Fashion,Style & Beauty on Fashion Girls

Elizabeth Taylor grew from a doll-faced child starlet to become one of the silver screen’s most striking beauties, not to mention a compelling actress and one of the world’s most famous movie stars. She has been a natural magnet for publicity throughout her life and is one of the most photographed women in history.  She even holds the record for the most appearances on the cover of Life Magazine (11).  But lest her fame and notoriety overshadow her accomplishments, it is worth remembering that Taylor has received five Best Actresses nominations and two Oscar statuettes over the course of her amazing six-decade career.

Memorable Quotations:

•     “Every day I pray to God to give me horses — wonderful horses — to make me the best rider in England.” –as Velvet Brown in NATIONAL VELVET.

•     “I can’t help it, Father.  I’d sooner have that horse happy than go to heaven.” –as Velvet Brown in NATIONAL VELVET.

•     “You mustn’t steal things.” –as Kathie Merrick in THE COURAGE OF LASSIE.

•     “It’s a very odd feeling — to be someone’s God.” –as Kathie Merrick in THE COURAGE OF LASSIE.

•     “But how do you make hope happen?” –as Kathie Merrick in THE COURAGE OF LASSIE.

•     “If I followed my natural impulse, I’d push you in the flower bed.” –as Carol Pringle in A DATE WITH JUDY.

•     “Steven’s a man, Judy.  And once a person is a man, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” –as Carol Pringle in A DATE WITH JUDY.

•     “As far as I’m concerned, there are three ages: youth, middle age and infirmity.” –as Carol Pringle in A DATE WITH JUDY.

Fragrance is something that will add whatever sense you want to your apparels, you can be sexy, cute, sweet, elegant or whatever else with one same apparel, just with a little help from different fragrance. It’s like every woman has some sort of obsession with fragrance. So as we also love Gucci, the Gucci Guilty is coming, the fragrance inspired by Streisand.

Yesterday, we got a sneak preview of Gucci’s upcoming fragrance, Gucci Guilty. We learned about the scent’s composition, the inspiration from Streisand and the Frank Miller-directed TV commercial starring Evan Rachel Wood. Today, let’s share the information on this new fragrance.

First, the fragrance: The top notes are mandarin and pink peppercorn; middle notes are fruit and lavender; and base notes are amber and patchouli. It smells good, but the amber and patchouli are a little much for me, personally.

The name: Apparently, Gucci’s creative director Frida Giannini is a big Streisand fan. The name “Guilty” came to her while she was in her car listening to a Streisand song of the same name. Another source of inspiration for the fragrance? The cover of the 1976 film A Star Is Born starring Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. In fact the resemblance to the print ad is almost striking.

The bottle: The bottle is awesome. It’s Gucci’s first perfume bottle to feature the interlocking G’s and it almost looks like it’s hollow from the front while the liquid is more visible from the sides. It’s simple and chic, has a retro/art deco feel and would just look really pretty on top of my dresser.

The ad campaign: Apparently, Gucci Guilty’s ad campaign is the brand’s biggest ever. As you may know, a 30-second trailer started buzzing around the internet a week or so ago for Frank Miller’s Gucci Guilty, which will debut as a 60-second commercial on September 12th during the MTV Video Music Awards. The short film was shot in front of a green screen in Fellini’s studio in Rome. We got to see a slightly racier version yesterday and let’s just say you get to see more than just a couple of silhouettes undressing. We also learned that all of the tattoos are Evan’s own.

The casting: Frida wanted a girl who embodied the idea of the “Guilty” character, which is basically girly with a sexy edge (hence the “guilt”). As far as the choice of Chris Evans, whose last name happens to be his love interest’s first, they mentioned something about all these super hero movies he’s starring in; so perhaps that’s the direction they wanted to go in with the character.

Gucci Guilty will hit stores in mid-September and will include a lotion, shower gel and shimmer powder. We’re not sure on the price, but it will be tough to call this one a guilt-free purchase!

OK, that’s all we’ve got on this upcoming Gucci Guilty. And guilty or not, I definitely want to get my hands on this little cutie, even just for the cute bottle.

We are now really standing at the end of summer, and I assume many of you are just like me who’s reluctant to get go of the happy summer. Although we can’t really change the season anyway, maybe we do can make a little change to let the summer stay a little longer, with the help of these cute harajuku girls. New fragrance available at Sephora soon!

