"The Routine"

I’ve been very flattered lately to have been asked by a few people what my “routine” is. I hesitate to share this because it should be different for everyone – depending upon your skin’s needs – but I decided there are enough things we all should be doing (and I do have some favorite products) that it was worth a post.

The most important thing about your routine is to find out your skin type. Whatever you think your skin type is now, I'm sorry to say you are probably wrong. I know I was. I thought that since I was prone to breakouts that my skin was oily ( a common misconception), so I kept doing things to dry it out, which just made me break out more. Then, thanks to the fact that I write this blog, I was invited to a Skin Type Solutions event about a year ago and was given a set of products by Dr. Leslie Baumann tailored to my skin type. It is not an exaggeration to say that within about a week my skin transformed itself and that I can count on one hand the number of blemishes I’ve had since then. My skin has literally never looked better. So get thee to the skin type solutions website. There you will find out what type you really are.

• Once you know your skin type, CLEANSE. I used to be a department store snob, but once Dr. Baumann’s kit introduced me to CeraVe (from the Kinerase family), available at Walgreen's, I no longer turned my nose up at buying my products at drug stores.  

Creamy and moisturizing, it’s a great morning cleanser. I used to use it at night, too, but I found that it doesn’t do well at removing makeup so I had to use a washcloth, which was unnecessarily abrasive and defeated the purpose of using a gentle cleanser, so I set about finding a good moisturizing cleanser that removes makeup well. My search landed me very happily with Fresh’s Soy Face Cleanser. It foams just a little bit, smells like heaven, and - in an unexpected bonus - takes off most of my eye makeup without any burning. When I dry my face on my white towels, there is virtually no makeup left behind!

• EXFOLIATE. Do this at least a couple of times a week, particularly if you use any type of retinoid product on your skin like I do for acne, as these products speed up cell turnover and exfoliation helps this along. My favorite exfoliator is Biore Even Smoother Microderm Exfoliator (another drugstore superstar) because it’s so gentle and leaves you so glowing without over-stripping or shredding your skin. 
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  And don’t forget to exfoliate your lips, too, particularly in the winter. This will help de-flake and make your lipsticks go on more smoothly.You don’t need to waste money on a product for this. Just wet your lips with some water, rub some granulated sugar over them and rinse! Do this at night and go to bed with some Smith’s Minted Rose Lip Balm on your lips and your lips will be transformed in the morning.

• TONE. I use toner to remove the last bits of makeup from my skin, to hydrate and refresh. This is an optional step, but don’t ever, ever use products like Sea Breeze or Bonne Bell’s Ten-O-Six Lotions. You might as well just stick your head in a vat of alcohol. If you’re a dry skin type, there’s clearly no need for this and if you’re oily, you may think you’re doing your skin good, but all you’re doing is making your skin produce more oil to compensate. Gentle is the operative word here. Since my favorite toner, Kinerase Antioxidant Hydrating Mist, was taken off the market, I had to find a new toner, and, again, Fresh to the rescue with its
  
  Rose Marigold Floral Water.
• MOISTURIZE. First of all, don’t skip eye cream. I don’t care how old you are or if you have the first signs of wrinkles yet. Your undereye area is incapable of making its own moisture so you have to help it. If you don’t have visible signs of aging yet, simply use a moisturisizing product like Clarins Eye Contour Balm or Neutrogena Healthy Skin Eye Cream.  If you are older and have various issues under the eyes, there are about a zillion products out there that target each area – puffiness, dark circles, lines and wrinKles, dryness. I’ve done the legwork, though, and still my favorite (and such a bargain!) is Dr. LeWinn’s Lift and Resculpt (see my post), which targets all these issues.
• Secondly, moisturize your whole face. Even if your skin is oily, you need some kind of moisture, but follow the recommendation of your Dr. Baumann regimen.  During the day I typically use a moisturizing sunscreen (again CeraVe because it has everything I want and need: ceramides and hyaulronic acid, both crucial for water and moisture retention, is non-comedogenic and controlled-release so my skin feels moisturized all day. At night,if I’m particularly dry, I use a moisturizing oil straight out of the shower (a tip from my favorite beauty maven Jean Godfrey June).
  
  
  My pick for this is the slightly-pricey Clarins Santal Oil for Dry Skin. I follow that with the heavier CeraVe Cream (as opposed to the lighter lotion.
  
  

If all this has been too much information, feel free to ignore everything I’ve said except this: DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOME WITHOUT SUNSCREEN ON YOUR FACE AND HANDS. The brand is not important (although I like CeraVe for the quality, ingredients and the price), but the SPF (at least 30, preferably higher) and the stability of the ingredients is. This step alone will save you from premature aging, skin cancer and age spots. It will, unfortunately, also prevent you from getting enough Vitamin D, so make sure you are not deficient in this (see my previous post about this for details).

Here's to better skin for all in the new year!

Perkiest Nail Polishes for the Depths of Winter

I love winter…everything about it…the cold, the heavy clothes, even the dark makeup colors. But I was flipping through a magazine from summer the other day while my black manicure was drying and a photo of a woman with her 10 fingers decked out in Dior’s Nirvana from the Rock Your Nails collection from last spring practically jumped off the page at me. Why, I thought, can’t we wear some of spring and summer’s colors to give our nails – if not our spirits – a little boost in the middle of January?

I set about making a short list of those colors that are spring and summer-like  but will just give you that little shot of color, not make you look like you’re having a misplaced resort fantasy.

My favorite, and not just because of the name, may be Nirvana. A groovy, dense, more green-than-blue teal, it could BE the cornerstone of your black-cigarette pants and black turtleneck ensemble. It will lift your spirits everytime you do something with your hands.

A few summers ago, Essie came out with one of my all time favorite colors, Lapis of Luxury. I couldn’t stop looking at my toes every time I wore it. Last summer they went one better and darkened the shade, creating Coat Azure. A blue to remind you of the Caribbean you’re not seeing during your urban winter, but a pick-me-up nonetheless.

The orange craze isn’t over, and it’s not just for summer, as evidenced by my young, hip colleague Krista who showed up with her orange manicure this week. My favorite orange for winter is without a doubt Deborah Lippman’s Lara’s Theme (named for model Lara Stone), in part for its opacity but also for lack of blinding brightness.

Summer and pink just go together, meaning your pink nails might look a little strange in February. But not if they’re Graphic Berry. This deep berry is such an odd color in certain light it can almost be mistaken for red. Only it really is a glorious, deep fuchsia.

So there you have it, perk up your nails – and your spirits – for the price of a manicure and/or pedicure.

Stay Out of the Sun For Your Skin, Yes, But Be Aware of the Vitamin D Cost

It’s become like a mantra now. If you read any magazine or listen to any dermatologist, the first line of defense against aging, they will tell you, is to stay out of the sun and – even for small amounts of daily exposure – to use a high-powered, stable sunscreens on exposed areas.

Well, I listened, and with my giant hats, SPF 50s and regimen of retinols and assorted other potions I managed to slow down the visual manifestations of my own aging process (I say this not out of vanity but because sun spots that began to appear a few years ago have now virtually disappeared  and because the crow’s feet and forehead creases are not as deep).

So it is, in fact, true what they say. What they don’t tell you about sun exposure is that if you’re not getting any sun – or getting it but protecting yourself from it with sunscreen – you’re also probably not getting enough Vitamin D, and likely not making up for it with the amount of D you’re getting in your diet. In my case I don’t eat a lot of dairy and don’t eat any eggs or meat, so I was getting virtually none in my diet. One of my doctors brought this up one day after I had proclaimed with pride how healthy my diet was and how I stay out of the sun, thus protecting myself from skin cancer and premature aging. She did a simple blood test, which revealed that I had a Vitamin D level of 13. The normal range is 30-80. Apart from causing bone pain, a deficiency like this can lead to Osteopenia, the precursor to Osteoporosis. My level was so alarming that my doctor put me on a weekly regimen of 50,000 IU (international units) per week, and I now take a maintenance dose of 10,000 IU per week. I’m supposed to be re-tested soon.

So, my point is this, keep staying out of the sun for the sake of protecting yourself from premature aging and skin cancer, keep using your sunscreens and keep eating a healthy diet. But, please, especially my female readers, ask your doctors to include a vitamin D level test in your next round of blood work or checkup, and follow his or her directives based on the results. It was certainly eye-opening for me.

For the Love of An Affordable & Outstanding Eye Cream: Dr. LeWinn by Kinerase

It's taken me a while to truly appreciate the value of Dr. LeWinn by Kinerase, a new and affordable line of anti-aging products launched about 6 months ago, but come to appreciate it I have. I am a bit of a snob...that is to say, I oftentimes think -- particularly when it comes to beauty products -- that the more expensive something is, the better it is. I know logically this is not the case, and I in fact happily use many drug store products (more on those later), but my favorite eye cream is in fact quite pricey and I am pretty monogamous, so it's hard for me to believe that something from the Duane Reade will be just as good. 

