Friday, October 7, 2011

The Friday Forum - October 7

Clowning for the camera, Mikey Castillo and Lisa Lingis from Le Métier de Beauté, made my yesterday a joy. Mikey has been meeting with DC-area women at Neiman Marcus, accompanied by our regional rep Lisa. If you haven't seen him yet, he's at Mazza Gallerie today. You will love him! I'll tell you all about our visit either later today or first thing tomorrow. In honor of Steve Jobs, I decided to do a "non-traditional" interview with Mikey. It was fun.

What a week! I've already written about our continuing efforts to save trees and wildlife habitat as developers try to pave over every square inch of our area. If you didn't read my The Trees Won story, take a look and get a glimpse of my amazingly busy week. Yesterday, we discovered in the Code of Virginia that Fairfax County representatives haven't been entirely honest with us as they have postured that our land trust is "on its own" in protecting our conservation easement. Even after years of land use work, I continue to be amazed by the inequality of the playing field and the discrepancies between the local government's words and its actions. We've got another meeting with the County today, but I've grown to expect nothing. If anything good results, I'll be delighted.

Unfortunately, as the days pass, more trees come down in the woods within the building envelope, and the land is being altered forever. I'm not anti-development, but I do oppose development in sensitive stream valleys and pristine forests that serve an important function in protecting our rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, along with air quality and our quality of life.

Back to a different kind of beauty...what a Chanel week I've had! Chanel's Holiday 2011 Collection is stunning, and I've had a blast playing with the pieces I purchased. I have one more lip color to show you. I've also got some fabulous new YSL colors and many other treasures to describe in the coming days. I'm finding that I could blog full time - if there were a few more hours in the day.

I took full advantage of the Friends & Family sales at Beautyhabit and New London Pharmacy. I have no idea how I'll fit in all the fragrance features I want to write. Expect to see more than one/week for awhile.

It's time for The Friday Forum, our open chat. What new products did you discover this week? Did you find any deals you couldn't resist? Are you using a fabulous product and want to sing its praises? Did you find a beauty product disappointing? Do you have a question others might be able to answer? Want to talk about skin care? What's new in your life? Just use the comments. Don't be shy. Just make sure to ask any question you might have over the weekend. By early the next week, most (not all) readers have moved on.

This weekend, I'll be letting my DC-area friends know about some local events coming up in the next week. October always brings many opportunities to get to know the people behind the brand and learn about the gorgeous fall and winter collections, the latest in skin care, and even fashion's latest. The "busy season" continues.

Don't forget that the giveaway contest for Tarte's limited-edition five-piece LipSurgence set ends tomorrow, October 8, at midnight. I'll use a random number generator to select the winner, so everyone has a chance to win.

Sunshine is predicted for our weekend - things are looking up!

Photo by Best Things in Beauty

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi
thanks for all the Chanel features. I havent decided yet what will be on my list.
Yours LMdB event sounds like fun. That is the brand I want to discover next.
This week I found out New York finally has a Burberry counter and I went to pick up couple of things, my first Burberry items and I love them!!! Have you tried anything from them?

Nemo said...

CG,what did you think of the CHANEL holiday eye duo?

Eileen said...

Hi Anonymous,

Did you get any of the Burberry eye shadows? They're so silky smooth and the color palette is guaranteed to make those who love neutrals and muted, misty colors very happy. Slowly but surely, Burberry is expanding its counter availability which is a very good thing.

Hi Charlestongirl,

Today is "C" day :-) Chanel Holiday is due at the local counter so I'll go take a look this afternoon. Guerlain isn't due until next week which is OK because I've decided the only thing I really must have is the Météorites. I did finally succumb to Guerlain's quad in Les Verts, though. I don't normally wear a lot of green shadows because they tend to compete with the green in my eyes, but every time I passed the counter, Les Verts grabbed my attention. Finally, I gave in and let the MA try them out on me. I was pleasantly surprised that they actually emphasized the green in my eyes, so naturally the quad came home with me :-)

Keep up the great conservation work you're doing. I live in a county (Ventura) that has lots of agricultural/ranch land and is surrounded by beautiful mountains and foothills so slow growth, land conservation, and ridge line protection are huge issues out here. The work you're doing is commendable!

Charlestongirl said...

Hi Anonymous! I have ordered from Nordstrom twice, once when the Burberry line launched and once recently. There are items I really like (just search on Burberry here on the blog), and others, particularly lip colors, that I didn't like because of their heavily perfumed nature.

I'm anxious to get a counter here in the DC area. I would prefer to purchase once I can get a feel for the full line in person.

Charlestongirl said...

Nemo, I'm not sure they've received that yet. It's not coming to mind.

Charlestongirl said...

Thank you, Eileen. Spent a few hours on a site walk today, as a huge bulldozer knocked down trees and the deer ran. I nearly cried.

Isn't Les Verts gorgeous? I'm not at all surprised you caved. :)

I hope you are out shopping Chanel as I type. I need to stock up on my limited-edition favorites from the superb collection.

Happy weekend!

lovethescents said...

How terrible about your trees. What an awful feeling to be lied to by those voted into power. Arrogant, pompous, ungrateful. I could go on and on. I'm sorry for this.

Thank you for all those beautiful Chanel swatches. I have purchased nothing lately, although I'm waiting for a sample of Laura Mercier's Tinted Moisturizer. I'm searching for a perfect, sheer fluid to even things out and make me look brighter. I'll get there!

On the fragrance front, I sampled Indolice from Providence Perfumes. I adore PP, it's a beautiful range and the oils are excellent for the skin. I'm afraid Indolice was waaaaaay too indolic for me. This was an animal!

I did finally sample vintage Vent Vert parfum and it is smooth, lovely and silky. I can see this becoming a staple--meaning on the top 20 :-)

Have a great weekend, happy Thanksgiving to fellow Canadians!

Eileen said...

Hi Lovethescents,

Vent Vert! The first time I heard of that fragrance was when I was reading the Ian Fleming James Bond books back in the early 1960's. One of the femme fatales wore it. I wish I could remember which one. Vent Vert was also one of Brigitte Bardot's favorites. Alas, as much as I fantasized about being a sophisticated, sexy woman of the world, the fragrance smelled terrible on me :-( I wore Jolie Madame instead: a woody oriental. No surprise there, eh?

Unknown said...

Thanks for your continuing efforts to protect wildlife habitat and our environment. It takes people like you to stem what seems a never-ending tide aimed at destroying them. I design Climate Change projects for European guests in the US, and just closed this year's project in San Francisco. We always send these groups to California so they can see an example of a progressive state. It saddens me to read, per Eileen's message, that the struggle continues even there.

I'm loving my new Burberry eye shadows! I bought Porcelain and Midnight Brown in San Francisco last week, and got a foundation sample to try. Anonymous, where is the Burberry counter in New York located? I wish we had a Burberry counter here too.

AilurophileNZ said...

I made my 1st Estee Lauder purchases, the Modern Mecury Illuminating powder gelee & a double wear cream eyeshadow in 'Mochachino'. I had read a lot about the powder gelee and didn't think I was interested, but then I actually tried it - such a wondeful texture and illuminating colour, that much to my surprise I found myself buying it. I love it & use it such a lot - a quick e/s when in the run & I could just look at the colour and shine all day!

The double wear eyeshadow is great too & lives up to it's name on me - lasting double the amount of time any other eyeshadow I'm me! Will be buying more - I seem to have become an Estee Lauder fan overnight which is a surprise!

Charlestongirl said...

With the entry of Tom Pecheux, EL is like a different company. I had stopped cruising the counters. Now it's definitely on my rotation!

EL underestimated the gelee's impact. Our stores sold out almost instantly. I need to unbury mine and start wearing it again. Love it!

Have fun with your new goodies!

Charlestongirl said...

Ava, what made me happy about Eileen's message is that people care....and they may be mobilizing while there is still time. I also think the government in California is more responsive to environmental causes than Virginia's.

Are there any signs that we are getting Burberry at Pentagon City, as reported?

Eileen said...

Yes, a lot has been done to protect our land here in Ventura County. One of the most important things we did was to pass SOAR--Save Our Agricultural Resources-- which protects farm land and open space from zoning changes and development. Many other initiatives have been passed which provide for ridge line protection, slow and controlled growth in some areas, protection of certain trees (Thousand Oaks is famous and notorious for this), restoring the marshlands, creating wetlands wildlife sanctuaries, creating natural parklands, etc. We've done a lot out here, but the battle must be constantly waged or else the developers would swoop down on our beautiful land.

We have a community named Moorpark and the joke in City Planning used to be, "What is Moorpark spelled backward? Craproom!" But eventually, that community saw the light and realized the need to provide open spaces, parks, cycling and hiking trails within the city, and most important of all--slow and carefully planned growth. They're rightfully proud of the progress they've been making. There's always hope where there are concerned people willing to spend the time, effort, and money to protect our natural resources.

Whoa! What a rant! As you can tell, conservation is close to my heart, but to my way of thinking, it's the best thing in beauty :-)

Charlestongirl said...

Eileen, it's not a rant at all! I wish we could transplant that California way of thinking to our area, one that considers unrestrained growth the only progress, even if it's haphazard and harmful to everyone's quality of life.

For a rant, just get me going. :)

lovethescents said...

Eileen, have you retested Vent Vert? Your skin might do something different to it now, as compared to before.

Of course you wore Jolie Madame! You're a Tabu lady! :-))

Eileen said...

Hi Lovethescents,

Last night I ordered samples of Cuir de Russie, Iles de BoIs, Jolie Madame, and Vent Vert. How's that for a trip down memory lane!

Unknown said...

I had not heard that the Pentagon City Nordstrom is getting Burberry Beauty. Wouldn't that be wonderful! I quite like the shadows and see a couple more in my future.