The Beauty Department

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FROM: The Beauty Department

Hands softer than even the non-threatening caress of Zac Efron--for only $2!

10:53 AM, July 13 2009 by Cat Marnell
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I was going to do the mature thing and blog only about the very cute Avon hand creams on the left ($.99 each!), but THEN I noticed that avon.com has an AMAZING selection of OMG-worthy teenybopper (in the best possible way!) beauty alternatives! How amazing are these High School Musical hand creams?! Given that I'm a grown person who occasionally buys BOP magazine from the newsstand in her office building lobby newsstand (DOES Zac eat bugs? I needed to know!) and has visited the personal weblog of Frankie Jonas (a.k.a the "Bonus Jonas", age 8), Disney-infused bath and body products speak to me. Am I alone?

-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor

**Are you hugely fresh-faced and bright-eyed this Monday morning? Me neither! Click here for tips on faking that whole luminous, healthy-glow thing.
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FROM: The Beauty Department

Shower gel update: Suggestions please!

9:00 AM, July 07 2009 by Cristina Mueller
I have loved SO many body washes over the years—but it just so happens that all of mine ran out at the same time, and I figured, why not change things up a little. What are your all-time favorites? These are the three I think I've loved the most, even though the only thing I think they have in common is their awesomeness:

1. Molton Brown Black Pepper Body Wash. This one rightly belongs to Jean, who has been a fierce Black Pepper Body Wash proponent for ages. Excellently spicy and peppery, as you'd expect, and not sweet at ALL. Can't even hazard a guess about how many bottles I've gone through in the past five years.

2. Johnson's Baby Oil Body Wash. God, so great: fresh-smelling, sweet in all the right ways, insanely moisturizing, and ridiculously cheap. The saddest beauty fact I've learned in recent months: This is officially being discontinued. Tragedy. I think you might be able to find it in certain drugstores, but not for long.

3. Ren Moroccan Rose Otto Body Wash. You know how everyone protests the scent of rose? This will completely change your mind. The scent is AMAZING—like a subtle, unplaceably beautiful perfume—and it's all-natural. 

For the next move, I'm thinking of going old-school with Neutrogena Rainbath or Dr. Bronner's almond castile soap. Weirdly, I've never tried either one. But I gladly welcome other ideas...

--Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor


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FROM: The Beauty Department

INADVERTENT SEPHORA SPENDING SPREE

9:00 AM, July 01 2009 by Lucky Staffers
Bliss.jpgFrom: Hope Greenberg
To: Cristina Mueller
Subject: ...

...so I just came back from Sephora, where I went to buy one tube of sunscreen and ended up with $130 worth of products, among them Bliss' Vanilla+Bergamot Body Butter. Normally, I hate anyA food-related fragrance on my body, but the vanilla just takes the edge off the bergamot and you're left with an exotic, spicy scent that reminds me of a Moroccan bazaar.
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FROM: The Beauty Department

GOJI BERRY IS NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS.

9:00 AM, June 16 2009 by Cat Marnell
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Antioxidants are the Harvey Weinstein starlets of the beauty industry: When they're hot, they're hot, but there's always another waiting in the wings to strut down the red carpet in Marchesa. Or be formulated into a skin cream. Whatever. Stay with me.

Enter lilly pilly, a vitamin-C packed, naturally exfoliating Australian rainforest tree that actually sounds like someone Harvey would cast in his next Jane Eyre adaptation. It's the key ingredient in a new line of Australian, all-natural bath and body products--fittingly named LILLYPILLY--and it's hugely antioxidant.

But to be real, more important to ME is that there's a super-softening hand/body cream, which I didn't realize was awesome until I washed it off and my hands felt instantly like withered callouses of death. It's thusly obsessive-application-worthy. Try it!
-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor
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FROM: The Beauty Department

BEAUTY NEWS ROUNDUP: DINA LOHAN HAS A NEUROGASM

5:21 PM, May 21 2009 by Cat Marnell
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Britain's Daily Mail reports a rise in UK adults getting braces, lamenting that "we, like the Americans, have become neurotic in our quest for the perfect smile." First we were all, "This from the country that brought us Bridget Jones and every Hugh Grant character ever? WE'RE neurotic?!" Then we remembered Tom "dizzying neuroses" Cruise and his unfortunate braces phase. The UK wins. (Daily Mail Online)


Hold on tight, spider monkeys! Robert Pattinson’s hair was EXTRA-wild at this presumably Twilight-publicity-machine-ordered photo op at Cannes. Let the man rest! We need him! He’s like our own personal brand of heroin! We’ve never wanted a human’s blood so much before! AS IF HE COULD OUTRUN US. OK. We’re done (for NOW). (New York Post’s Popwrap, Youtube)

More hot hair at Cannes, this time on current Lucky cover star Diane “even-
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Karl-approves” Kruger. Learn how to imitate her sexy fishtail-braid here. (Bellasugar)

We never tire of this: the best and worst of celebrity skin! Since our Dina weirdly didn’t make either list, we’re getting our daily dose from her completely brilliant (“I will not let that keep me down while being CREATIVE, neurogasm in han”) Twitter account. Speaking of which, do you follow Lucky on Twitter yet? (Total Beauty, Twitter)

Supermodel sass never gets old! “When you’re a great beauty, it’s always downhill for you,” says Iman, of eponymous-and-fabulous-cosmetics-line fame. “If you’re someone like Mrs. Obama, you just get better with age.” ZING! (Afro.com, Iman Cosmetics)

A glamorously-mohawked French fragrance designer will debut his scent opera, “Green Aria”, at the Guggenheim Museum. Hey, did you know that stenches like vomit, rotten fish, and urine are "as essential to a perfumer’s palate" as rose and citrus? Now you do! (Wall Street Journal)
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FROM: The Beauty Department

SO I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE BODY SHOP

9:48 AM, May 13 2009 by Cat Marnell
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The products are just consistently amazing, no? Everyone is obsessedA
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A with at least one: my favorite beauty item of all TIME (please appreciateA how huge a statement that is from me!) is from the Body Shop--if you'veA read our June issue, you know what it is. Simone's is the Tea Tree Oil; ourA editor in chief'sA assistant and sometime guest-blogger Emily McCarthy's is the Coconut Oil Hair Shine; Cristina's favorite is the Brazilian Nut Butter.

So. What's yours?

-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor
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FROM: The Beauty Department

CHRIS MARTIN LOVES IT!!!!!

6:00 AM, May 08 2009 by Jean Godfrey-June
jean.jpgAnd he’s not the only one: Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode is also apparently a huge fan of t-spheres, an aromatherapy-emitting self-massage ball. The genius Wei Lang has incorporated the t-spheres into the massages at her loved-by-all-Lucky-operatives spa in Manhattan. Not only do you get the t-spheres incorporated into your massage at the spa, they send you home with them afterwards.

—Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director

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FROM: The Beauty Department

RIGHT AFTER I RAILED AGAINST THE SELF-TANNER JUGGERNAUT...

3:00 PM, May 06 2009 by Cristina Mueller
cristina.jpg…I succumbed to the siren song of this J.Crew skirt that Emily blogged about (it’s on sale now! I got it in the pale gold!), put it on to go to a nice family dinner in New Orleans, and found that this awesome tinted leg gel played a crucial role in making me look respectable enough for my genteel Southern aunts. Now. It had very little to do with disguising my extreme whiteness (which I’ve essentially come to terms with—thanks, all). It had more to do with the spotted landscape of ant bites on my ankles (within hours of landing in Louisiana, I stepped into a fire ant nest); and the alarming shin bruises, origin unknown, that made it look like I had been attacked by a very angry and powerful toddler.  So, yes: My legs needed help.

Anyway. Here are the reasons this gel is so awesome:

1)    It’s not a self-tanner, it’s a tint—and a subtle one at that. Meaning you see the results, understated as they are, instantly. No midday orange surprises.
2)    Unlike self-tanners, it has absolutely no scent. And all self-tanners smell, at least a little bit. It is their nature to smell. Some people mind it, others don’t.
3)    Once on, it doesn’t come off on clothing. Why it doesn’t, I can’t tell you—but it doesn’t.
4)    Don’t like your newly even-toned skin? Rinse it off with soap and water. Simple as that.

--Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor

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FROM: The Beauty Department

Speaking of lemons: ASK A BEAUTY EDITOR!!

11:37 AM, April 27 2009 by Jean Godfrey-June
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Q: Besides the smell of soap, nothings smells like clean to me like lemons. I'm looking for a perfume that smells like fresh cut lemons—any suggestions?

Picture_5Picture_6 A: I happen to be lemon-scent obsessed. Best fresh-lemon scents of all time, in my opinion: Acqua di Parma, the new Prada (it claims to be orange-flower, but I get lemon), L'Occitane honey & lemon, Fresh Lemon Sugar, and Tom Ford Portofino. And the C.O.Bigelow lemon hand cream is amazing.

None of these are JUST lemon, mind you—for that, your best bet is Burt's Bee's Lemon Bath & Body Oil, which I A) use as perfume, B) cannot take a bath without, C) mix with other, fancier bath oils to make their scents better and to add actual oil to the mix, as many "bath oil" are foaming, detergent things rather than the oil that I must have or I turn into dust after a hot bath, Picture_7Picture_8 D) should be bought in bulk because it's so cheap and brings so much joy, E) is green green green.

—Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director

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FROM: The Beauty Department

Which Step Do You Skip?

10:55 AM, April 22 2009 by Lucky Staffers

I once interviewed a famous actress who told me the secret to her mind-blowing youthfulness and serenity: Every morning, right after her bath, she spent fifteen minutes rubbing a sesame oil all over herself. She insisted that I get cracking on this right away. We compared leg dryness—I swore I'd seen the light. You know where this story is going... I haven't used the sesame oil once. In fact, I rarely even spend one minute slathering myself in body lotion. Now, however, that dermatologist Lisa Airan has turned me onto Olay Body Wash Plus Radiance Ribbons, I can happily sidestep the after-bath lotion moment altogether.

What are the good beauty intentions that YOU can't quite pull off? And how do you compensate?

—Jennifer Scruby, contributing editor

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