Archive for October, 2009

Who: Stylists Matthew Preece and Kristoff Ball

What: Preece & Toff Salon at Fred Segal

Where: 420 Broadway in Santa Monica

When: Monday-Sunday

Why: Located in breezy Santa Monica in the former Fred Segal Beauty space, Preece & Toff is a full service salon and spa. When you walk into their beautiful open loft-inspired space, your immediate thought will be that it is a modern zen retreat meet rock n’roll. (more…)

We recently heard about Bristol6′s Hem Tape and was so intrigued by it that we had to get our hands on a pack. Hem Tape is exactly what it sounds like – instant and temporary hemming for denim. You know that little pesky problem of having to alter your jeans to either flats or heels…it’s no longer an issue because Hem Tape lets you switch between the two easily.

The double stick tape comes in a flat packet.  To use, you simple peel the entire piece of tape from the sheet and apply it to the cuff of your jeans.  Then peel the other side of the tape and flip up to the desired shorter length. Voila! Instant hemming without a trip to your tailor. If you’re worried about the tape not being able to stick for very long, we can assure that it’s a non-issue. We stuck some tape onto a pair of jeans a week ago and after a couple wears, it’s still holding up.

Retails for $12 at Bristol6.com.

I’m soooo not a Techie, but do you ever have those moments when you discover something new that is so great, that you think to yourself, “Technology is so cool?”  For me, that thought came to my head yesterday, when I visited Poladroid.com.  I have  always loved Polaroid pictures: I love their dreamy, muted, look which give them an evocative and nostalgic quality, their instant pictures (immediate gratification), and because everyone looks good in Polaroid!  One of my favorite things to do is to browse Jeremy Kost‘s pictures on Fashionista and those inspired me to almost get my own Polaroid camera: the only thing stopping me?  The $149.99 price tag.

Yesterday, my friend Sami, sent me over a link to Poladroid, a computer application, that turns your digital pictures into Polaroids!  I downloaded the application last night, and loved the results so much that I started Poladroiding all my pictures.  I began with the pictures from my last vacation to the Bahamas with my friend Sarah  (how gorgeous does that azure water look?) and you can check out some of “Before-Poladroiding” picture here.  The application itself is charmingly designed and easy to use.  The interface for the application is designed like an actual Polaroid camera–all you have to do is drag over your photos, one at a time, to the empty frame icon in the camera and wait for your pictures to “develop”.

Your pictures will slowly go from fuzzy to sharp, vivid color, as they would with a real camera, and after they are done “developing,” you get the option of saving them on your computer.  Each session allows you to Poladroid 10 pictures. Once the pictures are done developing, you get the option of saving them to your computer.  Poladroid software is MAC/Windows compatible, as well as free,but they are taking donations.

Visit Poladroid.com and share some of your favorites with us!

(more…)

As soon as the weather starts cooling, 2 things are inevitable for me: I take my Uggs out of my closet guiltily, and my skin starts getting very, very dry from head to toe. Literally, my scalp and feet start getting especially dry. So when I was contacted by the makers of HeelTastic to try their product described as “intensive heel therapy,” I was intrigued.

I began applying HeelTastic to the bottom of my feet every night before bed, and the first thing that hit me was its scent. To me, it smells very herbal/lemongrass-ish. To my boyfriend, it smells terrible. Oops. So the scent may or may not be your cup of tea, but the good news is that it’s really effective. After a few uses, the visible dry areas on the back of my heels were gone. Despite its smell, I’m going to keep using it! You can find HeelTastic at Walgreens and other drugstores for $9.99.

When my friend Nikki, beauty editor at More Magazine, sent over a request for me to spill my top beauty secrets a few weeks ago, I immediately thought of Dustin from Le Metier de Beaute. I often hop over to Bergdorf’s to get my makeup done there before events (it’s free and the makeup artists are good!) and Dustin always throws me the best tips.  That day, he gave me the best lipstick trick and it’s never been published before (until now!).

Head on over to more.com to check it out and see what other beauty bloggers have to share!

A couple weeks ago I was at my PR friend’s office and spotted this cool looking product being displayed on her desk.  Intrigued by the creamsicle look of the product, I went right ahead and opened it and dug my fingers in so she had no choice but to give it to me (just kidding. I asked first.) At any rate, the product that I was so curious about is the new Simply Ageless sculpting  blush by CoverGirl & Olay, and the shade I took, 220 seems to be the universally flattering color.

Now I’ll tell you that at age 24, I can’t vouch for the anti-aging benefits or youthful benefits of this product but that didn’t stop it from skyrocketing straight up to the top of my “Obsessed” list.  Olay Renegerist Serum is swirled into the cream blush which gives it an amazingly smooth texture while simultaneously providing moisturizing benefits. The product goes on very easily with a sheer dewy finish.  The blush comes with a sponge in a separate compartment, but I find that it works best when I just apply using my fingers.  Plus the contrast between the silky serum and heavier cream blush makes dipping your fingers into the pot almost a sensual experience. (more…)

It seems like every blog has a resident vampire/Twilight obsessee–in the case of the The Daily Obsession, it seems like I am it, given that I breezed through all of the Twilight books in one, highly unproductive holiday week, and routinely lend out my copies to coworkers and friends too ashamed to purchase their own.  For the record in case you are wondering, I am fully on Team Jacob, and not Team Edward, something about Robert Pattinson just doesn’t do it for me.

I’ve already mentioned in an earlier post that since Twilight ended, I’ve been moving on to other vampire oriented books, and my newest find is Melissa de la Cruz’s Blue Bloods series, a sexier take on teenage vampires, with an injection of NYC Upper East Side money and private schools, and added vampire lore and history tracing back to the Mayflower.  Blair Waldorf already has the sardonic wit and sassy, scathing put downs that make Gossip Girl such a hit: add some fangs and a lust for blood, and you have one of Blue Blood’s main characters, Mimi Force, a beautiful, ancient teenage vampire (or Blue Blood) who rules prestigious prep school, Duchesne. (more…)

Fashion Week is usually that time of the year when I try to fit my entire life into a Chanel 2.55- one of the chicest accessories a gal can tote while trying not to seem too frazzled running all over the city.  It’s pretty difficult, but I usually manage, taking only the bare essentials and a single tube of lipgloss.

Shortly before Fashion Week this past September, I was gifted Le Metier de Beaute’s limited edition Roopal Patel palette, an exclusive at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman.  Despite, what looks like bright and crazy colors, I learned how to mix them in order to create virtually any look for day or evening.  Le Metier’s powders are such high quality and so finely milled that they “sit” in top of each other creating a kind of dimension, complexity and color that is rarely seen in other makeup lines. For example, while the orange and the yellow may look jarring on their own, combined they produce the most beautiful shade of golden bronze. Any color on the palette can also be made into  a blush or a lip color simply by mixing the powder with a dab of the clear “Magic” gloss.  Needless to say, with all the colors presented in the palette, the variations are endless.  I, like I am with most Le Metier products, was instantly obsessed. (more…)