Olay! Olay, Olay, Olé!!!!!
Above:
Me, midway through my personal skin care consultation
at
OlayforYou.com
As you know, I love,
love... LOVE to hear about web-savvy beauty tools.
Let's face it... anything that combines the internet
with beauty products? I'm all over it.
You can imagine how thrilled I was to find OlayforYou.com, Olay's
personalized skin care consultation web service
for confused beauty junkies. It takes all the
guesswork out of choosing the best ingredients for
your biggest skin concerns — whether they be fine
lines, wrinkles or brown spots. The intuitive
program takes about five minutes from start to
finish, and gives tailored product suggestions
that you can save to your desktop, e-mail to
yourself, or buy at an online drugstore (but only
if you want to — there's absolutely no pressure to
buy anything, which is refreshing.)
The site is DEF worth checking out if you've always
been lost while perusing your drugstore's beauty
aisle, or if you're curious about how to tackle those
newly emerged smile lines you've been desperately
trying to ignore.
OlayForYou, FTW!!
Upload a New 'Do
Wanna see how you'd look with Reese's latest haircut?
Check out HairMixer.com
If you're looking to
start out the new year with a new hair cut, but
haven't the slightest clue where to begin, click on
over to HairMixer— a site that lets you
upload your pic and literally try on your favorite
stars' manes. Cool feature: there are tons of male
celebs with fab hair on there, too—in case you
want send your boyfriend a clue while you're at
it.
Make Way for Total Beauty
Image
via TotalBeauty.com
Two things you probs know
about me by now: I have a loving (to the point of
unnatural) relationship with my beauty product
collection, and I live on (well... in front of) my
iMac. The former happens to be my profession, the
latter is a hobby-turned-infatuation with scoping out
the latest in online trends. With these two things in
mind, one can imagine the dance party I threw for
myself when I found my new friends at TotalBeauty.com.
I'll tell you why.
Total Beauty is like a Facebook app that 'superpokes'
your best friend's face cream; a Google search for tips on how
to create a peacock eye effect; or a Perezelle post about what's
'peppered' in the beauty biz. Doesn't that sound
delicious?
Emmy Makeup Look Cheat Sheet
Above: Celebrity
Makeup Artist and Emmy Makeup Guru, Bruce Grayson
Emmy recaps have been
everywhere this week, and I love reading them, but
sometimes I wish these people would give it to me
straight:
Dear (so-and-so-weekly/website/mag),
I agree that (fill-in-the-blank-actress)'s 'bold lip look' from Sunday Night's Emmys was gorgeous. I appreciate how the sunset inspired her makeup artist when they chose the color. Way to go on the behind-the-scenes-investigation. Writing now to ask for one tiny detail: what's the name of the lipstick she wore, or one close to it? That's really all I need to know.
Love, YBLAG
Luckily, I didn't have to wait for them to write me back. Instead, I pulled some strings and found out for myself. This report comes straight from the horse's mouth, via Primetime Emmys Make-up Department Head and Olay spokesperson Bruce Grayson. What's a makeup department head, you ask? Basically, not one actress was allowed down the red carpet or on stage until Bruce gave his stamp of approval. Here are some Cliffsnotes for Emmy-ready lips, eyes and cheeks.more...
Post-Season Skin Saver
Has
summer left you with sun-parched skin? Behold, a
sprouting secret weapon: my very own aloe vera
plant
I rarely (slash never) have the patience to get all organic in my beauty routine, despite knowing full well that preservatives found in some makeup, creams and cleansers can really beat up your mug. About a month ago, however, I was forced to re-evaluate my behavior after facing two harsh realities:
⁃ I have visible sun spots, and maybe a few fine lines. On my face.⁃ I do not, at the moment, have the cash for laser skin renewal.
I did some product research as a first step to see what was new on the anti-aging/skin lightening front. Not surprisingly, everything I would have tried had aloe vera extract as a main ingredient. We all know that aloe helps calms burns and heal cuts—but did you know the same healing acids in aloe extract (alpha hydroxy, malic acid) can also be put to work on dry skin, sun spots and wrinkles? I swear. Ask these guys.
So, I went straight to the source— I headed to a local florist to purchase an aloe vera plant. (It was about seven or eight bucks.) Every other day, I slice off a small section and stick it in the fridge for about twenty minutes before I scoop out the gel and apply it topically. My sun spots aren't totally gone, but they're lighter, no doubt. Lines? Definitely less noticeable. Plus, my skin is softer and I get to feel like a tree-hugger, which I enjoy.