September 11, 2001

Today is the 8th anniversary of 9/11. Our memories of that terrible day are fading. Memorials have yet to be built, and designs are in dispute. The President signed an order earlier this year declaring September 11 a "day of service."

September 11 should be declared a day of mourning and remembrance and a day to honor firefighters and other emergency responders. Any day can be a "day of service." At various gatherings around the country, bells toll at the time that the planes crashed into the WTC, the Pentagon, and the field in Shanksburg, Pennsylvania. I would like to see alerts become a practice in our offices and schools and on the TV, radio, and Internet so that people would pause and reflect on September 11, 2001.

My humble commeration of 9/11 is to post the candle of remembrance on the sidebar. There it will stay until the end of the month.

UPDATE Michele Catalano reminds us to remember the survivors.

Review of Too Faced Natural Eye Neutral Eye Shadow Collection

Too Faced is too gimmicky and glitzy for this blogger's rather conservative tastes. I'm making an exception, however, for the Too Faced Natural Eye Neutral Eye Shadow Collection.

Too Face Natural Eye Neutral Eye Shadow Collection 

The kit consists of Day (matte), Classic (shimmer), and Fashion (even more shimmer, almost frosted) eye shadows.

Too Faced couldn't avoid clever, even salacious, names for its shadows:

Day
Heaven (matte ivory)
Velvet Revolver (matte taupe)
Sexspresso (matte deep brown)

Classic
Silk Teddy (peach champagne shimmer)
Push-Up (light bronze shimmer)
Erotica (soft charcoal shimmer)

Fashion
Nude Beach (champagne shimmer with gold glitter)
Honey Pot (gold shimmer)
Cocoa Puff (warm chocolate brown shimmer)

The kit comes in a cardboard box with a magnetic snap closure. It also features a pull-out compartment for a dual-ended brush/sponge wand. Three "how-to" cards provide instructions on creating the looks.

My advice:

- Heaven may be used to create a "canvas" for applying subsequent eye shadows.

- Don't feel confined to using only the eye shadows for a particular look (Day, Classic, or Fashion). Mix it up! After I discovered how highlighters, as applied to the lid, can brighten the eyes, I use Silk Teddy on my lid.

- Can "women of a certain age" wear shimmer? It has less to do with your age, and more to do with the smoothness of your eyelid. I avoid highlighting shimmer on the inner third of the eyelid, because of the creases, and confine it to the middle third. I use a darker shimmer on the outer corner. Applying shimmer with your ring finger provides for a light touch.

There is also the Too Faced Smoky Eye Palette. The smoky eye is a perennial, but this season, I'm seeing even more attention paid to it.

You may shop Too Faced at its website, Beauty.com, Sephora stores, Sephora.com.

Beauty products that have stood the test of time

8 Classic Beauty Products You Still Worship

TotalBeauty.com readers prove you can never go wrong with these timeless makeup, hairstyle and skin care buys

Whether it was your first grown-up purchase or a secret passed down through generations, some classic beauty formulas just can't be beat. Read on to see which oldies but goodies fans continue to adore. Did your favorite make the list? See products

My makeup routine while on travel

When it came to makeup overseas, I didn't fare so well. The capillaries are near the surface of my skin: consequently, my skin is very sensitive to heat and wind. Any products that I used to cover redness just didn't work. The PR rep for Orlane Paris told me that Orlane's foundation was the best product she's found to cover redness, but I wonder if it would stand up to the 96 deg F heat and humidity of Calcutta!

My husband said that I looked "weathered." Nice guy. I would have wandered about all day feeling self-conscious, but he said that there was little I could do to help my appearance in the heat and humidity. On reflection, I indeed was "weathered" by the heat and the humidity. I just wish my husband weren't so blunt.


All purpose eye makeup!

As much as I pared down cosmetics to carry with me, I was surprised by how little eye makeup and how few brushes I really needed to carry. I used Laura Mercier Eye Basics eye shadow base in Linen not only as an eye shadow base, but also as a brightener under my eyes. To further brighten my eyes, I applied the browbone shade from CARGO's Essential Eyeshadow Palette to my lids with my ring finger. While I carried tinted brow gel and 1 Day Tattoo Real Lasting Eyebrow with me, the lid and crease shades from the CARGO palette, as applied with an angled brow brush, worked well. I used the same brush to line my eyes. For the eyeliner, I used the outer corner from the CARGO palette. To intensify the eyeliner, I applied the shadow wet by dampening it with eye drops, a trick I learned through the InStyle Makeover issue that's an extended advertisement for Ulta. Then I finished the eye look with mascara. Voilà!

Tips for comfort on travel overseas

After my recent long-haul trip, I'd like to share my tips for comfort on overseas trips.

I carry my medications in my carry-on. In addition, I’ve created a “comfort kit” for airline travel. Everyone knows how dry airplane cabins can be. I carry moisturizer, eye drops, saline nasal spray (1½ oz.), hand sanitizer, and Colgate Wisps to clean my teeth. Don’t be seduced by overly priced moisturizers advertised as “flight creams” – any moisturizer with humectants to bind water and emollients will do. TSA regulations state that each liquid that you carry shall be no more than 3 oz. and the containers shall be packed in clear 1-quart plastic bags. I also wear compression stockings, such as those by Jobst or Futuro, to prevent my feet from swelling during an overseas trip.


My comfort kit - yet another of my crapola photos

For summer in India, I use two products purchased in India to provide for my comfort. Nycil is a prickly heat powder that I apply wherever I might chafe, notably under the breasts or along the bra line. I like the sandal-fragranced powder. As the seal of the container was not tight, I transferred some powder into a small sifter jar, such as those used for mineral makeup powder. To protect against mosquito bites, I use Odomos, a pleasant-scented, gentle cream. There is no ingredient list for Odomos. DEET is the preferred mosquito repellent, but I couldn’t detect DEET in Odomos: otherwise, I'd feel it in my mouth! Nonetheless, Odomos seems to be effective. I also carry cotton handkerchiefs, which I use to protect my nostrils from dust, block out unpleasant odors, and blot perspiration.

I hope that these tips might be helpful to readers planning overseas trips so that they can be comfortable and healthy while on travel.

My absence from blogging

I came back from a trip to India on September 1. The day my husband and I left, TSA screeners were passing carry-ons through the detectors twice, which significantly delayed the security process. The TSA official told me that I had to wait until my carry-ons had entered the detectors before I was allowed to cross the line to walk through the metal detector. The wait was a long time, given the double screening, and I was getting impatient. I regained my equanimity only when I held out the possibility that the Inspector-General (IG) for TSA might have cited laxity among TSA screeners, which meant that they had to re-double their efforts.

Given TSA screening, maybe it was just as well that I didn’t carry my own laptop. I was dependent on my husband for access to his laptop. While I had scheduled two articles (Robert Jones, Fall's Color Story) to go live in my absence, I was not able to provide timely stories on the pre-sale of Twilight Beauty or Sears getting back into the beauty business after discontinuing its Circle of Beauty concept several years ago.