The Beauty Department

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FROM: The Beauty Department

Cindy Crawford Maps Out Her Makeup

2:06 PM, July 27 2009 by Lucky Staffers
jennifer scurby.jpgThe brilliant Sonia Kashuk, Cindy Crawford's longtime makeup artist, devised the idea of planning a week's worth of makeup looks in advance when she was on a trip with Crawford long ago. For every new outfit Cindy changed into during the week, they mapped out a different effect: Friday night: smoky eye + nude lip. Saturday night: black liner just along the inside of the lower lid + pink lipgloss; Sunday: a pale, shimmery eye + matte red lips, etc. Like Lucky's "A Month of Outfits": a nice, smart way to get the most mileage from your cosmetics bag and to stay out of a rut.

I love this idea. Commenters: What's your ideal week?

-Jennifer Scruby, contributing editor, Miami
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FROM: The Beauty Department

APPROXIMATE DIANE'S HAIR IN UNDER A MINUTE

12:00 PM, June 17 2009 by Simone Kitchens
Diane_CFDA.jpg

I loved June cover girl Diane Kruger’s hair at the CFDA Awards.  She looks super put-together, but at the same time, it looks pretty effortless.  I’ve been trying something similar recently, mostly because it’s rained every day for the last 3 weeks here in New York.  I start with my hair parted down the middle, then just gather it all up, twist it into a knot, and stick about 6 bobby pins in to secure it for the rest of the day.  I like it best by the end of the day, when it looks a bit looser and more natural. 

--Simone Kitchens, beauty assistant

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FROM: The Beauty Department

WHAT DO YOU USE WHEN YOU WAKE UP LOOKING LIKE A BAD CELEBRITY MUGSHOT?

7:08 PM, June 07 2009 by Cat Marnell
"A Little Death Around the Eyes" is the name of a Peter Doherty song I listened to en route to
Thumbnail image for cat.jpg
work. It also describes precisely how I look this morning! In fact, I look like Pete himself—puffy, a bit acned, etc.

Except I wasn't up all night teaching kittens how to inhale narcotics, or even making Youtube videos in the bathtub as I sang and splashed about in feckless delirium. Instead, I was on a Brooklyn stoop with a guy friend, waiting for a girl he likes to stumble out of a taxi sloshed on vodka ginger ales, dressed like Beetlejuice and screeching like a rabid gibbon about her 'stolen' (i.e. in her pocket the whole time) Blackberry. Incidentally, this is often what my friends mean when they convince me that something will be fun, which is why I often hate them.
ANYWAY: back to beauty! Miraculously, the following products transformed me in mere minutes today:
1)Philosophy When Hope is not Enough hylauronic acid/peptides capsules, which are little twist-off ampules filled with silky, oil-free serum. They're for dehydrated, stressed, and generally wack-looking skin. Like mine.
2)Bobbi Brown Tinted Eye Brightener, which I've raved about before: it's a liquid-y, highly pigmented (you just need a tiny bit) concealer/illuminator, and one of my favorite makeup items of all time.
3)Benefit Dallas Powder, which is an incredibly natural-looking bronzer/blush hybrid. It makes your face look just-at-the-beachy. Washing it off is sort of depressing. I'm not gonna lie.
4)theBalm Stainiac Tinted Gel Blush in Prom Queen is bright pink with a little apricot, and I love love love it. It blends really well (huge plus; I'm super-impatient) and is SO pretty as a lip color (re: shade name—my school didn't have prom queens, but they did have ME, slaggy in a hot-pink sequined miniskirt).
How do you avoid looking like a vampire bat on rough mornings? Do tell...
-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor
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FROM: The Beauty Department

STARTING TODAY: I'M WEARING RETINOL EVERYDAY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE

12:00 PM, May 25 2009 by Simone Kitchens
Neutrogena_serum.jpgI had always heard so much about retinol and all the amazing things it simone.jpgdoes for your skin.  Jean, Cristina, and Cat swear by it, but somehow it hadn’t really hit home, until today.  I attended a Neutrogena roundtable on retinol.

Starting the day you’re born, you begin accumulating sun damage.  So to answer the question: When should I start using products that contain retinol to combat signs of aging? NOW. Retinol reverses signs of sun damage. The scientist we met with was self-proclaimed ‘very very freckled.’  She started using retinol on her hands about a year ago, and had visibly way fewer freckles on her hands than her arms.  It was kind of incredible. 

If you’re just starting to use retinol, your skin may get irritated or flaky or feel tingly.  Try using it every other day until your skin acclimates. 

Wear it at night—retinol is photosensitive.

Of course there are prescription options available, but I am starting with the super-effective retinol you can buy right in the drugstore, like this serum from the Neutrogena Ageless Intensives line.

—Simone Kitchens, beauty assistant

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FROM: The Beauty Department

MIRACLE HAIRSPRAY CREATES HAIRSTYLE I CAN WORK WITH

12:00 PM, May 20 2009 by Jean Godfrey-June
Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Jean Aussie event picture final1.jpgIn under five minutes, stylist Sarah Potempa sprayed a bit of this Aussie hairspray into sections of hair, then twisted each section around the outside of a curling iron, and this was the result.

It was unbelievable that I liked something a stylist had done to me, but it was even more unbelievable that the stuff works like hairspray—as in, holds the loose, perfect curl—but is utterly undetectable, both to the eye and to the touch. Seriously. You can run your fingers through it and it feels like . . . hair.

—Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director






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FROM: The Beauty Department

RELATED AIRPLANE CLEANSING WARNING!

12:00 PM, May 19 2009 by Jean Godfrey-June
jean.jpgSomeone vehemently warned me the other day—there were
Thumbnail image for Burts_bees.jpgdisgusting reasons I've blocked out of my mind—never accept the heated towel!

I take Burt's Bees aloe & witch hazel hand sanitizer spray, and I use it practically every moment I'm on the plane.  And I haven't gotten sick in a very long time (knock on wood). And it smells pleasantly of cinnamon, not MRSA-situation-worsening chemicals.

—Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director

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FROM: The Beauty Department

GOOD SKIN ON A PLANE!

9:00 AM, May 19 2009 by Cristina Mueller
Like Em Hsieh, I find other people's flying strategies endlessly fascinating—mostly because I'm pretty crappy myself at planning it all out in advance. (I am about to take the flight to end all flights—upwards of 20 hours, about 12 hours longer than anything I've ever flown before). Invariably, instead of constructing my own clever airplane strategy, I'm always up at 1 AM the night before, trying on miniskirts and billowy shirts and floor-length gowns, trying to decide what sort of person I'm going to be on my trip (dreamy and bohemian? Sophisticated lady? Arty and quasi-French?)—it's either that, or I'm scrolling through the postings on airlinemeals.net (which I highly recommend you do at some point). 

Sorry, digression. Here's the only savvy travelerism I do know: When the flight attendant comes around with beverages, ask for a cup of hot water for tea, but without the tea bag—if you get close to the cup and breathe in the steam for a couple minutes, it functions like a makeshift face steamer (and god knows your skin needs the moisture). Second water-related tip: Bring a good-sized aluminum Sigg bottle (empty, obviously) with you, and every time the cart comes around, ask nicely if the flight attendant can fill it up for you. Those dwarf water bottles they hand out are not enough for a full-sized person.

—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor

PS: I'm sad I won't be in Terminal 5 at JFK to visit the fabled airport Muji store. But, oh, well, so goes—I'll have to get their collapsible cardboard speakers another time.


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FROM: The Beauty Department

AMAZING HAIR WEBSITE

12:00 PM, May 18 2009 by Jean Godfrey-June
To: Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director
From: Jen Ford, fashion news director
RE: Amazing hair website

People upload pictures of their recent haircuts at salons they name and comment on. Others say what they think!
Mopshots.com

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FROM: The Beauty Department

THE BODY SHOP = AWESOME

4:08 PM, May 12 2009 by Cat Marnell
Don't you love rediscovering a fantastic beauty product you'd totally forgotten existed? This morning I was at the Body Shop (they're coming out with amazing new makeup at the end of the summer, P.S.) when I spotted--and LUNGED for--a jar ofA bodyshop.jpgVitamin E Illuminating Moisture Cream. A It's pink and luminous, so it makes YOU look healthy and glowy, even when you were up until 3 am exploring completely useless websites like omnomnomnom.com. And unlike similar illuminating moisturizers--which are great on lovely skin but can be too subtle for the leaden glory that is MY morning face--this one isn't subtle: you WILL look, as I said, pink and luminous. Noticeably so (if you want to tone it down a notch, I also love the cream mixed with tinted moisturizer or a little foundation).

-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor


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FROM: The Beauty Department

ESSENTIAL MAKEUP TOOL: THE BUSINESS CARD

12:00 PM, May 12 2009 by Cristina Mueller
cristina.jpgNo matter what your favorite mascara, makeup artists are pretty much all on the same page when it comes to the right way to apply it: You’re supposed to wiggle the brush in right at the base of the lashes, they say, so it gets extra-extra-extra dark at the lashline, in a liquid liner sort of way. The beef I have with this application technique is that as soon as I dutifully work the brush into the roots, the bristles of the mascara wand go all the way through my lashes—as bristles are wont to do—and I get a weird morse-code tattoo of mascara smears on my eyelid. Sexy. 

The other day I met with the awesome Max Factor makeup artist Jake Bailey, and voiced my complaint. He pulled out a Max Factor 2000 Calorie Extreme mascara in Extreme Blackout 
MaxFactor.jpg
(N.B.: GO OUT AND BUY THIS RIGHT NOW. IT IS KILLER), took my business card from the table, put the card over my eyelid so the bottom edge was right at the lashline, and then wiggled the crap out of the mascara brush. Then he took the card away—perfect, unsmudgy, coal-black, crazy-awesome-super-thick lashes. The business card looked less good, but that's a professional sacrifice I'm willing to make.

—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor

*For more eye makeup tips click here.


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