If an older actor wants no gray hair for a big night—say, the Oscars—he must insist any haircoloring be done several weeks in advance. Most of all, he must not allow it to be shorn and dyed the night before or the day of, lest he look like a Ken doll with an odd, receding sprayed-on pate.
—Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director
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Though Laguna Beach is probably known best, clothing-wise, for bikinis and cute sundresses, it turns out that it's also home to a shop called Anastasia, which has some of the edgiest yet most compelling Japanese fashion that I've ever come across online.
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All editors are obsessed with Comme des Garçons parfums—and when I say all editors, I mean not just beauty editors, but editors from every department: fashion, art, photo, whatever. Everyone at Lucky asks me about Comme des Garçons. Everyone NOT at Lucky asks me about Comme des Garçons.
And I have few answers. The gatekeepers, the chic Comme des Garçons publicists, are as elusive and mysterious (and, I'd imagine, slinky) as jungle cats: While other companies messenger over bags and bags of products a month, in the past calendar year, Comme des Garçons has sent over exactly one fragrance (the new Play, pictured above, in the bottle with the scowling heart), and completely ignored a dozen e-mails and phone calls requesting other scents/candles/information/whatever. As is often tragically and pathetically the case in my personal life, this indifference and aloofness serves only to increase my desire.
If you, too, covet a little piece of CDG's obscure glamour for your own, most of the brand's fragrance collection is available for purchase on luckyscent.com—and they have the candles, too. —Cat Marnell, beauty assistant
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Last week I was deeply, entirely obsessed with winning this delicately embroidered floral top from the excellent eBay boutique Spanish Moss Vintage. I watched it every day for six days, waiting to pounce, until the price entered what was for me a completely unacceptable realm ($189 for a vintage top? No, no, no.). But I was miffed. I'd wanted that shirt, I'd even done that freaky shopping mania thing with it, where you fantasize a movie-love-story-like montage of all of the places you'd wear it and with what pieces in your wardrobe. Anyway, I had to let it go. Then, I was in Urban Outfitters the other night, and I saw this cool woven blouse, which is a similar idea to the original I'd lost. Sure it's not as intricate, but it's got the same '70s-flowers-and-fishnetting effect, and at just $58, I could buy it in nearly every color and still not pay as much as I would have for the one on eBay.
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Our fashion editors first called out the appeal of a crisp white tuxedo jacket in the Next Big Things guide in our January issue, and I've been craving one ever since. I've seen a few different iterations floating aroundthe market, and I think I've settled on this sharply tailored version with graphic black piping by Rag & Bone.
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It would be a fitting death for me, given my current line of work: A bit of my over-shampooed, -conditioned, -cut, -thought hair brushes up against a glowing, beautifully fragranced candle and poof! straight to hell in a beauty basket for me.
As it happened, I was sitting next to a calm, quick-thinking, and true friend when this scenario came almost to pass; I'd leaned across the table to kiss my six-year-old son, who was having an I-haven't-eaten-in-four-hours meltdown in the middle of a crowded, upscale restaurant.
Before I sensed a thing, my lifesaving friend had somehow grabbed my flambé-ing hair and put the fire out. Everyone but me—who missed the whole thing—was deeply horrified. Blackened bits of hair were all over the tablecloth; the smell was unbearable. "Does anybody smell ... like, burnt hair?" I heard a bartender querying the hostess. The already-hostile couples—it was a Friday night, and nobody was happy to see a tableful of kids on Date Night—coughed and held their noses. I went to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair in hopes of obliterating the smell. The only thing worse than burnt-hair smell, it turns out, is wet burnt-hair smell.
"You're going to need a serious haircut," said my friend.
"I'm definitely going to have to wash my hair," I said.Burnt hair is, perhaps unsurprisingly, very rough and split end-y. So after my shower later that night, I put in about a bottle of Philip B Hair Oil and left it on for a half hour, then washed my hair again. In the morning, I discovered that, miraculously, the fates preserved not just my life, but somehow, my haircut: The fire burned my Sally Hershberger layers just so. They must be shorter, but they are all still in proportion to one another. And the Philip B transformed the burnt, hardened ends back into hair, somehow. It's as if it never happened. —Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director
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I'm what they call "hard" on my clothes. I'm an accidental stainer, ripper, breaker, and I knock off buttons as if I'm leaving behind a Hansel and Gretel bread-crumb trail. Because I buy a lot of vintage clothes, these buttons can be awfully hard to track down, but without them, the pieces no longer look cute and old, they just look old. There are so many thousands of button options on eBay that you'll need to narrow your search down by texture, size, and color. For example, I recently found these 5/8-inch brown woven-leather buttons, which are almost identical to the ones I lost on a vintage fisherman's cardigan. Another bonus to buying new buttons on eBay is the right set can upgrade something you already own (I'm right now desperate to add these red matte ones to my pinstriped button-down). The best part is, sewing on buttons requires the most minimal of thread skills, or—even better—your dry cleaner will do it for really cheap.
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Every dermatologist I've ever met has emphasized the importance of taking care of your neck and chest. (Reading Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck certainly wasn't reassuring either.) And though I'm diligent about reapplying sunscreen to my face, wearing a hat, and slathering on repairing serums and lotions, I'm slightly less responsible with the rest of my fair-skinned body.
My new, simple, time-saving strategy: I've stocked an arsenal of antioxidant/sun-protecting/hydrating/toning sprays at my desk, which I plan to spritz on throughout the day, constantly bathing my skin—face, neck, and chest—in ... skincare. So far, I'm in love with these three options, but I'm totally open to suggestions. Please advise! —Dawn Spinner, associate beauty editor
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Desk lamps can be tricky, mostly because it's hard to find one that's practical but not so boring-looking that it could've been ordered out of an office supply catalog. I like this version from CB2, which is very similar in aesthetic to an old-school steel pharmacy lamp, only updated in super-glossy tangerine lacquer. Its brightness is offset by sleek lines and a rather dainty swiveling arm, so it's a good way to add a shot of color without having it overtake the rest of your space. If you're more of a minimalist, it also comes in white.
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