Simone Kitchens: "
Narciso Musc. It's kind of powdery and paper-y, in the best possible way."
Heather Summerville: "
CB Perfume To See a Flower. Smells like cut grass and wildflowers, with enough earthiness that it doesn’t fall into the trap of being too sweet. Also, in the dead heat of the subway in summer it doesn’t become grossly overpowering...unlike most people I’m crunched up against."
Me: I just came out of an epic meeting with the French fragrance company
Esteban, which means I'm wearing abundant amounts of three perfumes (not a recommended course of action, but each of them separately is pretty amazing):
Colere d'??pices on my knee (gingery/peppery, unsweet),
Tonka Bean in the crook of my left elbow (vanilla-ish, dark, woodsy), and on my right elbow,
Fureurs d'Agrumes (like the exuberant love child of an orange tree and a violet. Does that make sense? Clearly I've been sniffing French perfume for too long).
Tell us: What perfume are YOU wearing?
Ugh. I get why Europeans flee whichever cosmopolitan city they live in for the month of August; I get why
Congress is recessing now. August is downright crappy, and that's all there is to it (
"Let's Get Rid of August.") Even this year, where June felt
weirdly like March, I'm still sick of the muggy/dirty/party's-over vibe of August. Things are bleak. I mean, the death of
John Hughes.
But here ends my Eeyore moment: If you are feeling in any way similar, go RIGHT NOW to
Luckyscent.com, THE BEST perfume website in creation.
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We in the beauty department are rabid,
fanatical proponents of the Covergirl mascaras—
Lash Exact,
VolumeExact,
LashBlast—and await the release of new iterations the way
Twihards anticipate
New Moon. The latest, LashBlastLength,* doesn't actually roll into drugstores until September, but for a limited time starting today, they can be bought
here.*Not a half hour after I put it on, another beauty editor accosted me at an event: "Tell me. You got extensions, didn't you. Tell me the TRUTH."
For anyone who's picked up our September issue, you already know that we're kinda obsessed with
the makeup (and the adorable accompanying
makeup bag) designed by Christian Siriano for Victoria's Secret. This coming Saturday, August 15th, the line officially launches in stores—and the wunderkind himself will be at
the Herald Square store in New York from 12 PM to 3 PM, dispensing advice and free makeovers.
...I know, I know.
EVERYONE here is smitten with
Twilight and/or
True Blood. For my part, I've had a quietly crescendo-ing True Blood obsession—so much so that occasionally, apropos of nothing, I feel the need to exclaim "Sookie!" in Vampire Bill's pseudo-Louisianan accent (don't judge! I'm
not the only one!). So yeah, I admit, I got drawn into
Elise's post about Vampire rings, and yeah, I then found myself putting these moody
Absinthe goblet candles from
Victorian Trading Company into my basket. But check it! $3.99 for a set of what are CLEARLY Vampire candles! How can you not!
I paint my nails as often as I watch my Netflix movies--which is to say, almost never, and only then out of a sense of guilt (I know I
should watch
The General, but...). Then, suddenly, last week, I decided to get a manicure—and it made me want to be the sort of lady who wears high heels and pretty dresses and regularly balances her checkbook: A layer of
Essie Ballet Slippers, then a layer of
Essie Limo-Scene, then shiny shiny
topcoat. I loved it—totally classic in every sense. It almost made me want to watch The General.
So: What polishes do you combine?
More from Luckymag.com:
UK Beauty Obsession! Eyeko Nail PolishesCivilian Product Rave: OPI No Room for the BluesNail Trick I Can't Believe I Didn't Know
The two adjectives that best describe my hair are "lank" and "spiritless;" thus, I've never had occasion to truly test-run a flatiron. But I now have new information from not one, but TWO reliable, independent sources, both lifelong flatironers: Of all the irons in the land,
the GHD iron is the very,very best. It works better than anything else for both straightening and curling, they say, and it heats up in, like, 2 seconds; that said, it is not cheap ($225)—but neither person regrets the investment. So: Are my sources correct? Are they spending foolishly or styling wisely? WHAT IS THE BEST FLATIRON EVER?
--Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor
Reader
ersatzkat in our comments section:
"I
found a drugstore brand called Gosh while vacationing in Dublin this
spring--lovely eyeliners, not super-cheap but reasonable and cool
colors."
... And I was off: It's a well-documented fact that
I love a foreign beauty product, and so I fell into a rabbit hole of Web searching and learned that the line
is actually Danish and makes all manner of awesomely unsmudgeable eyeliners (among MANY other things—nail polish, blush, primer, etc.). Even better, there's a North America website,
with e-commerce: Word on the street (the
Makeup Alley Street) is that the
Velvet Touch waterproof liner is killer. Ten bucks—not bad.
So, readers: Any other Gosh* favorites?
*Simone speculates that perhaps the Danes pronounce it "Gauche"?
—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor
They're two very different things, right? For me, it's
Petite Cherie, which was made by perfumer Annick Goutal for her daughter Camille. It landed on my desk a year ago when we were researching amazing products with pear as an ingredient, and since then, I've sprayed it pretty much every day to get through the bleak 3-4 PM time block. Like I say, not sexy, per se, but sweet and bright and sort of nostalgic, if that makes any sense—like the best, ripest pear you ate as a kid. Bottom line: it makes me happy.
So: Yours?
—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor
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.
--Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor
