What they say it does: “Lip balm with a colourful twist. Luscious, high-gloss shades treat your most undermoisturized skin to soothing shine. Instantly relieve dryness, protect with antioxidants and more.”
Our review: This is one of those big products that came out while we were wandering the desert (read: India, Nepal, and Laos) last year, so we were shocked to see it, in that way we were shocked when someone told us that Adam Lambert lost American Idol. Anyway: love! We never entirely understood why Black Honey was such an icon—it’s no Benetint, if you will—but we get it’s one of those colors that more or less works on everyone. (Though this is amazing in the macro sense, we’re not sure why this makes it a must-have in the micro—like, why would we like a product more because our friend Katie can also wear it? No?) Anyway: the fact is that we are part of “everybody,” so it more or less works on us, too, and Clinique knows how to formulate a lip gloss—unlike stupid Aveda, but we’ll get there next week.
In short: A strong recommendation. We churlishly took off a grade because we don’t like the hype.
Honestly: It’s better than LOL cats. It’s New York magazine’s Twenty Most Ridiculous Looks from the menswear collections, and it is just one reason, in a list of millions, why we’d do anything, go anywhere, vomit blood or milk cows, to write for New York magazine. Though they can probably do better than a writer who uses “vomit blood” as a metric for measuring enthusiasm.
These shoes … let’s call it love at first sight. Or: unrequited love at first sight, since they’re Jimmy Choos, and we are not interested (less interested) in selling our blood to buy wedges. These are, for the record, suede Jimmy Choos wedges, $455. (The dress, since we love it equally, is Miu Miu—but not in stock; click on the “Miu Miu top” link on this page and you can sign up for notification when it shows up.)
Since tonight will not be the night we spend almost $500 on shoes, we went looking for some suitable substitutes—and these are what we found.
We know, we’re about exactly one year too late on this—but eh, it’s somehow bubbled to the top of our iPod this week. Fast fact: In Spain, our friend D. assures us, her name is commonly pronounced “La Ruche.” (We cannot verify this information as fact or disprove it as fiction.) Random bit of information: Forever 21′s offering a free “exclusive” track here with this code: F21LAROUX2.
Because we have been thinking: “Narciso Rodriguez … we like him, right?”
What Narciso Rodriguez says: “Musc is at the heart of For Her Eau de Parfum. The fragrant harmony of the musc expressed itself through three pulsations; pink floral, soft amber, and voluptuous woods. It develops gently, slowly rounding out into the warm tones, dusted in a soft, velvety sensuality.”
What we say: Maybe we’re just not high class enough to dig the subtlety, but this made no impact on us whatsoever—and it was gone, completely absent from our skin, within a practically shocking 20 minutes.
The packaging: Love it, love it, love it. We do like the black eau de toilette even more.
The smell: They say: “a rare weave of pink floral with hints of rose and peach pulp as well as soft amber and wood in pastel tones.” But honestly, it smelled like flowers, and then it smelled like nothing. We especially don’t understand all the references to Egypt—we haven’t been there, but we bet it smelled like something … unlike this perfume.
Our grade: C-, and that’s just because we like the pretty bottle.
Racerbacks: They’re our t-shirts of the summer. Shoulders! We’re totally pro. Honestly, we’re not even sure why we love them so much—all we know is that they say “summer” in a way that regular tank tops just don’t.
For example: This Splendid racerback tank has the nicest back twist we’ve ever seen. (As it should, at $44.) We’re going up a size—which is just as well, since the XS and S are sold out. Distressed tank, $44
In honor of her current, massive [35% off] sale [with discount code SUMMER], we decided to begin our “One Question For…” series with jewelry designer Maya Brenner. One question because—life is short! We’re thinking that one question is exactly what the doctor ordered. So we asked Maya this. It helps if you know that Maya’s most famous pieces are her awesome charms of all 50 states.
Our question: We love your state charms! But what is your favorite state?
What they say it does: “Save time and money with this skin-loving makeup that combines the benefits of a primer, foundation, concealer and powder in one luxurious formula.”
Our review: We are filing this one under “too good to be true.” Seriously. People! In particular, Stila makers: We do not necessarily need one product to do a thousand things: common sense tells us that when one thing promises to do many things, it probably fails at all of them. And this is—for the most part—our opinion of Stila’s One Step Makeup. (Mind, it also promises that it “diminishes the look of fine lines and wrinkles,” offers a “velvety, mousse-like formula,” provides a “high-definition, flawless finish,” and “smoothes away imperfections.” (It also promises to be free of parabens and fragrances, and we could not quarrel with that.)
First, we tried the Kitten—a light pink shade—which, we were told, was the best for the blush area. This is our question: primer is something we love, and somewhere we apply basically wherever one needs primer—nose, forehead, chin, etc. But why would we buy a combi-primer-foundation-etc product and just put it where we’d put blush? Why wouldn’t we just use a blush? Confusing. Indeed, Kitten did provide a “velvety, mousse-like formula” that disappeared into our skin about five seconds after it was applied. Not impressed, Stila. Not. Impressed!
We were thinking all sorts of negative things after this, but then we tried the Per Suede on our eyes—since among the many things this product can do, in addition to washing the dishes and mowing the lawn, it can also work as an eye primer. Now this, actually, was surprisingly successful, and for the roughly 15 minutes it was visible, it did a significant proportion of the things it had suggested it might. Then, alas, it was gone. Not, really, what we look for in an eye primer. Disappointed.
Jesus! We interviewed Drew Barrymore once, and she was super nice, and we just hope to God for her sake that she is completely, 100% over Fabrizio Moretti—because this portfolio of photos with him and his girlfriend, Binki Shapiro, would make anyone who wasn’t completely insane.
The sweater she’s wearing is Sportmax and apparently costs $575, and we love it.
Photos by Serge Leblon—so much more lovelier than the Vogue story with Karen Elson and Jack White, speaking of music super-couples.
Glastonbury! It’s our favorite music festival for which it is necessary to wear mud boots. We were there, last year: missed Florence and the Machine, saw Bruce Springsteen, so let’s call it a draw. We spent ten extremely half-hearted minutes looking for well-dressed festival-goers to photograph, gave up, and went back to watching the music. However! We do love Glastonbury: It’s like someone said to all the celebrities in Britain: You must go to this field, and you must live in a tent, and you must wear wellies and sunglasses and various other warm-weather things, but it’s still Britain, so there will be socks.
Anyhoo: These are our favorite looks from the festival, beginning, above, with Emma Watson (in a Louis Vuitton corset), Kate Moss, and Pixie Geldof.