If you’re a fan of all things Harajuku, head to Sephora in SoHo on September 10 for the launch of Harajuku Lovers’ newest fragrance collection, Wicked Style. Enter the store and travel to the Harajuku district in Tokyo—known for the lavishly dressed girls who hang out there—where you can sample sweet bubble teas and green tea ice cream, and get a Harajuku-inspired makeover (think ornate hair and bright makeup). Each perfume bottle is shaped like a Harajuku girl, inspired by L.A.M.B., the womenswear line by longtime Harajuku lover Gwen Stefani. But you’ll have to hurry: The collection—which hits stores in November—is only available during FNO in limited supply.

To add to the excitement, the first 100 customers can get their perfume bottles signed by Gwen Stefani, who will be in the store at 10:00 p.m. But don’t worry—even if you miss the cutoff, you will still have a chance to enter to win tickets to the L.A.M.B. fashion show on September 16.

I always love these cute little girls, they look so sweet and cute, just like the cool happy summer we all love, so wearing the fragrance offered by these cute girls we may will feel that summer’s not far away anyway.

“Skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony” this is what the brothers Grimm said about the world’s most beautiful princess, the Snow White! Yes, lips red as blood, that’s the color we used to love to have on our lips, then also it can go pink, or rose… But now things seem to have changed dramatically, now people tend to color their lips whatever they want, like blue, purple, grey…

I’m quite old fashion on this, so my question here is: Would you ever wear these weird colors on you lips, ever?

When Ke$ha wore blue lipstick last week we thought it was a one time deal. But then we saw W’s spread of gray-lipped models in its Stefano Tonchi-redesigned September 2010 issue, and remembered all the way back to this Spring when we proclaimed black lipstick the end-all-be-all — and were backed by style-forward designers like Rachel Roy, Rodarte and Tuleh.

Are lips going the way of nail polish, a space where reds and pinks were once the only acceptable colors to wear in public, but now it’s completely OK to go to a job interview with gray, blue or purple digits?

Our friends at Refinery29.com are contemplating this exact topic, and they’ve dug up a few recent examples of blue, green and even purple lipstick-wearing gals.

Take a look, and let us know if it’s a trend you think you’d wear…or run from.

I think the purple lips here are ok, actually quite beautiful, but I’d totally prefer red or rose. So will I ever color my lips like this? Not likely.

Beautiful skin is something all girls wants, and in our whole life we do pay a lot of attention, time and money to keep us looking young, and to keep our skin look lovely. And in the fashion world, people care even more, so when time comes and it’s no secret that they get Botox to keep looking young, and we’re fine with it.

But when a 18-year-old gets Botox this is something different, in fashion or not.

Filipino pop star Charice, who is 18 but could easily pass for 15, recently got Botox. Unsurprisingly, this has caused some controversy.

According to the AP, Charice was injected with the wrinkle-reducing toxin “to look fresh on camera” in preparation for her upcoming debut as Rachel Berry’s rival on Glee. Celebrity plastic surgeon Vicki Belo, who injected Charice on camera, told ABS-CBN television that the teen pop tart got Botox as well as a 30-minute Thermage skin-tightening procedure to make her “naturally round face” more narrow. Charice herself told ABS-CBN that the procedures were part of her prep before filming the hit Fox TV show.

Charice’s rep denies that the procedure was for cosmetic reasons and told UsMagazine.com that the Botox was to “to relieve a jaw problem similar to TMJ.”

This is a legitimate reason for using Botox. “Botox is used to treat TMJ which sounds like what is being described–that is a medical use, not a cosmetic use of Botox and may be appropriate in younger age groups,” says Heidi A. Waldorf, M.D., Director of Laser and Cosmetic Dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in NYC.

But, Waldorf adds, “Botox is also injected into the muscles of the jaw, the chewing muscles, to give the face a slimmer appearance and make the jaw less square. This is particularly popular in Asia. I would consider 18 years old to be too young for that cosmetic indication.”

Well, that’s all about the story, but the meaning behind this event is much more : Botox is widely used in Hollywood–mostly by the (we hope) 40+ set. Charice does not look like she needs Botox. At all. So can you ever be too young for Botox?

But one doc once told me, “If the wrinkles are there, then they’re there. The youngest patient I’ve seen was 22 years old, and she needed it.” But really? 18? I really can’t agree with a 18-year-old getting Botox. How about you? Our question here for you is: How young do you think is too young for Botox?

All women at almost all ages use beauty products, because we all love to keep young and beautiful, then here comes the question, all these toners, lotions, creams and other we put on our face and our body, and even our hair, how do we know if they’re safe or not?

Another question that keeps coming up is this: Do most women care whether or not the products they use are environmentally friendly/organic/natural?

Allow me to be devil’s advocate for a moment. There’s been a lot written about what exactly “organic” and “natural” mean. There are different organic standards in the US and Europe, which directly affects beauty consumers. So many great products come from abroad, but it’s often difficult to figure out where the ingredients are sourced.

Then you have the loaded word “natural.” If you take a glance into the history of beauty, women have used lead, arsenic, mercury, and belladonna as beauty enhancers. All are potentially deadly and all are natural products. On the flip side, chemotherapies are toxic chemicals that cure cancer and allow patients to live full lives, sometimes without any long-term side effects at all (and some are actually derived from plant products–go figure).

So how does one buy a beauty serum when confronted with a multitude of options, and confusing packaging and labeling? I suspect most women want products that work and are a good value. If they happen to be green, too, then that’s a bonus, but I’m not sure that it’s a driving force for most consumers.

To get some educated answers I picked the brain of Virginia Sole-Smith, who has been writing about natural and organic products for six years and is currently a blogger at Planet Green. Her commitment to exposing the truth and her knowledge about these issues is impressive. She made some points that were actually shocking to learn:

There are absolutely no government mandated standards for labeling a product “natural.” The FDA says: “It is illegal to introduce a misbranded product to interstate commerce.” Virginia made the point that a product can be 99.9% synthetic, but if it contains a tiny bit of something natural, like water (!!) the company can advertise it as natural.

In general, Europe has more stringent standards than the US for regulating and labeling organic products.
I wondered about organic labeling for food vs. beauty products. It turns out that the FDA is in charge of regulating cosmetics, and the USDA regulates the term “organic.” So both organizations provide oversight of organic beauty products. One would assume that these products are purer because of the dual oversight, but in reality there are just more loopholes. The scariest? A product can be labeled 95% organic but there are no rules about what the last 5% has to be. It could be a carcinogen like formaldehyde and still qualify for an organic seal.

The FDA doesn’t require companies to do pre-market safety testing so there are some 70,000+ products out there that have never been tested. Products can contain chemicals that companies aren’t required to reveal. For example, “fragrance” is proprietary. That lavender scent may contain something having nothing whatsoever to do with an actual lavender plant–but you’ll never know.

I’m completely schizophrenic when it comes to my shopping convictions. I buy organic dairy and produce, but don’t freak out if I can’t get it. I love clothes and jewelry that have been re-purposed, but I’m also a consumer of H&M-type fast fashion. I recycle whenever possible. But I use chemical sunscreen. I use skincare products whose ingredient labels read like something out of a chemistry textbook. I occasionally make spontaneous gut purchases based on a great scent or presentation without regard to efficacy.

So are traditional drugstore products going to kill me? Should I make my own soap in my bathtub just to be on the safe side? Virginia provided some guidelines.

1) Check out the safety rating at the Skin Deep Database.
2) Organic doesn’t always mean 100% safe and traditional products are not always unsafe.
3) Look beyond packaging and magazine ads. Read mission statements. Check the bottle to see if they advertise what you’re NOT getting (formaldehyde, phthalates, etc).
4) Choose small indie brands who batch by hand.

We are planning to do a lot more beauty features, and I’m looking forward to delving deeper into these products and companies. It’s confusing out there in the cosmetics aisle.

So the cosmetics world really is confusing, and really is not so safe, we have to open our eyes and our minds too, “organic” really isn’t a guarantee, we definitely need to check it out ourself carefully!

Celebrities always make lots of buzz by even a little action on fashion, and as we all have seen Lindsay Lohan is quite that kind of girl that makes buzz everywhere in fashion.

While everyone else was making a fuss over the fact that one of Lindsay Lohan’s courtroom nails (the middle finger, natch) had a tiny “fuck u” written on it, we were thinking about how awesome her nails looked.

We doubt Lilo’s manicure will hold out for her 90-day prison sentence. But it looks like it’s going to last longer than our $12 manicures. And that tie dye effect is kinda awesome.

Even reigning nail art queen, Naomi Yasuda, whose client list includes Lady Gaga, Amanda Lepore, Alicia Keys and, wait for it, Steven Tyler, thinks Lindsay’s nails were hot.

“I think the tie dye look is really cute,” says Yasuda, 25, who works out of Hello Beautiful salon in Williamsburg. “I could do that with an airbrush and it would only take about 20 minutes and cost around $50.” As for the “Fuck U”? Yasuda says you can use little stickers to write on nails but we’re betting Lilo just sharpied that on. But the design, Lilo has confirmed with a tweet (yes, she’s still tweeting) was airbrushed.

You can also thank Yasuda for the only redeeming part of Sex and the City 2: Kim Cattrall’s nails. She’s behind Samantha’s amazing manicures, and submitted ten designs for the film.

Yasuda’s been using nails as a canvas for the past seven years, and she got her start doing her friends nails for fun in junior high school. One of her trademark super ornate manicures – replete with chains, charms, jewels, and intricate designs – takes up to an hour and a half and costs up to $150.

If you don’t have $150 to blow on a manicure, Yasuda’s also got some tips for the DIY inclined. ”Always put on a base and top coat to make it last longer,” she says. “And remember you don’t always have to do all 10 finger nails. Just doing one fingernail can set another mood for you.”

Well, are you ready to get some tie dye painted finger nails?

Rainbow is a symbol of happiness and beauty which we would love to possess, or just seeing it means something to us. So every time after the rain stopped, we always goes out to the street or to the window to see if there will be a rainbow, or if we’re lucky to see it. Well, that’s fun and interesting, but I am the one that usually don’t get to see the rainbow, so it feels little sad. But I’m just lucky enough to find this Rainbow Bracelet, and now rainbow’s on my wrist!

It is Rainbow. The elegant bracelet packs a mini make up case in itself, making both your wrist and your face more attractive. Designed by Baita Design, the bracelet is actually quite simple but totally shinning, and with a make up case built in, it just looks colorful and gorgeous, and quite practical too. Actually, rainbow has never been so practical ever!

Time to show the colorfulness of your nails! Summer is always a happy time, and among all the happy factors like beaches, ice-creams…and many more, bright colorful nails are one of the most enjoyable things for fashion girls. And as we all have many nail polishes of different colors and different specialties, I’ve never bought a scented one before, and you know why, right?

So here’s the news: Revlon makes scented nail polish for the 2010 summer collection. Brilliant, or crazy?

Well, let’s start with their new products for SS10 as a whole. It is a nice collection indeed, there were the Revlon mainstays of mascara, lip stain, and a special collection by Gucci Westman (which is gorgeous), but also a line of scented nail polishes.

I can’t help but think that there’s a lot wrong with this idea. Firstly, nail polish fumes are toxic, and while Revlon’s polish is marketed to be smelled when dry, inevitably people are going to sniff it in the bottle, as many women did this morning. Encouraging people to intently smell toxic fumes is a bad idea on every count.

But let’s get on to the actual smell. On one hand, the scent lasts for five days, making it a perma-perfume, which would save you a ton of money on Chanel No. 5. But it also comes in scents like Grape Icy, Ocean Breeze, and Beach, which we don’t think anyone has wanted to smell like since Kramer.

The colors range from shimmery acid green (very Shrek for OPI) to a feminine pink and a shocking red that are perfect for daily wear. So we ask, would you rock Revlon’s scented polish or are you sticking to regular scentless polishes this summer?

Uh…I may want to have a try, but I’m still not so sure about it yet, so if you’ve tried, please tell me how it feels like.

US is a hot land, and fashion loves it. How do I see that? I don’t know, I just see that, and do you think so? Well, I don’t know why, but I always feel that French labels are quite special in the fashion world, maybe it’s just France the place made all these special and romantic, or maybe there’s actually something unique. I’ll leave the question to you, and now let’s take a look at the news of the French label Paul & Joe.

French label Paul & Joe opened its first US boutique today. The spot? Los Angeles, natch.

Sophie Albou’s collection of easy, slightly bohemian separates fit in nicely with laid-back Southern Californian style. So it’s no wonder the designer is establishing her first US retail outlet there, rather than New York (or even San Francisco).

Of course, shoppers across the country are well aware of the Paul & Joe brand: Albou’s signature collection and diffusion line Paul & Joe Sister can be found in boutiques all over, while her collaborations with Target and Urban Outfitters have afforded her recognition on the mass market level.

The flagship store on Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood stocks Albou’s men’s and women’s ready-to-wear and accessories collections, as well as Paul & Joe Beaute. Which, if you haven’t tried it, is an insanely awesome makeup line. (Mostly because of its vintage-inspired packaging.)

Expect to see Jessica Alba and Reese Witherspoon-types snapped in Paul & Joe blouses very soon.

Well, anyway, I really like the styles of Paul & Joe, and let’s just hope that they will have a big success in LA! And for us, there’s a new reason add to our “why go to LA” list.