Every Saturday night, it's the same: I leave my apartment looking like the Paris Hilton mug shot (glamorous, pulled-together), trudge home post-bar at 4AM looking like the Mischa Barton (rough, bleary), and awake Sunday as the Nick Nolte. Worse still are the nights I do the Nick Nolte without washing my face: Dangly earrings still in, mascara and eyeliner smudged everywhere—it's very Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs in his underground chamber vamping to "Goodbye Horses" in a kimono. My special hangover bathrobe exacerbates the effect.

But last Saturday I spent the afternoon in the basement of Barney's New York getting lash extensions—painstakingly, one by one—from Shu Uemura lash guru Soul Lee. It took two hours, but I left with crazy-long, glossy black lashes and the fixed-but-pleasant wide-eyedness of a Bambi or a Simpson sister.

The next morning, after a particularly punishing night on the town, I looked in the mirror. Though the hair was still totally Nolte, the face was not only mascara-free (you don't need it with extensions) but bizarrely bright-eyed, alert, ready to face the world (if ordering in two bagels and watching a gymnastics meet on TV counts as facing the world).

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the six promised weeks of this—while lash extensions are not inexpensive, I say they're well worth it for the willfully sleep-deprived.

—Cat Marnell, beauty assistant

I consider myself a fairly savvy, old-hand eBay shopper, so when I discover something I haven't seen before, well, I become beyond jazzed (did I just say jazzed? Apologies. My excitement has clearly overtaken my semantic taste). In any case, about a week ago, Sunflower Vintage left a comment on my Spanish Moss post suggesting I take a look at the eBay store Mama Stone. And so, today, I did. When I saw it, I had this thought: "Are these people for real? This stuff is AMAZING!" Honestly, I would buy almost everything in this vintage boutique at a real store, maybe even for full price. It has a lovely, earthy-cool aesthetic, and its stock is filled with soft leather jackets, flowy floral-print dresses, and neat shrunken blazers. I love this (virtual) place. You should check it out as soon as you can.

I regret not finding these boots sooner, given I can already tell I would have wanted to wear them every day this winter. I love their clean shape, and in black suede they're especially versatile. Given their moderate one-inch heels and lack of pointy-ness, they've got comfort going for them, too. The mid-calf height is good both to pair with skirts and to wear under pants (I've never been a boots-over-pants kind of girl, and trying to layer tall boots under jeans never feels quite right to me, even under straight-leg styles), and on top of everything else, they're $225, which seems incredibly reasonable for shoes I know have a real shot at getting daily use.

Armed with my Wonderbalm, I spent a frigid day outside of London in Kew Gardens—a massive, beautiful, royal botanical sprawl—bored, cold, following around the dullest tour guide EVER. (Horticulturalist humor is the worst: "If anyone ever offers you a cycad sandwich, you'd better turn it down! That's because gymnospermous plants are poisonous.") For real. Plant Surprise No. 1 came in the greenhouse, where I discovered a Coco de Mer nut, the thing that makes my favorite Molton Brown body lotion so perfect and delicate and moisturizing—a nut that, for no reason at all, I'd pictured as some sort of demure little macadamia or filbert. But no: It is GARGANTUAN, as big as a beachball, and slightly ... obscene. Huh. Who knew.

I finally peeled off from the tour group and went into the gift shop to warm up and got really, REALLY excited about Surprise No. 2: In the rare seed section they had this weird little ferny plant-thing that, when you touch it or blow on it or get near it, COMPLETELY FREAKS OUT, curls all its little fronds in on itself, and doesn't go back to normal for like 20 minutes. It's called "The Sensitive Plant." I bought it as a present—perhaps it was a bit foolhardy—for my boss.

—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor

* CRISTINA'S ADVENTURES IN LONDON: THE HOMECOMING

So why did the Sensitive Plant make Cristina think of Jean? Well, you cross Jean—say, for instance, you'd like her to revise the piece on lip gloss, or you'd like her to change the teensiest tiniest word on her column—and she stamps her little foot, as editor in chief Kim France likes to point out. As she supposedly stamps said foot, her face darkens and her tone becomes shrill.

What can I say? A perfect gift is just a perfect gift.

—Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director

Kew Gardens photo by Cristina Mueller

Forgive my possible idea theft. I know I've seen this cool decor project in some (perhaps multiple) magazines or catalogs at some (perhaps multiple) times before. However, it just sank in: I very much want to take a boring wall of a small room in my apartment, paint it a fun color like robin's-egg blue or burnt-marigold yellow, and then hang a bunch of different-size mirrors in a looks-random-but-
was-actually-thought-about-for-days pattern. While I could scour every vintage furniture store and mirror shop within a 1.5-mile radius of my home and lug home all my finds, this seems like a perfect project for eBay. This morning I found five items that are ideal to start me off: this round art deco style, this enormous distressed Victorian-looking piece, an oblong curvy model, a carved look, and this one, my favorite, which looksa??and opens upa??like a porthole.

Inexplicably, I find myself dwelling on the idea of wearing an adult onesie this summer—a little shorts-on-the-bottom romper that I can breeze around in on weekends in the city. Though my rational self wonders if this is too trendy and inappropriately kid-like for a woman approaching 30, I want one anyway, and so be it. I didn't have a fully formed vision of what exactly this mythical onesie should look like, but then I went on a work trip to Boston and came across this Opening Ceremony version, made of butter-colored silk. I was tempted to try it on, but didn't (who knows why), and then, of course, it lingered irritatingly at the back of my head for days. Which is why there's the Internet, right? L.A.'s oogaboogastore.com has it (it's such a good site, incidentally, with an intriguing, edgy-cool mix of artist multiples, books, and clothing by indie labels). I'm as drawn to it as I was in Boston: I love the row of delicate buttons down the front, and the way the straps crisscross in the back. The print and the fancy fabric help keep things sophisticated, and though the cut is appealingly loose, a drawstring at the waist ensures that your shape won't get lost in the shuffle.

In theory, you'd think a beauty editor wouldn't spend her extracurricular time shopping for beauty products—but like a bee to honey, I kept finding myself wandering the aisles of the Boots Apothecary near Trafalgar Square. While Boots has all the myriad brands of a regular drugstore, they've also got tons of amazing Boots brand skincare and makeup. Of particular note is the superhero-sounding Wonderbalm, which is my absolute favorite balm for lips (and cuticles, too), and tastes exactly the way marzipan should taste, but never does. Also of note: All Boots products are now available at Targets in the U.S.

—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor

If you really, really like someone, buy them a Spencer Peterman bowl. A dear friend just gave me one, and I think it's one of the best presents I've ever received. The designer scours forests for fallen trees, especially ones that are covered with moss and dirt and just beginning to decompose. Then he takes them back to his studio to handcarve and polish into smooth bowls in a myriad of sizes (mine is 15 inches—perfect for serving a big salad at a dinner party). It's so lovely: There's something poetic about transforming nature's waste into a gorgeous keepsake. Each piece is one of a kind and kiln-dried to suck out the moisture in the wood, so if you take care of it properly (which really just means using common sense, rubbing it down with mineral oil every so often, and not throwing it in the dishwasher), it could last forever. All the better to remind the person you've given it to of what a terrific friend you are.

I kind of have a massive crush on New Zealand designer Karen Walker's clothes. They're feminine but still really interesting and offbeat. The cuts are often unusual and, somehow, simultaneously sharp and soft. I wish I could wear things like this every day. But as is the norm for the things we truly covet, this line is bit pricey for my budget. So today I wanted to see if I could fulfill my Karen Walker fix on the cheap, went on eBay, and found some really fantastic, perfect-for-right-now items. I love this classic-with-a-twist puffed-sleeve trench, these fun wooden star earrings, a bow-front tee, and especially deeply, this insanely good navy-and-white dress.

David Drummond's Pleasures of Past Times bookshop (it's in a cobblestone alleyway between Tenderpixel Gallery and a store that claims to have "the widest range of portrait miniatures and snuff-boxes in all of Central London") can only be described as ... batty: If you are an aspiring young magician, a collector of Edwardian theater postcards, or a homesick time traveler from 1903, this is definitely the store for you. While I flipped through turn-of-the-century conjuring pamphlets and actress headshots, David Drummond regaled me with tales of how his ancient bookshop predecessor had been the delivery boy for Charles Dickens. True story. And lest ye think there's nothing beauty-related here, let me just say: Actresses of the 1910s were HOT. (And the scent of the place? Exactly that of D.L. & Company's musty, parchment-ey Ex Libris candle.)

—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor

David Drummond bookshop photo by Cristina Mueller