Any day of the week is a great day to obsess over beauty, but for some reason I think it’s just more fun to do on Saturday.
Hard to find French skin care lines…
I really dig French skin care products. Maybe it’s because they’re French; maybe it’s because I can’t understand anything on the labels — who knows? And the harder they are to find, the better!
Nuxe, one of my fave French brands, can be particularly hard to find here in the US. If you read beauty magazines, you’ve probably seen ads for Nuxe’s Huile Prodigieuse Multi Usage Dry Oil before. It hit the beauty scene a few years ago.
Nuxe specializes in using plant-based ingredients and aromatherapy in their products. They avoid compounds derived from animals, mineral oils and synthetic coloring agents. Oh, and their stuff generally smells really, really great, which is what drew me to the line in the first place.
There are only three stores in the San Francisco Bay Area that carry the line, and I’m lucky one of those stores, Beauty Expo in San Rafael, is just a hop, skip and a jump away. If you’d like to try the brand but haven’t been able to find it locally, Nuxe products are also available online from Beautyhabit.com.
Your girl has tried several Nuxe products, and two of my favorites have been Reve de Miel Ultra Comfortable Body Cream ($31) and Eau Demaquillante Cleansing Water ($22).
Reve de Miel is an all-over body moisturizer for dry, sensitive skin, chock-full of soothing and repairing botanicals like fir honey and macadamia nut oil. It moisturizes like a pro (on par with one of my holy grail moisturizers, Elizabeth Arden 8-Hour cream) and has a light honey scent. I cannot stand moisturizers that leave a greasy film, and Reve de Miel doesn’t. If you like Elizabeth Arden 8-Hour cream but don’t care for the herbal smell, consider Reve de Miel a potential alternative.
My bathroom here at home has a tiled floor that gets freezing cold in winter. The cold radiates up through the bath mat and fills the room. It can even get cold enough to discourage me from undressing to wash my neck before bed, so discovering micellar cleansing water a few months ago really helped remedy the neck washing situation. Unfortunately, I finally finished my bottle of Darphin Micellar Cleansing Water and just haven’t brought myself to pay the $50 again.
Nuxe’s own version of micellar cleansing water, Eau Demaquillante, works just as well as Darphin’s and costs less than half as much ($22 vs. $50). With it, I soak a cotton pad in the morning and night and quickly wash my neck and decollete. It lets me keep warm and toasty in my bathrobe at the same time, yay!
Eau Demaquillante is alcohol free and doesn’t leave my skin feeling dry or tight. It’s supposed to be fragrance free, but I detect a faint floral scent, which makes sense since it contains floral waters (rose, cornflower and lime blossom) and green tea. If my eyes look tired and puffy, I’ll lightly press a cotton pad drenched in Eau Demaquillante against them. It’s a refreshing and soothing treat.
Kitty wigs…
Just like former Poison frontman Bret Michaels (I swear that man wears a weave), your cat can have long flowing locks. Behold: Kitty Wigs, a Web site dedicated to coifing your cat in stylish wigs.
Why am I compelled to place a pink wig on a cat? I don’t know. First off, I don’t own a cat. Second, I usually can’t stand over-accessorized animals (but a tastefully bejeweled collar is fine). I’m sure there exists some deep seeded psychological explanation for this, but for now it eludes me.
Current lemming list…
Lemming \LEM-ing\. verb:
A slang term frequently used on beauty Web site and beauty blogs.
1. To desire.
2. To want to purchase.
Example: “I am lemming a tube of Viva Glam V lipstick.”
What I’m lemming right now:
Everything from the NARS spring Shanghi Lily color collection, especially…
Dolce Vita Lipgloss ($23)
Alhambra Duo Eyeshadow ($31)
Belle de Jour Velvet Matte Pencil ($23)
Terminators + eyeliner = awesomeness!
I am a not-so-closeted sci-fi geek, and one of my favorite sci-fi movie franchises of all time is Terminator. On Monday nights there’s a new show on TV, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and it’s frickin’ fantastic (of course, I also like cats with pink wigs). Cameron, one of the “good” Terminators, is played by actress Summer Glau.
Sure, the show has the usual save-the-world-from-destructive-evil-robots-who-want-to-enslave-humanity schtick, but last Monday’s episode also showed Cameron trying to perfect the art of pencil eyeliner (it’s hard for robots too, yo). She carries around a compact that I swear looks like Stila Convertible Color.
Looks like there’s a break in the rain, so I’m off to the gym and to run some errands. Later I’ll hit the mall to “just look at” the Nars spring color collection. I have a feeling, though, I’ll be adopting a tube of Dolce Vita lipgloss very soon. 🙂
Hope you are having a superb weekend so far!
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen