Friday, March 31, 2006

Top Picks for '06

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beauty.about.com has a brief article on Top Picks for '06, about the 163 Best Beauty Buys feature from the April 2006 issue of InStyle.

The April 2006 issue of InStyle highlights picks from beauty professionals in the area of makeup, skin care, hair care, and body care. It also has a page that summarizes all products that you can clip and take to the store with you.

You may also find InStyle's feature on Best Beauty Buys online. Many of the products featured are available through our sponsors - just look for "SPONSORS" in the sidebar at left and shop.

Ongoing promotion with Renée Davide Handbags

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The Style Page has an ongoing promotion with Renée Davide Handbags. Take 15% discount any of their regular priced handbags (which also include totes, day bags, and clutches). To take advantage of this offer, visit their online shop at www.reneedavide.com and enter discount code StylePage15 in the comments section on checkout (NOTE: Your discount will not show up at checkout, but will be taken when your order is actually processed).

Only seven days left! This promotion is in effect until Saturday, April 8, 2006. To learn more about Renée Davide, please see our previous post Renée Davide Handbags.

Monday, March 27, 2006

The Style Page Joins The Mineral Makeup Revolution

I was running low on loose powder (Clinique translucent, which has been my standby), so this seemed to be a good time to try out mineral makeup. I succumbed to buying the starter kit from the most aggressively marketed of all mineral makeup brands - i.d. Bare Escentuals, which is hawked via informercials, 30-second TV ads, shows on QVC, and retail outlets including Sephora, Ulta, and its own Bare Escentuals boutiques.


Bare Escentuals Get Started Kit

The starter kit I selected includes mineral foundation in Light and Fairly Light (which, as I discovered, didn’t mean “somewhat light” but in between Fair and Light), Mineral Veil finishing powder, Warmth all-over color, a face/blush brush, a fluffy kabuki brush, and a concealer brush. This kit also contains MD Formulations Facial Cleanser and a DVD showing makeup application, but as I have not used these products, I cannot comment on them.

I was skeptical about the claims, as the “before” and “after” pictures shown on TV looked fake – if anything, the “after” pictures showed how eye makeup can really brighten one’s appearance. But I found that the application helped tone down the ruddiness of my cheeks. The application of Swirl Tap Buff® (yes, it’s a registered trademark) is simpler than my routine of dotting on liquid foundation and blending, and then applying loose powder, and there is no obvious demarcation. The mineral makeup finish was matte, but not dry and flat. I used the Light mineral powder foundation as my base color and the Fairly Light mineral powder foundation as a concealer.

The foundations are formulated with titanium and zinc oxides (yes, the same stuff in the white ointment favored by lifeguards), occlusive agents that serve as physical barriers to sun exposure. While the products are rated as SPF 25, it’s unclear how much one should apply to get that level of sun protection.

As the mineral foundations give a nice matte finish, I don’t know if the Mineral Veil finishing powder really adds anything, although I do apply it. The principal ingredient in Mineral Veil is cornstarch, which does blot up oil; also, baby powder is often formulated with cornstarch, as it is soothing to the skin.


Cornstarch - the principal ingredient in Mineral Veil

The Warmth all-over color is the color of rust, which suggests that it contains iron oxides. I’d rather stick with my regular blush, which is Aveda’s Tesserae, which features 3 shades of different intensities that I can blend together.

Am I a convert to mineral makeup? I expect to continue to use liquid foundation, but I am pleased with the results of mineral makeup. Mineral powder foundation is a nice alternative to liquid foundation and great on those days I don’t want to fuss with blending liquid foundation into my skin (I’d rather spend the time on eye makeup application). As the weather gets warmer, I will probably be relying more and more on mineral makeup. All things considered, mineral makeup was a pleasant surprise to me.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Skin Milk

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Skin Milk is a line of products for the bath, body, and face that is formulated with milk proteins and vitamins and designed to soothe and comfort. Products are packaged in containers that look like milk jugs. The theme of comfort is carried on by the vanilla fragrance of the products. Facial and body scrubs are formulated with almond meal and oatmeal, so they are as gentle as they come. The Skin Milk web site lists books to read (something that I appreciate, as I’ve covered books on both this blog and The Style Page web site) while soaking in the tub and hosts a discussion forum called the Comfort Corner.


Skin Milk Foaming Bath

Skin Milk products are value-priced at less than $6.00. The Style Page especially likes Skin Milk Foaming Bath, followed by Skin Milk Body Lotion, which the Skin Milk web site suggests warming on low in the microwave and then massaging on the skin.

Skin Milk is available at major supermarket and drugstore chains, or through drugstore.com (free shipping for purchases over $25 for new customers now through April 30, 2006).

One week left: Belen Echandia's Golden Ticket

Sign up for Belen Echandia's Golden Ticket - deadline is Friday, March 31, 2006

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Seyed Alavi's Flying Carpet

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Artist Seyed Alavi recreated 50 miles of the Sacramento River and surrounding land for a carpet covering the floor of pedestrial bridge at the Sacramento (California) International Airport - to view pictures, go to Seyed Alavi-Public Art and Installation

Thanks to Directions Magazine for the tip!

Seen around the web ...

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A new kind of luxury - Target debuts 13 exclusive bath & body collections

Treehugger: Breakthrough: Vanilla Produced From Cow Dung! - The "Ew!" factor - Japanese researchers extract vanillin from cow dung. Potential applications include fragrances


Cool Hunting: (MALIN + GOETZ) Synthesized Lotus - Two new unisex scents: Synthesized Lotus Root and Rum Tonic


bluebasins - Canada's premier line of 100% natural bath and body products. Pictured above is bluebasins's Mango Madness Whipped Body Souffle.

These headlines are also listed on The Style Page > Beauty > Fragrance page.

Dear Web Log: Hated the Shampoo, Loved the Soap - New York Times

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This article Dear Web Log: Hated the Shampoo, Loved the Soap from The New York Times highlights beauty blogs, focusing on Kristen Kelly's Beautyaddict blog.

I wish I could draw Kristen's numbers, but I'm grateful that she lists this blog and The Style Page web site on her blog. Thanks, and congratulations, Kristen!

Monday, March 20, 2006

Thirty-one-derful Flavors

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with apologies to Baskin-Robbins.

Cool Hunting reports on Breath Palette, a line of toothpaste and mouthwash products from Japan that comes in an assortment of unusual flavors, like Sweet Salt, Green Tea, Lemon Tea, Cola, and many more.

UPDATE CosmeticsDesign-Europe also has an article Bored of mint toothpaste? How about 31 different flavours? about Breath Palette and its launch in Europe.



You may find Breath Palette at Amazon.com (4-1/2 star rating by reviewers), Nieman Marcus, or Nordstrom.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Guess Who ...

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Forty-four years after her death, Marilyn Monroe continues to inspire. Her sex kitten appeal (expressed by blonde hair, black eyeliner, and accentuated lashes) has shaped the look of entertainers from Nancy Sinatra to Deborah Harry (whose band Blondie was just inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame) to most famously, Madonna. However, this is an amazing transformation of one of the most famous models in the world. Who is portraying Marilyn?

Hint: She recently came out of a drug rehabilitation program after a picture of her allegedly snorting cocaine was emblazened on a cover of a British tabloid. Allegations of drug abuse led to the loss of several modeling contracts, but she's never been absent from either advertising or editorial content.

To see more, visit the W Feature Story on Style.com.

Barcelona Bath and Body - 17% off until March 17

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© Barcelona Bath and Body™

The Style Page is pleased to announce that Barcelona Bath and Body is offering a 17% discount off any purchase between now and St. Patrick's Day, March 17.

Barcelona Bath and Body is a line of soaps, candles, and room sprays inspired by the Mediterranean. Fragrances incude Cinammon Sandalwood, Grapefruit Ylang Ylang, Vanilla Lavender, Lemongrass Fennel, and Coconut Bay Rum. The Style Page opted for room spray in Cinammon Sandalwood, a blend of two warming fragrances, and a candle in Lemongrass Fennel. I am impressed by the fragrances, packaging, and labeling.

To take advantage of this offer, visit Barcelona Bath and Body and enter voucher code "St. Pat" (without quotes) at checkout. This promotion only runs for two more days, so hurry!

Friday, March 10, 2006

Belen Echandia's Golden Ticket

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Belen Echandia's bag of the season - "Stroke Me"

Belen Echandia wrote to tell me about their Golden Ticket promotion:
Twice per year, someone on our mailing list will receive an email containing a Golden Ticket. This ticket will entitle its holder to receive the bag of the season (this year it is the ‘Stroke Me’ bag ...) made especially to order, in the colour of her choice. The only thing we ask in return is that the recipient will send us a picture of herself using the bag and a little story about her for us to put up on our website, Polaroid-style.

To sign up, visit Belen Echandia's website at www.belenechandia.com (Belen Echandia is also listed on our Bags page) and select the Golden Ticket button on the left hand navigation bar. The deadline for this season is March 31, 2006.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Now tag this! UPDATED 2006-03-07

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I've expanded the use of linkrolls (see here and here about linkrolls) to include noteworthy articles from sources other than this blog.

