Simply Beautiful

Hello, darlings! I figured it was time to make good on my promise to post again, so here I am posting the very next day. I know, I'm proud of myself too!

It feels like a good time to rave about the absolute best beauty purchases I've made lately. Usually I just wash my face with Burt's Bees orange essence facial cleanser, throw on some generic drug store concealer, and call it a day, but there are two new additions to my beauty routine that are so wonderful I feel that it's my duty to share. They'll change your life - err, well, at the very least they'll change your beauty regimen - I promise. Lucky you!

Okay, first thing's first. Has anyone else tried H&M's new lip balm? It is glorious!

I usually wear plain old chapstick, because while lip gloss is more fun, I can't help but associate slickly shimmering lips with my painful middle school years. H&M's lip balm finds a perfect marriage between balm and gloss. It adds a bit of shimmer, but not too much, and it soaks into your lips just enough that you don't feel like your hair's going to stick to your mouth all day. Plus, despite the fact that it's labelled as vanilla-flavored, it pretty much just smells like warm, faint beeswax. Mmm. Doesn't taste bad, either, which is always a plus. And my perpetually chapped lips have never felt so smooth.

Moving on:

A long time ago I wrote that I was not a huge perfume fan. It seemed to me an invasion of other people's noses, one that they may not actually enjoy. However, this was before I stumbled upon The Scent That No One Could Possibly Hate. That's right - such a thing does in fact exist. And it's called Vanille Eau de Toilette by L'Aromarine.

I stumbled upon the cute French vintage-style bottle at Anthropologie the other day, and a little voice inside encouraged me to try spritzing a bit on my wrists. I sniffed hesitantly, then enthusiastically. This was it! The cheap perfume I had been looking for since I realized Serendipitous by Serendipity 3 and Pilar & Lucy's The Exact Friction of Stars were out of my price range. It smells like vanilla - warm, sugary vanilla. It's subtle enough that you could almost convince someone you weren't even wearing perfume, just lotion maybe, but strong enough that it doesn't wear away completely within a few hours. Plus, when the initial sugary scent fades, you're left with a quintessentially vanilla smell (kind of like slightly sweeter vanilla extract) that feels a bit richer and deeper than before. Mmm. It's my new favorite, especially at under $20 a pop.

My next step is to check out the rest of L'Aromarine's scents. The packaging is just too pretty to pass up! See for yourself.

Alright, folks. Have a great 4th of July! I'm off to Montreal for the weekend!

Finishing Touches

Sooooooo. . . New York Fashion Week. . .

So far, no particular collection has completely caught my eye (I'm waiting for Anna Sui, my usual favorite), but the makeup at Diesel Black Gold and the headdresses at Diane Von Furstenberg were beyond stunning.

At Diesel Black Gold, makeup artist Val Garland explained the look. "It's very young. It's all about the eyebrow. There's a nod to Alice Cooper. It's all about magenta and peacock blue eyebrows."

I've always loved that scary circus clown pointed-line-through-the-eye thing, but the colored eyebrows take it above and beyond. I've never seen that before, and I think it looks fabulous. Very cool, very playful, very party-all-night. Love.

On a very different end of the spectrum, Diane von Furstenberg's models sported the most gorgeous fairytale headdresses.

I love that these are floral without being at all "flower girl." The addition of the leaves, the feathers, and the strands of ribbons look like they should belong in A Midsummer Night's Dream, or perhaps in Neverland. Very unexpected, I think, from the woman who brought us bright wrap dresses in a myriad of graphic prints. I wonder if this new softness is just another short exploration into a part of Diane's large range, or perhaps a facet of her personality she has finally seen fit to share with us. Either way, I'm blown away.

Photos courtesy of Style.com and Fashionweekdaily.com, as well as the good cobrasnake man.