But, times being what they are, I'm not currently able to afford to replace my Kinerase Ultra Rich Eye Repair ($88 give or take, depending upon which website I would use). I did, however, some time back get some samples of another Kinerase-related product (Dr. LeWinn's) and while most of the products were good (the Lift and Resculpt Serum XK bears honorable mention), the Lift and Resculpt Anti-Wrinkle Eye Cream was simply divine. I used it right down to the bottom of the jar and noticed that my eyes looked and felt great. I'm not sure why I didn't write about it at the time except perhaps I didn't realize that the whole line was quite so affordable and therefore so accessible and amazing. I've also only recently become a convert to all things Kinerase and would follow the name anywhere. 


So it was with pure delight that I looked it up online last night and found that it was not only $27 but also available at Walgreens and Duane Reade (now owned by Walgreens). Now I can have it all...the Kinerase name, the Furfuryladenine (say that three times fast) for my antioxidant, the peptides for moisture, and the lack of parabens, fragrances and dyes. All the things I need in one place, and for less than half what I was paying before! Joy!

At Prada, You're Never Fully Dressed Without Smile #151

Uniform. The word does not ususally inspire…well, much of anything. But what if the uniform was dictated to you by Miuccia Prada? Then it wouldn't be so bad, would it? But this brilliant arbiter of style - or at least her company - didn't stop at clothes for this particular uniform. She went all the way to the sexy red lips. 

I discovered this quite by accident while browsing the Prada boutique for Things I Cannot Afford in the Temple of Happiness (Bloomingdale’s), where I was chatting with a lovely young woman (Danielle, pictured) with fantastic red lips and asked her if she happened to know what color it was she was wearing. I do this all the time with total strangers, but her answer surprised me. “Lancome #151,”’ she said definitively. I couldn’t believe she knew the number so I probed further. You know the number?? “Yes," she said. "It’s the same one we all wear,” at which point I glanced around the boutique and noticed that everyone, irrespective of age, haircolor or ethnicity, had the same red lips. All the salesgirls are handed a tube when they are hired along with their Prada patent bow belts. 


I had never heard of such a thing! I had heard of wearing uniforms to work, of course, but never of dictating the makeup of one's employees, particularly something that is such a statement as red lipstick. What if it didn't look good on everyone? But this one did! Here was a diverse group of women, and yet #151 (Avant Garde Red, by the way) looked great on all of them. How could there be a universal red I had not yet stumbled upon? 

After asking Danielle if I could take her photo and write about her, I immediately searched online to try and find something about this fascinating phenomenon of making lipstick part of a uniform - or about Prada doing it first - and found virtually nothing. Why not, I wondered? Red lipstick is strong, powerful and makes a statement. Why not make something like that part of the image you are projecting for women's clothing, accessories and fragrance? 


Anyone who reads this blog (or who even knows me, for that matter) knows that I think red lipstick is appropriate for everything from a night on the town to taking out the trash, so it should absolutely be part of a day at work at a fashion house. And to make it a required part of the uniform? Well, that just ensures that everyone looks equally fabulous. 

When You're Faithful to Your Lipstick and Your Lipstick Doesn't Return the Favor...

Monogamy: the condition or practice of having a single mate during a period of time

This implies an agreement between two parties, yes? So, what happens when one party is monogamous and the other party is not? Well, many of us are unfortunately familiar with this, right?

But what if your monogamous relationship is with your lipstick? That is to say, you have used none other than this one lipstick for years. Then one day, just like in any other relationship, you notice little things…like it’s not so easy to find anymore. It’s not on the front display shelf anymore. Maybe you have to ask for it specially, or “it’s in the back.” Maybe it’s just constantly out of stock. So you do the thing you know you’re never supposed to do for fear of getting the answer you don’t want to get: you ask what's going on. And what you find out is that it’s being discontinued. Like any betrayal, you never know the real reason it’s being discontinued, and if you ask, you probably will not be told the truth; all you know is that someday soon you will not be able to get it anymore, and you go into a panic.

This is happening to my friend Maggie, except that it’s not just any lipstick. It’s the only lipstick she wears, and, more than that, it’s the only makeup she wears. Period. When I found out about this, quite by accident one night by complimenting her on how great her lipstick looked (because I pay attention to these things), she told me of her challenge and her mission to find every last tube of MAC Lip Gelee in Moistly (terrible name) left in the New York City area or online. I understand her devotion. An already gorgeous girl with perfect skin, this not-quite-a-gloss, not-quite-a-lipstick with just a subtle punch of berry stain totally lights up her face.

I told her of my own journey, having survived a betrayal many years ago when Aveda pulled its Redwood Cerise lipstick for no apparent reason and I made my husband drive me around Manhattan to every Aveda store one Saturday, Visa card in hand, buying them all. I still have two tubes left. Of course it’s worth noting that my backlash to that betrayal was nothing like Maggie's: I did not pledge undying allegiance to my color. Instead, I turned into a lipstick whore, abandoning my color and wearing anything that came along, to the point where I now carry around at least 10 lipsticks in different shades to suit my mood and clothing. I even had to buy a bigger makeup bag to suit my loose lips.

But I digress...this is not Maggie’s style, so I pledged to help her find what was left in New York of what is rightfully hers. Her three solid months of work has yielded a total of 13 tubes, procured from online scores, back rooms at MAC counters at Macy’s, and as far afield as a Neiman Marcus or two. Now her friends know of her plight and when they find a tube, she gets them as gifts.

With this cushion of time, I have advised her to refrigerate all of them and when she gets down to her last tube and a half, she is to keep the full tube for herself to use, and bring the half to one of the great miracles of modern makeup, Three Custom Color, handily located in Manhattan on 22nd Street. In addition to their own roster of their own extraordinary products – blushes that make you look like you just came in off the ski slopes and lipsticks named after New York dance clubs from the ‘80s – they will literally replicate for you your long-lost anything…not just lipstick but blush, foundation, powder, brow gel, you name it. Even my very own Redwood Cerise is already in their database.

Are they a miracle? Kind of...or maybe they're just the nice, solid relationship you've been looking for all this time.

High Tea with Jo Malone

I am reminded now of how remiss I've been in never writing here of the fragrance genius that is Jo Malone, the British maven of natural fragrance blends, but going to the launch event for her new Tea Fragrance Blends at Bloomingdale's has slapped me on the wrist for my oversight.

For this was no average launch event. This was High Tea, complete with reserved invitation, service of three different teas, scones, finger sandwiches, waiters, china, silver and three-tiered dessert stands. Here we were, a group of Jo Malone groupies, all chit-chatting with one another about favorite Jo Malone fragrances, least favorites, what had been discontinued and what was best as a gift. All this taking place in a beautifully appointed tiny corner of Bloomingdale’s on the main floor while the rest of the store was a veritable zoo.

Enter Shaun Rowan, a Brit, of course, who explained the importance not only of High Tea, the inspiration for the new Limited Edition Tea Fragrance line comprising Fresh Mint Leaf, Earl Grey & Cucumber and, my personal favorite, Assam and Grapefruit – but of tea in general to British culture. While he gave us a verbal history of Jo Malone and her various inspirations, we were given an olfactory history with paper strips, often being asked to guess the fragrance (being groupies, most of the women knew immediately what they were smelling). The suspense was building. What is Jo Malone's most popular fragrance to date, he asked. Well, I knew that one...mine...English Pear and Freesia, which I stumbled upon as a sample merely two weeks after its introduction while buying a holiday gift for a friend. This was important because the same perfumer, Christine Nigel, who developed English Pear and Freesia, developed the three Tea Fragrances. He definitely had our attention.

Now this is where Blogger needs a fragrance function...how to describe them. They do, in fact, smell like tea...all of them. But, like all Jo Malone fragrances, they are so much more complex than that. If you simply went by her names you would be doing yourself a disservice because there is such complexity beneath the name. The Fresh Mint Leaf smells like, well, fresh mint leaf and will appeal to those who like an herb aroma on themselves, but underneath it is a little violet and water jasmine for depth, so on the skin it doesn't smell like a tea or cooking herb at all. When you first smell Earl Grey and Cucumber you do get the Earl Grey, but then you get the coolness of the cucumber, but it's anchored by vanilla and musk. The Assam and Grapefruit is, in my opinion, the most complex. It wasn't just that I was served some Assam Black Tea while smelling the aroma on a strip, but then I actually tried the scent, and it was intoxicating. As with all of them, you do get the tea scent, but underneath this one is some star anise, almond and vanilla (which I usually find too sweet but in this case works just fine), as well as cardamom, almond and a touch of patchouli, which Shaun kept describing as the "follow me, young man" factor in Jo Malone's fragrances. I'll take that.

That said, the wonderful thing about all Jo Malone scents is that you don’t have to apply them and then walk around a department store for two hours waiting for them to dry down, change and possibly turn on you. Her fragrances are so natural and pure that what you spray on and love is likely to turn into something you love even more. In fact, if there is any change in the fragrance at all, it's usually for the better (I’ve been seen on the subway voraciously smelling my own arm on the way home). Good thing, since Shaun taunted us by saying there were only 10 bottles of this one and 8 bottles of that one left of these limited edition fragrances. The stampede was real. Don't let these get away from you.