Love Potion No. 5

Et finalement, I think it's fitting that we end with a high-end, tried-and-true French cosmetic that's been covering the asses faces of over-forties women for more than a decade:

YSL Touche Éclat, $50.00 CDN

They call it a concealer. I tend to use it, um, liberally. Which is why it probably isn't going to last the 6 months it's supposed to. I would totally recommend it. My mother and I both bought a tube (I'm a 1, she's a 2) and we each look refreshed and even-toned when wearing it. Note: There's a lot of good foundation out there now - I mean concealer. So you probably don't need to spend $50 bucks on this if you want a suitable product. Having said that, it's an extremely beautiful cosmetic that lives up to its claim. It's practically nanotechnology, peeps! (And it goes with your Akris resort.)

Post Holiday Holiday

Just got back from a delightful - and rather hideously acquisitive - vacation. First thing I did was check with my neighbour on the long-awaited Figleaves parcel and, thankfully, it arrived while I was gone. As did a batch of We Live Like This product, which I bought while away and which the Auberge St. Antoine offered to deliver free of charge.

Talk about sublime. Nothing like coming home to a bunch of gorgeous lingerie and fancy product. And it's already paid for (unlike about 8000 other things :-))!

Oh, and the pièce de résistance: Every freakin' item fits parfaitement!! Seriously, it's like I had it all custom made - particularly the body suit (which I'm going to wear ad nauseum as soon as the weather turns). How unlikely is that, I ask you?

Not that I'm complaining...

I have so much to tell you, but I'm practically comatose with post-vacation info overload and holiday-brain. I'm sure the snippets are going to come at you for a long while to come though...

So, to kick things off, has anyone here bought from Figleaves or from another online lingerie vendor? If yes, what? Thoughts or feelings?

Love Potion No. 3

Diorshow Blackout Mascara, $31.95 CDN

By all rights, potion 3 is a cosmetic. But I'm not going to let that stand in my way!

I'm one of those women who's always searching for the elusive eyelash perfector. In truth, my eyelashes are adequately long, so I am frequently told. I just like to plump them up a little. For drama.

According to the experts, when you plump you can either "thicken" or "volumize" (I know, the market-speak is iffy...) I tried to determine the difference between the two, and the best I can tell you is that volumizing is vaguely better than thickening. Don't ask me why. There was too much pseudo-science involved for me to commit it to memory. As luck would have it, Diorshow does them both.

I have a friend who insists that the best mascara is from drug stores. In her view, you get nothing more from paying $32.00 for mascara than for paying $7.95. In fact, the cheap stuff is more effective, in her opinion.

In my opinion, packaging counts. As does the fantasy encouraged by good marketing. So I'm the idiot who paid big bucks for eyelash volumizer.

But you know what? It's excellent.

No clumping (my peeve bar none), it does thicken (I mean volumize) and the colour is dramatic without making me look like a goth.

Could it be cheaper? Yes. But I just might buy it again.

Fait A-Cassis

You know I've been rather conservative in my spending habits of late. It's good. The bills are easing off - which is to say "being paid". So yesterday I decided - having truly run out of all my beauty staples - it was time to have a smidge of fun.

After work I hightailed it to Holt Renfrew - to the Bobbi Brown counter - with visions of gel eyeliner dancing in my head. I seem to be preoccupied with it. I had a practical mandate as well: the latest tube of my fave BB lipstick (Cassis) just came to an end and, as it's the only kind I wear (yes, boring I realize) I needed to replace it stat. Cuz I don't leave the house without lipstick - and flicking out the last bits with my finger and smearing it on is just trashy. Though strangely effective.

At any rate, at the BB counter I learned some shocking truths:

The gel eyeliner, it of massive fame, is a very reasonable $25.00. Alas that doesn't include the brush you need to purchase to apply it - that's another $25.00. And then you have to clean the freakin' brush after every use?! I don't know about you but high maintenance make up just isn't going to fly. As I've said at least a hundred times, I'm a working mother homeowner. I don't have time to clean brushes. (Note that when I expressed this to my husband he suggested that somehow I have no time to clean brushes but I can find 7 hours to make a tart. Whatever.) Why didn't anyone mention this when talking up this product?

Now I had eyeliner on the brain. I'd been thinking about it for weeks. So I was destined to walk out of there with something. My very helpful SA suggested a liquid Lancome product - not a brand I know anything about - that comes in a little tube in smoke colour. Hello? What a terrific idea. It would be great for redheads. I have very green eyes and it looks terrific on me. It's not as severe as black so maybe blonds would appreciate it? Anyway, that was a no-brainer purchase. I'm very satisfied. Esp. since it is much easier to apply than the free L'oreal stuff I got a while back. Not cheap though at $36.00.

But wait, there's more.

I asked for my Cassis and I was told it has been discontinued. What?!?!? It is my only shade. It is a perfect shade - kind of plum meets red with almost silent undertones of brown. I've been wearing it for decades. Seriously. How could they have cancelled it? The SA commiserated. It was her fave flave as well. Apparently, it's everyone's fave. No one can understand what kind of corrupt corporate politics could have resulted in this cold discontinuation.

Of course, it was time - through my haze of trauma - to move on. A girl can only bitch about the loss of lipstick options for so long. So I reviewed the other 8000 BB shades for a suitable replacement.

OK, is it just me or does Bobbi Brown sell 8000 shades of lipstick that are basically all the same colour? Which is brown, by the way.

She should be calling her line Bobbi Tawny Brown and just be done with it.

I couldn't distinguish one taupe from another. Eventually, I went with the plumiest brown there was (trust me it's a stretch) and when I turned over the tube to see what it was called, discovered I had actually bought it a couple of times before - during my occasional "branch out" phases. It's called Raisin. But don't let that fool you, it's brown. And it seems even browner now than it did when I bought it a few years ago. Although, that could be in my imagination.

Without question the Bobbi Brown lipstick is a superior product, colour notwithstanding. I can't give up on the brand yet, though I am considering waging a grass roots campaign called "No More Nude" (nude being the ridiculous industry term to describe pale and not an accurate reflection of the colour of many actual nude people).

Care to join me?

Potion Alert

The part of me that believes how one ages is in direct relation to a) genes (first and foremost), b) staying out of the sun and c) spending buckets of money on product is at odds with my underlying suspicion that I'm frittering away disposable income on snake oil plus chemicals to absolutely no effect.

Nonetheless, I am a newly 39-year old woman who wants to retain her sexy, youthful pout for at least as long as Angelina. Enter: NeoStrata Anti-Wrinkle Lip Enhancer. At $36.00, it's only slightly less than a dollar per year of pursing. C'mon, a veritable deal, no?

There are all kinds of rules for wearing it: must apply 3x per day (morning, noon, night), it contains niacin so tingling may occur (though it's a very small amount). (As a daily niacin-taker, I can assure you this has nothing on the real vitamin.) You have to use it up within 60 days or it starts to lose efficacy. Genius on that marketing. It has a fancy, spongy applicator - to make you feel like they've done lots of R&D and you will most certainly get your scientific money's worth.

Has anyone else tried this beauty product? Thoughts or feelings? I'm going to give it 60 days and then I'll report back.

Succulently yours, Kxo

Update: I've been using this for a week now and I LOVE it. I don't know if I'm any poutier or more youthful but it feels great and I sense that I'm poutier and more youthful!

Better Late Than Never

A while ago, I promised a coupon for the L'Oreal Paris Beauty Tubes mascara. In case it appeals, here you go:

Yet Another Thing I Love...

Though I have the, ahem, glowiest visage thanks to my sebaceous glands, that doesn't mean I'm immune to "It's minus 5 and my legs are so itchy tight I'm going to rip them off" syndrome.

Enter my winter stand by:
The Weleda (pron. Wel-eh-da) brand has the benefit of being widely available online and in health food stores / pharmacies around the world. This fantastic rose body oil is entirely natural and sustainably produced from plants grown organically by partners whom the corporation respects. It absorbs relatively easily (but put it on slightly wet skin to enhance this). It even removes press-on tattoos in a jiffy (don't go there, I meant the kid's) without hurting or drying out the skin! And it's Swiss. Need I say more?

Now it's not cheap, given how much I use, but what price soft skin? And I really do believe it's staving off wrinkles and sag, especially on the thin-skinned chest meets neck area. (Mind you, I'm the girl who spends 60 bucks on an ounce on sunblock so use your best judgement...) 3.4 ounces will set you back $29.00 CDN. That lasts about a month.

Just realized that I really have been all "go buy this" with the beauty products lately. Hmmm, could this be recession-inspired? A little bit of luxury in a haywire economy? Or maybe I'm just acting French.

New Thing I Love

Y'all know how I have the oiliest skin in the land. Indeed, it's hardly genteel to shout this from the rooftops, but if I had a dollar for every Clean and Clear oil absorbing sheet I've applied to stem the problem, I could have 3-bedroom-with-a-view on Park Avenue. Yes, the kind with a concierge. :-)

You'd think, by the age of 38, I might have moved into less-greasy mode, and I suppose I have. It's just that less greasy by my standards still means "requiring large volume of loose powder" by yours. So I am shocked, and thrilled, to report a new product (really two new products) that have radically diminished the shine while improving the glow. (Could a line actually live up to its far-flung claims???)

Meet L'Occitane Brightening Renewing Serum:

(I got this on my excursion with Yulanda in early September. At the time, I thought I was high on drugs for spending $60.00 on something to "de-age" and "brighten" me. But I'm not proud. I bought it. And it really is firmalicious!)

It worked so delightfully - not to quell grease as much as to "firm" and "redefine" my "aging skin" - that I allowed (ok, asked) my mother to buy me the Immortelle Very Precious Fluid SPF 40.

Yes, I use sunscreen 40 and when my skin looks baby soft line-free at the age of 85, you can credit the SPF (or the fact that my sebaceous glands will have been basting my visage in grease for 8 and a half decades). But I will give it all up to the block. The only problem: it costs $56.00 CDN per ounce. Wait, let me sell you on the concept.

On entering the store, L'Occitane bombards you with these pretty "French Country"-esque flowers called fleurs immortelles. As in immortal, get? The "cool factor" (they quickly advise) is that the flowers have been out of water for months but they are still, like, flowery. And not so much dried flowers as flowers that are living sans water. Oooh. Contained within these little buds is the veritable secret of youth!! (They tell you this outright in case the metaphor didn't take.)

Immortelle fluid is the basis of both the Very Precious and the Renewing Serum. In fact, some people can't take the "volatility" of both products on a daily basis. Of course, I'm not one of them. Which is why I get to spend on both. But the benefits are also two-fold. (OK, I made that part up.)

This is the fantastically weird claim which appears to be true: If you've got oily skin, the SPF40 version of the Very Precious - as opposed to the less expensive SPF 15 version - is the indicated formula.

You know how usually when you have greasy skin, the higher the block, the more like a basted turkey you look by the end of the day? And the more likely you are to breakout and feel bad about being some almost-40-year-old with zits? Well, mysteriously, the 40 works better than the 15 to mattify and calm the oil glands?!?! Now, not having tried the 15 I cannot corroborate that it wouldn't do as well, but the 40 is pure awesome on this account. So awesome I intend to continue spending $56.00 for the foreseeable future.

Has anybody out there tried this line? If yes, I'd love to know if you concur with my assessment.