the beauty/bath/body line for keeping GM ingredients, artificial fragrances, phthalates, and other nastiness out of all their products. (We're also charmed by their model's "Don't Fuck With Nature" tattoo on the "About Us" page.)

I've been spritzing Jo Wood's Usiku Organic Body Dew around lately: It's got herbs like echinacea, calendula, and St. John's wort, plus an organic orange water that comes from Sicilian-grown oranges (yummy). The scent's sort of warm and gingery, which would probably make more sense in the wintertime, but it's still lovely on a summer night when you want to smell all earthy-sweet without having to rock the patchouli oil.

Yummy conditioners for pool-party hair

Yay, first weekend of summer! On Saturday I'll be attending my first pool party of the year, and I'm currently debating whether to try out the gin-spiked Elderflower Iced Tea recipe in the July Elle's gorgeous piece on "it mom" Pearl Lowe (guest-starring Anita Pallenberg - whoa!). One of my summer resolutions is to do lots and lots of swimming, which of course means lots and lots of chlorine soaking into my hair. So as to keep your own mane from getting all dry and damaged, we present our three favorite natural-ingredient conditioners.

1.

The Body Shop Honey Moisturizing Conditioner makes me want to keep petting my softer-than-soft hair all day, plus it's made with community-traded honey (which helps support farmers and beekeepers in west Zambia).

2.

Back to Basics Apple Ginseng Volumizing Conditioner is super-moisturizing without being greasy or leaving your hair limp. Three cheers for B vitamins.

3.

I just ran out of my Hamadi Shea Rice Milk Conditioner this morning; wicked sad. It's full of good stuff like shea butter and essential oils of clary sage and ylang ylang, and I always get a little kick out of the "Tested on actresses, never on animals" note at the bottom of the bottle.

Beauty: LaLicious sugar scrubs

This is a jar of Coconut Cream Sugar Soufflé Moisturizing Body Scrub by LaLicious:

It’s got the most perfect cupcake-frosting texture that you want to touch all the time, and it smells like the beach or like frosty blended tropical drinks. But not in a gross, artificially scented way: The ingredient list is short and readable, with just coconut oil, sweet almond oil, cane sugar, shredded coconut, essential and fragrance oils, vitamin E oil, and honey. And when you put the scrub on--which you should do before getting in the shower, because it enhances that weirdly satisfying sloughing-away-the-dead-cells sensation--and then rinse it off, your skin turns the smoothest and softest and glowingest it's been in forever. I’m so in love that I can't even try to save it up to make it last longer, which is in total defiance of the miser-like nature I typically adopt when it comes to really special beauty products.

Beauty: B. Kamins face masque

Doing facial masques makes us feel cute and girly, like we’re playing make-believe-spa at a fourth-grade slumber party. The other night I tried B. Kamins, Chemist's Diatomamus Earth Masque, named for the ingredient diatomaceous earth, which is a powder made from fossilized remains of a type of hard-shelled algae (I had to look that up on Wikipedia; I’d hoped Diatomamus was some Greek god or demigod). Full of lots of yummy antioxidants and minerals and vitamins, the masque also contains a maple sap compound that’s supposed to rehydrate, exfoliate, and protect against breakouts. The clay-like mixture creates a neat little Rice-Krispies-in-milk kind of sound as you massage it in, then dries quickly and turns supersoft while gently firming your face. It takes some doin' to scrub off, but afterwards your skin feels soooo smooth and gives off a distinct glow that will make you want to keep checking yourself out all day long.

Beauty: Get Gorgeous tea

One of adulthood’s most evil curiosities is the way in which my skin has become infinitely more temperamental than it ever was in my teen years, when I could dowse my face with that turpentine-like Sea Breeze astringent every night and suffer no backlash. Now that I’m older and so much kinder to my skin, I keep getting stuck with this little cluster of blemishes that pop up in nearly the exact same spot on my chin at least once every couple of weeks. I use all the lovely-smelling milks and serums my aestheticians tell me to use, take my omega-3 supplements, drink buckets and buckets of water in lieu of the buckets and buckets of Diet Coke and coffee I consumed daily from ages 14 to 20. But those breakouts keep happening and sometimes I want very badly to scream and throw things (and that never seems to help either).