Check out our Books page for noteworthy features on poetry that I've discovered recently.

Check out our Cosmetics page for Beauty Addict's post A Sure Sign of the Apocalypse on her blog.

I've also date-tagged (2005, 2006) promotions and web site updates using calendar date formats (YYYY, YYYY-MM, YYYY-MM-DD) specified in ISO 8601 - Numeric representation of dates and time.

If you have any articles you wish to refer to me for use in the linkrolls, tag them "for:thestylepage" (sans quotatation marks) in addition to any tags in del.icio.us that you use.

Our Second Anniversary

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Today marks the second anniversary of The Style Page blog. I want to thank all our readers, especially those who subscribe to this blog via Bloglines, Bloglet, My Yahoo! or other services, and the companies who extended promotions to our readers, for your support.

Just for grins, visit our first entry on this blog, dated March 7, 2004.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Free shipping from drugstore.com

drugstore.com logo 234 x 60

Free Shipping on orders of $25.00 or more! New Customers Only. (Ends 4-30-06) from drugstore.com

This is a great opportunity to try Vital Radiance and L'Oreal HIP among other products (drugstore.com also offers an extensive selection of eco-friendly housecleaning products) and have your order delivered directly to your door.

Now tag this! Part 2

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Web pages aren't the only pages that can be tagged. Here are a couple of clever ways of marking pages in printed publications that I've found:

move forward sticky notes from Compendium Inc. This collection features 75 bookmarks for each of this headings: fyi. to do. priority. bravo. Compendium, Inc. also features bookmark assortments for be creative (imagine. dream. plan. create.) and have fun (go. see. do. enjoy.). You can buy these bookmarks from Compendium, Inc.'s eStore or at your local Franklin Covey store (consult our Stationery page for links).

Compendium, Inc. was previously featured in the entry What's New: Papergasm! on this blog.


punctuation pagemarks from bob's your uncle offer a lot of possibilities for marking pages for reference: for example, you could tag an extended amount of text using the opening and closing quotation marks or tag a part of a text you don't understand with the question mark tag.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

CG Queen Collection - Cover Girl launches collection for women of color

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I have never been a fan of Cover Girl. I resent Cover Girl for upholding the beauty ideal of the blue-eyed blonde for so long: Cybill Shepherd, Cheryl Tiegs, and most enduringly, Christie Brinkley have all been the faces of Cover Girl.


Christie Brinkley for Cover Girl, 1984

In the last ten years, however, Cover Girl has used models of color such as Lana Ogilvie and Tyra Banks (no, I won't dish about Tyra's talk show). Now it's launched the CG Queen Collection, a line of powder foundations, lipsticks, lip glosses, mascara, eye and lip pencils, nail polishes, and eye shadow quads for women of color, named for its spokesmodel Queen Latifah.

The particular strengths of this line appear to be the shades of powder foundation and the variety of lip colors.

The CG Queen Collection is not widely available - consult the web site for store locations or shop online at Cover Girl's eStore. Mostly, retail outlets are confined to those areas where there are high concentrations of potential customers - I browsed the collection at a KMart located in an area with a high concentration of Hispanic residents.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Update to Beauty pages

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I've recently completed an update of the Beauty pages on The Style Page website. I've added links for 30 cosmetics brands, including prestige brands such as Giorgio Armani Beauty and Chantecaille and various niche brands, to our already exhaustive list on the Cosmetics page.

Here's a nice letter I received via Email concerning the web site:
thanks to your website I was finally able to find a website for rumiko the makeup artist and RMK the company

I totally appreciate your online resources on 'the style page'
I look forward to checking out the rest of your website and links.

Here's a quote from "Candeecake", in response to the question "any fashion/beauty magazines you read online regularly? do share!" posed on CozyCot, a beauty discussion forum based in Asia (scroll down to Candeecake, 07/07/2005)

I've this bookmark but haven't browse all the sites listed inside yet. http://www.thestylepage.com/


I've added brands including Roger&Gallet and Claus Porto (both famous for their soaps), cult fragrance brand IUNX, Barcelona Bath and Body, and Skin Milk to the Fragrance page.

I've extended the use of linkrolls to the Beauty pages, and already the linkrolls are driving traffic to this blog. Remember, you can use tags to create your own RSS feeds for blog articles relevant to your particular interests, for example Beauty Cosmetics.

Please support our website by shopping Amazon.com, Bag Borrow or Steal, Beauty.com, drugstore.com, and Sephora.com.