Update on Wexler Products

Previously on this blog I've written about celebrity dermatologist Pat Wexler's acne products.
I especially like her exfoliating cleanser. Unfortunately, I can't find it anywhere. I've been to several Bath and Body Works stores, in New Jersey and New York City, and all the stores are sold out. What good is a great product if you can't get it when you need it? Now I'm going to try Avenoo's new acne line, since I can by this cleanser at the drugstore. Expect reports soon.

Holiday Gift update

I love to give gifts. And I really love to give useful gifts. When I got married I gave my bridal party personalized terry cloth cosmetic bags. You can buy these bags at Pottery Barn. But I also found cute ones for kids in the Lillian Vernon catalog. Page 79. And at $13, you just can't go wrong.

By the way, my apologies for not blogging more this month. We just moved, and I was wiped out.

News from Ahava!

AHAVA revealed that Kristin Davis (aka Charlotte York) has signed on to be the international face of its famed, mineral-rich skin care line.
As part of this multi-year agreement, Ms. Davis will appear in AHAVA’s global advertising campaign, on the brand’s international web sites, as well as in various marketing and communications initiatives. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“Kristin Davis is an exceptional woman; she is talented, intelligent and radiates a joie de vivre,” said Yacov Ellis, CEO of Dead Sea Laboratories. “This partnership establishes a new era for the brand. We are thrilled to welcome her to the AHAVA family, and are looking forward to the coming years.”

Congrats Kristin!

Origins Handouts

What a great evening. I stopped by Origins at 84th and Broadway and left with a goody bag of products -- without spending a dime.

I asked for one sample, and left with half a dozen. Now that's a way to do business.

I'm looking forward to trying out Andrew Weil's Plantidote serum and using a little Peace of Mind on my stress points.

Blot, Blot, Blot

I never used to understand how or why people used blotting papers.

Then I started to ride to the subway in August.

And September.

And ...

It's hot down there.

And I sweat.

Boy, do I sweat.

So, I use Boscia's Green Tea Blotting linens to help control it.

These papers are great because they absorb so much of the sweat without disturbing your tinted moisturizer of choice.

Gloss, Set, Match!

I'm not sure how much I improved my service game tonight -- but I did hit a grand slam in lipgloss.

While waiting in line to enter the U.S. Open grounds, I asked a glamorous fan about her gloss of choice.

"Dior" she said.

"Number 488"

Then she held up the tube to show me how much product she had used. A lot.
Actually, she told me she had already used up one small size tube that she received in a gift set, liked it so much, she bought a full-size tube.

Answers to Your Questions

Dear Amy,
Thanks for your email. Here are two of my fave drugstore-brands of mascara.

If you want a good drugstore mascara:
1) L'oreal Telescopic mascara
2) L'oreal Voluminous mascara

If you have more $$$ to spend, you may want to try Stila's Multi-effect mascara. It works like a charm.

New Mom Beauty Questions Answered Here!

Earlier today I received an email from a friend in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Amy G. is a reporter with The Charlotte Observer.

She writes about all things business. She also pens a handy financial blog that you can read here.

Amy has a 9-month-old. Right now the new mom is looking for a makeup routine that's budget and time friendly.

Her email to me:
(comments have been edited for clarity and length)

"...So you know I don't wear a lot of make-up. No time. No skill (in applying). And I don't like to spend a lot of money on it.

Also, I don't like the heavily made uplook.
Still, I am tired of clumpy drugstore mascaras.
What are the best drugstore and non-drugstore mascaras?"

-------------------------------------------------------
My answers coming later this afternoon...

Skin Deep

The Times' Natasha Singer has written a funny piece about fall makeup.
You can read it here:

Skin Deep
No, I Haven’t Been Mugged. Why Do You Ask?
By NATASHA SINGER
August 23, 2007

YOU know fall is upon us when beauty companies start pushing femme fatale makeup.

Ideally, theatrical colors — mulberry lips, scarlet-fever blusher, black-widow eyeliner — should conjure a glamorous diva. But, in reality, a face anchored by a dark matte mouth and penumbral eyelids could easily qualify for the pages of Glamour Don’t.

“Look! It’s Grandpa from ‘The Munsters,’ ” exclaimed a colleague when I returned to the office last week wearing the latest fall makeup, freshly applied by a beauty adviser at a department store.

How to wear autumn makeup shades without looking as exaggerated as a female impersonator is an annual problem.

Every spring, cosmetics companies bring out new pink, pastel and terra cotta tones, marketing them with terms like “fresh,” “healthy” and “glowing.”

Come fall, the same beauty brands inevitably introduce deeper-hued jewel and berry shades, with slogans like “a return to glamour,” a marketing scheme intended to induce women who may have pared down their summer grooming routines to a bit of bronzer and a dash of lip gloss to reinvest in foundations and lipsticks.

Every year there are new names for this heavy-lipped, heavy-lidded look. Estée Lauder’s fall makeup collection is called After Hours. Prescriptives has The Seducers. Department stores are advertising Smokin’ Hot from Yves Saint Laurent Beauté.

But that is just rebranding. The look was old when Gloria Swanson wore it in 1950 in “Sunset Boulevard.” The practice of using color pigments to play up the seductive quality of eyes and lips predates even Cleopatra (the consort of Caesar and Mark Antony, not the movie in which Elizabeth Taylor disports with Richard Burton).

The question is whether a retro look befitting Norma Desmond or an Egyptian mummy could work on a contemporary woman who spends her working day not in a West Hollywood swimming pool or on a Nile barge but in a Midtown office.

I decided to sample the fall collections to find out.

PRESCRIPTIVES, MACY’S

Products used (11): concealer, foundation, liquid eyeliner, four eye shadows, eyelash primer, mascara, blush, lipstick.

Total cost of products used for makeover: $200.

Time spent: one hour.

The makeover started well enough.

A beauty adviser primed my face with a little concealer and foundation. Then she set about creating what she called “the fall eye.”

Using a black liquid eyeliner, she drew a thin line from the inner corner of my eye, widening it into a graphic block at the outer corner, which turned up into a 45-degree angle.

“It’s called the cat’s eye, or the Egyptian eye,” she said.

In combination with pale primed skin and nude lips, the thick eyeliner recalled Brigitte Bardot circa 1960. It looked intense, but it worked.

Then came the overkill: The adviser layered on white, black, purple and lilac eye shadows patted on thickly both above, and a bit below, my eyes. My eyelids looked like I had gone a few rounds with the heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko.

Next, she chose a lipstick called Purple Prose, which she applied above my lip line, halfway to my nose.

“It looks strong to you now because it is still summer,” the beauty adviser said. “But when the weather is cooler and you are wearing fall clothes, the makeup will fit right in.”

Somehow I doubted it.

I bought just the eyeliner.

YVES SAINT LAURENT BEAUTé, SAKS FIFTH AVENUE

Products used (14): exfoliating cream, face serum, eye cream, age-defying cream, concealer, liquid foundation, loose face powder, eye shadow compact (four colors), eyeliner, mascara, two blushes, lipstick, lip gloss.

Cost of products used in makeover: $941.

Time spent: 40 minutes.

“Feel your skin!” commanded the beauty adviser, taking my hand and running it along my face. “It’s so uneven. You have dry patches and your pores are clogged!”

Apparently the old negative reinforcement technique still moves products.

She remedied the situation by applying a $300 face serum and several other skin-care products to provide a smooth canvas, the better to show off the makeup, she said.

To create fall’s smoky eye, she used a new eye compact called Palette Esprit Couture. She started with a nude eye shadow as a base coat. Then came purple along the eye socket. And then a deep brown, patted all over the eyelids. She brushed on several coats of mascara and then used a blue eyeliner, drawing it along the lash line.

“See how much wider your eyes are!” she pronounced.

It looked good — if I were Avril Lavigne got up for a semiformal dinner at the captain’s table on a Bahamas cruise.

“Well, this is a nighttime look,” she conceded. “You can take it up or take it down.”

Tone it down, I suggested. She obliged with a lot of beige eye shadow under my brows, blending it into the dark brown to lighten it and cancel out the mauve.

To top it off, she chose a deep scarlet lipstick, using it liberally to enlarge the size of my mouth.

It was a look John le Carré described as “a fat lipstick mouth drawn over the little thin one underneath.” Not something to emulate.

Upon request, the adviser toned down my lips as well, applying concealer to the lipstick that had overrun my lips and adding a neutral lip gloss to mute the bright pigment.

At dinner that night, a friend said: “It’s not you, but it looks beautiful.”

I am going to use the eye shadows, remembering to skip the mauve and to go easy on the brown.

SEPHORA

Products: 1 lipstick.

Time spent: 10

minutes.

Cost: $10.

Lipstick sales have declined in the last decade while lip gloss sales have increased almost tenfold, according to NPD Beauty, a market research firm.

But don’t tell that to Sephora.

Earlier this month, Sephora installed signs in some stores trumpeting the idea that “Lipstick Is Back!” To bolster this notion, saleswomen, referred to in-house as “cast members,” said they had been encouraged to swap their glosses for lipsticks.

At the Times Square store, I installed myself at a long red table topped with lighted vanity mirrors and asked a beauty adviser to help me choose a fall lipstick.

“Do you want a classic red red or a deeper red?” she asked. “The pinkier red is easier to wear, but the classic red makes more of a statement.”

We chose Sephora Cream Lipstick 94, a take-no-prisoners matte tomato of a color described as “fierce” in the company’s fall catalog. Indeed, it was so fierce that I wondered whether I should wear foundation and eye shadow or at least a lip liner, some kind of cosmetic diversion to distract people from looking at it.

“You don’t need to wear makeup with that. You can wear it as a stand-alone,” said the woman, clearly a graduate of the soft-sell school of beauty advising. “Why, do you want a lip liner?”

She applied the red lipstick to my mouth, miraculously staying within the lines. The result was vaudevillian.

“It looks great,” she said. “You can pull that off.”

There are some women who can pull off cherry-popsicle lipstick. Madonna, say, in “Who’s That Girl?” Paloma Picasso. Gwen Stefani. But it was too bright for me.

Still, I have to admit I liked it. Even if it was too fierce, the lipstick served a purpose, providing an instant and welcome change, like a new haircut. It made me want to wear deeper lipstick shades this fall, albeit in sheerer formulas.

Reader, I bought it.

Warren-Tricomi

This past weekend, in East Hampton, I got to hang out with Edward from Warren-Tricomi. He was at White's Pharmacy, promoting his new haircare line and a sassy new hairbrush.
The haircare line has three steps.
*Shampoo,
*Protect hair/treatment
*Condition

The idea, says Edward, is to prevent damage to hair before it begins.
The products sell for roughly $25 each and they smell heavenly.
I believe they are infused with figs, which give them a sweet smell.
Here is a picture of Edward outside of White's Pharmacy.