So now Republic of Tea has a new blend called Get Gorgeous, which is supposed to help make your complexion clear and glowy and beautiful forever. Its base is earthy-tasting red tea, but there’s also skin-loving herbs like chamomile and hibiscus and chaste berry and burdock root (we actually tend to believe in this stuff, but understand that not everyone shares our faith in the healing power of plant life). I’ve been drinking Get Gorgeous every morning for the past month and while those “beauty marks” on my chin haven’t vanished entirely, they appear to be coming around less often and in smaller numbers. The tea seems to dry them out a bit—which means more moisturizer for the rest of my face, but I can deal. Plus, we’re generally into the idea of tea-as-beauty-product; it’s got a secret potion kind of quality that makes us feel all sorceress-like and possessing of magical powers.

Buzzy Lips

In my wishful understanding of the universe, caffeine is really, really good for you and you should try to get as much of it as possible. So it’s quite exciting that a couple of new caffeine-infused lip balms allow us to get all jacked-up and make our lips smooth and shiny in one very liberal application. I’ve been using Eco Lips Energy, which gives a nice little buzz and has lots of yummy organic ingredients like jojoba oil and peppermint and spearmint essential oils. It’s got a slightly grainy texture that feels oddly good on your lips, and we like that Eco Lips gives a percentage of its profits to environmental initiatives (I guess that’s where the “eco” part comes in). There’s also SpazzStick, created by an Alaskan police officer “who needs both quality lip balm for the cold and the ability to stay awake during long shifts.” SpazzStick is really subtle in its marketing, claiming that “the more tubes you buy the happier you will likely be. Probably forever.” Which seems totally plausible.

KISS: The Band, The Fragrance

It's kind of incredible, fascinating, and just plain weird, but the intersection of music and beauty was just too irresistible not to write about it here: Rock band KISS, they of stage makeup that inspired many a WWF wrestler and legendary demon tongue hijinks, are putting their names to a small line of fragrances, KISS Her and KISS Him. But lest you think you'll be confronted with a display of guitarist Paul Stanley leering at you on the fragrance counter, the band is taking a more subdued, even canny approach to the package, using simply the iconic KISS lettering and logo and not the band's images at all in the marketing when the juice rolls out this September in about 2,000 department stores. (In a sense, they are detaching the band from the brand, and some cultural studies scholar out there is probably going to go nuts writing about this.) Stanley says in WWD, "It isn't a fragrance for fans of the band exclusively. It's about being a free thinker who blazes their own path and lives life according to their own rules realizing that there is no rehearsal for life." Right on, dude! That's like my mantra! But seriously, you'd be astonished at how well KISS merchandise does: KISS-related items have sold $500 million at retail for the past 25 years, about $20 million of it this past year alone, and at a wide array of places outside concert arenas and the like.

KISS is hoping to branch into a larger arena with these fragrances, and a lot of attention is being paid to the packaging and marketing details to appeal to a wide audience outside of famously devoted KISS fanatics. The bottles will have small KISS logos and echoes of their famous "demon" makeup frosted on the glass. KISS Her is a floriental, described by Stanley as "'very feminine without being frilly,' he said, adding that his wife wears the fragrance. 'When I smell more women wearing KISS Her, my head will be turning to a point I need a brace. It's very sexy, flirtatious and very hot. It takes a certain kind of person — one with a little wildness waiting to come out.'" (Can you tell how much I love quoting him?) The fragrance actually has some interesting notes, including something called "racy bull accord" along with calla lily, frangipani, orchids, red poppy, apple-tini, amber, musk, leather and mahogany. KISS Him is described by Stanley as "a high-testosterone cologne," to which I can only say: Watch out! Rawwwr!

It seems KISS Her and KISS Him are being targeted to a younger age bracket, around 18 - 29, with a retail strategy that includes possible instore appearances. Look for scent strips in October magazine issues, along with interesting promotional events like scented Venetian masks, stickers, scented tattoos and car fresheners. When I first read about this, I was absolutely floored and amused by the audacity of it, but it sounds like there is enough promotional muscle and actual conceptual thought behind it all for it to succeed. But the true test, of course, is if the stuff actually smells good. Let's put that "racy bull accord" to the test!

Thierry Mugler's New Scent: Alien

I know of no other perfume that inspires such loyalty as Thierry Mugler's Angel, one of the world's most popular fragrances. (The chocolate-tinged scent edges out Chanel No. 5, even in France.) Mugler is hoping that magic will rub off on his newest perfume offering, Alien, set to launch this fall/holiday season. Invoking a sort of tribal/"shaman of joy" image, the scent is concocted with "white transparent amber notes, a woody note suffused with the proprietary Cashmeran and a jasmine sambac note," according to WWD. The ad campaign is photographed by Mugler himself and features half-Korean, half-German model Tina Baltzer, clearly doing her best Galadriel from Lord of the Rings impression.

Summer Beauty: A Wish(ful Thinking) List

It's cloudy and chilly here today, so just to remind myself that it's actually warm and sunny in some places, here's some stuff that I'm drawn to for spring/summer:

+ We all recognize the need for a lighter, fresher fragrance when the temperatures escalate, but personally, I don't like smelling fruity, floral or citrus-y - which is where summer fragrances and "lighter formulations" tend to veer. So my favorite warm-weather scent? L'Occitane's Honey Gentle Water, an alcohol-free children's scent that is sweet, slightly warm but not at all heavy.

+ I'm not a big makeup person, but how much do I love Nars? You may be able to resist the sleek black packaging with the ultra-stylish lettering, but you'll fall prey to the artistic colors with the most glamorous names: Gimme Shelter, Funny Face, Penny Lane, Rated R and Chinatown are just few of the shades in the collection. And the stuff itself? Superb. The Nars Tropical Heat Wave collection is out, and I love the Nars Lip Gloss in Boogie Nights, a metallic raspberry that always gets compliments. (Well, I'm not sure if "That looks like the lip gloss on the cover of the Kelis album!" is truly a compliment, but we'll take what we can get, if only for the enthusiasm.)

+ Pointy-toed slingbacks with words on them? Not for me, but I like seeing them on other people. Favorites so far I've spotted: on one brava ragazza, a pair with "F*ck" and "Me" scrawled on them. (The "f*ck" is bleeped out, by the way, not because I have issues with swearing, but because I fear for the ads on this page!) For those not so R-rated, La Redoute is selling a white slingback pair with "Lui" and "Moi" written on them.

What is everyone out there obsessed with this summer? Tell me!

Marc Jacobs' Next Fragrance

MJ cultists and fragrance devotees, take note: Marc Jacobs will be unveiling a new perfume, Blush, next fall. There's a whole article in WWD with all sorts of juicy details about it. The scent will feature various notes of jasmine, Italian bergamot, Japanese honeysuckle, freesia and orange flower that drydown to a pink musk, cashmere wood and sandalwood accord. The bottle will feature rectangular pale peach glass, and the ads, shot by David Sims, feature model Guinevere lounging on a Louis XVI chaise. (A hint of the "Dangerous Liaisons" aesthetic that seems to be creeping in everywhere these days?) It's supposedly very subtle and unobstrusive, and I can assure you that it will be everywhere when it's released.

Or maybe not? It seems that the companies involved with be rolling out the fragrance oh-so-slowly: only 300 specialty and department stores in the U.S. will get the perfume in the fall, to be followed shortly afterwards by a limited release internationally. It's only next spring that all Marc Jacobs fragrance sellers will be carrying Blush. Very clever, that Marc Jacobs company: the slow-burn approach is a very canny way for Marc Jacobs to have his proverbial cake and eat it too. He maintains his cultist, luxurious feel but still gets to take over the world.

Rimmel Expands in U.S. This Fall

Fashionistas looking for their cheap beauty fixes often hightailed it into suburbia in Wal-Mart to stock up on Rimmel cosmetics, the London brand currently sold only at the discount giant in the U.S. Rimmel's products are inexpensive, experimentally colorful and, if you look outside the somewhat cheap packaging, of nice quality, considering everything in the line is well below $6. (Plus, there's that bit of London mystique associated with the brand, appropriate for a brand that features the eternally cool face of Kate Moss as its spokesmodel.) Starting this fall, according to today's WWD, Rimmel is expanding into other drugstores. No word on which ones, but the expansion will triple Rimmel's presence in the U.S., which means that those deprived fashion-conscious beauty junkies in major urban areas won't have to wait till trips home to get their curiously watermelon-scented, perfectly sheer lipstick in Flirt. (Or won't have to go into stores whose politics they consider problematic, for that matter.)

YOUTH DEW

There's an article in the NYTimes.com about verrrrrry expensive beauty creams and the rich women who love them. Cited are potions from La Prairie, Z. Bigatti and of course the cultish Creme de la Mer, which every skincare aficionada with dry skin swears is manna from heaven. It's a pretty bread-and-butter type of article, but it does point to how these items sell on very little advertising, creating an aura of specialness and exclusivity. However, there's no mention of Fresh's Creme Ancienne, which would strike me as the ultimate cult item: based on a 2nd Century A.D. prescription by a Greek physician and manufactured in a monastery in the remote parts of Norway, it's $250, and only 3,500 jars will be produced. Personally, I'm sticking with Dr. Hauschka's Normalizing Day Oil, which seems like a straight-up bargain at $29!