Makeup and Beauty Blog: Makeup Reviews, Beauty Tips and Drugstore Beauty Finds

I am flat-out hooked on Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle perfume, but I’m afraid it might be too heavy for warmer spring weather, so I’ve been sniffing around for a lighter, fresher spring fragrance. I call my search Spring Fragrance Quest. I’m on a mission to find something either citrusy or floral, or maybe even a combo of both, and this morning I headed over to the mall to check out Enchanted Orchid, the new fragrance by Bath & Body Works.

Enchanted Orchid’s pretty purple-pink packaging immediately caught my eye (those are Phalaenopsis orchids on the labels!). For some reason, the words Enchanted Orchid make me think of a magical plant creature with the power to hypnotize passers by. I guess I’m just weird like that…

Bath & Body Works Body Lotions ($10) and Eau de Toilettes ($19) are usually my faves, so I gave the Enchanted Orchid versions of both of them a good sniff. Right off the bat, I caught the whiffs of violets and gardenias. Enchanted Orchid’s fragrance notes include:

• Top: Pink grapefruit, wet greens, waterlily and crisp apple
• Mid: Calypso orchid, gardenia, delicate iris and violet petals
• Base: Vanilla orchid, heliotrope, creamy amber and skin musk

I would characterize it as a combo citrus-floral blend. I slathered lotion on my left arm and sprayed the Eau de Toilette on my right. Then I wandered around the store to let the Enchanted Orchid creature work its magic on my body chemistry. After 10 minutes, I gave both arms another strong sniff… First thing that came to mind: Play-Doh! None of the initial fruit and floral notes came through. No more violets, apples, nothing — all I smelled was vanilla, which inevitably reminded me of good ole’ fashioned Play-Doh.

Now, I can appreciate a good can of Play-Doh as much as the next toddler or tyke, but I don’t exactly want to cruise around smelling like a kindergarten art class, so I’m going to have to pass on Enchanted Orchid.

Spring Fragrance Quest continues!

Next up — the fragrance counter at Nordstrom! Do you have any spring fragrance recommendations for me? What should I check out next?

Purchase Enchanted Orchid body products online at Bath & Body Works nationwide.

It’s Friday, ya’ll! To top it off it’s an extra day (Leap Year), which for some reason makes today seem even better, like a special bonus prize. I got home late last night from dancing and am totally exhausted. The DJ played old school hip hop from the ’80s and ’90s, and I danced my booty off on the dance floor!

At some point the DJ transitioned into playing Barry White. I was too into my dancing zone to really notice at the time, but when I finally figured out what had happened, it was like a disco fantasy. All that was missing were my roller skates and feathered hairdo. ‘Twas awesome.

Face it: Barry White couldn’t get enough of your luuurve, baby.

There’s a price to pay for all my boogie-ing down last night: today I’ve got dark circles from hell, LOL.

Happy Leap Year, cuties, and happy, happy Friday! What do you have lined up for this weekend?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Lancome’s got a video on Youtube celebrating Pixel Pink Color Fever Shine lipstick, the limited edition shade created for fashion designer Thankoon Panichgul’s Spring 2008 runway show. While the entire video is an interesting insight into the inspiration behind the lipstick and the backstage goings-on at NY Fashion Week, my favorite parts are the animated sequences of “moving paintings” by experimental filmmaker Jeff Scher.

Still shots of Jeff’s moving paintings

There’s a segment at the beginning when Thankoon talks about what inspired the Pixel Pink shade (it starts at the 00:52 mark and runs through about 01:12) where you see the first animated series of Jeff’s paintings. They’re brightly colored, with vivid blues, greens and reds, and tell the story behind Thankoon’s muse, a carefree girl who ditches her job and moves to Hawaii to hang out, surf and to wear pink lipstick. Um, hello, Thankoon — that’s like, my life dream.

(Note: This video is only about 3 minutes long, not the 9 minutes reflected in the player.)

I love the video sequence in which the paintings change in rapid succession and the one with the Jeep (complete with surf boards in the back) driving over the Haleiwa Bridge on the North Shore of the island of Oahu:

… and here’s the real life Haleiwa bridge!

The bridge shots lead into a sequence in which Thankoon’s muse goes surfing. I so want to be this girl!

I’m purchasing my tube of Pixel Pink online from the Lancome Web site, but if you can’t wait for online delivery, you can also get it from Lancome counters at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus department stores, or at one of the five Lancome boutiques nationwide. And then there’s also ordering by telephone. To do it you’ll need to provide your credit card number and address over the phone. Here are numbers to the five U.S. Lancome Boutiques:

• Manhattan, New York: (212) 362-4858
• The Mall at Short Hills, New Jersey: (973) 258-0790
• Northpark Mall in Dallas, Texas: (214) 750-9364
• Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, California: (408) 244-8334
• Brea Mall in Brea, California: (714) 671-0267

Let’s just drop everything and head to Hawaii next week. Come on, the warm tropical breezes, the white, sandy beaches, the hot surfer dudes… YES!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

The sun’s shining in my ‘hood, so a few days ago I dug through my closet, aka the 10th circle of hell, to find my favorite spring sandals. I found them but ended up wearing Adidas Shell Toe sneakers to work instead, because, when I took my socks off and examined my feet closely, they looked pretty gross — flaky heels, dry toes, gnarly cuticles. Ewww! Even though I’ve been good about moisturizing those bad boys at night, my feet still looked rougher than Bobby Brown’s mug shot.

To get them sandal-ready, first I made a weekend appointment for an overdue pedicure. Next, I busted out a tube of Philosophy Soul Owner exfoliating foot cream ($14 for a 3.3 oz tube) to do some interim damage control.

An exfoliating foot treatment with alpha and beta hydroxy acids, Soul Owner reduces dry, flaky skin and exfoliates callouses. Eucalyptus oil, which works as an emollient and skin refresher, gives the cream a fresh, masculine herbal scent. No flowers or fruit here.

The thick, non-greasy formula felt like a body cream, so it took me a few minutes to work it into the skin. The coolest thing (literally) about this cream is the subtle cooling sensation it produced when I massaged it into my heels, soles and toes. It didn’t sting; in fact, it felt just cold enough to be kind of relaxing.

For the past few nights I’ve applied Soul Owner before bed, and now my feet look smoother and feel softer, especially around the heels. They’re looking pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself!

However, there is a price to pay (isn’t there always?) for all this foot cuteness. One caveat to using this product is that while glyolic and salicylic acids are fantastic ingredients for softening and exfoliating, they also increase your skin’s sun sensitivity. While your feet get soft and sexified for spring’s skin-baring footwear, unfortunately they also become more susceptible to sunburn. Oh, the irony. If you’re going to use Soul Owner, Philosophy suggests applying sunscreen to your feet and limiting sun exposure.

Soul Owner is great for getting scraggly winter feet ready for spring, but even though I love Soul Owner’s exfoliating and softening powers, when the weather heats up and my feet see a lot of sun, I probably won’t be using it on a daily basis because of the increased sun sensitivity thing.

I’m really looking forward to liberating my feet from the confines of thick, winter socks and oppressive closed-toe shoes. During the spring and summer I live in flip-flops and sandals, so my toes are free to wiggle, stretch and pinch (yes, you read that correctly. I can pinch with my toes) to their heart’s content. Are you itching for sandal weather, too?

Purchase Soul Owner exfoliating foot cream online on the Philosophy Web site, or at your nearby Nordstrom or Macy’s Philosophy counter.

Tonight I’m hitting the club with two of my friends, NBLACK and C-Lo. I haven’t gone dancing with them in a long time, so I’m looking forward to burning some calories and shaking my booty! Any fun plans for tonight?

Because we’ve made it to Thursday, which is that much closer to Friday, here’s a treat for you.

Video courtesy of Four Four.

Bonus points if your freaky-deaky self can name the title of the song and the artist!

Have a good one and smile today!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Hooray, spring is right around the corner! The weather was warm yesterday so I drove to work bumping my new favorite song, Usher’s Love in this Club, with all my windows down and the sunroof open. I’m guilty of dancing in my car and pretending it’s a club on wheels, ha! But if you roll with me I won’t charge you cover, promise.
Anyway, yesterday I might’ve gotten a little too into car dancing because when I got to the parking lot and parked my car, I forgot to roll up the back windows…whoops. It was really no big deal, because the parking lot is safe so nothing got stolen, but a shady character managed to sneak into my back seat:

I opened the door and waited for him to crawl out, but homie sat there and just chilled for five more minutes. He gave me dirty looks the entire time, like I interrupted his afternoon meditation session. I lured him out by taking out a Chanel Glossimer lipgloss (in the shade Galactic, holla) and waving it around. He eventually sauntered away and wouldn’t even let me pet him. Sigh. At least he has good taste in lipgloss…

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen