Category: blog

(Sometimes I feel so) Uninspired

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(Sometimes I feel so) Uninspired was the title of a song by Traffic, a band fronted by Steve Winwood that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  It also reflects how I’m feeling now about blogging.

The process of sitting down to blog is hard for me.  However, I’ve been very active on Twitter with beauty news.  Twitter is easy, blogging is hard.

I’ve also been going through a makeup-free period.  After DST, I’ve had a hard time waking up before dawn  and it’s enough for me to throw on clothes and get out of the house to go to work.  Maybe some lip color and Paula’s Choice Brow/Hair Tint to cover the gray hairs and groom the brows.  And that’s about it.

However, that hasn’t stopped me from buying cosmetics!  Recent purchases:

G-d willing, I’ll get the motivation to sit down and write about them!

Top 100 Beauty and Fashion blogs

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Recently, as I was checking my stats, I discovered that one of the referring pages was Top 100 Beauty and Fashion Blogs of 2012 from Skincare-news.com.  That’s right – The Style Page made the list.  I don’t know what criteria Skincare-news.com used.   Certainly, its criteria didn’t include blog traffic and blogs weren’t ranked by blog traffic.  Still, it was gratifying to be listed next to Temptalia.

Here’s what Skincare-news.com said about The Style Page:

The simple, streamlined Style Page began in 2001 and has since evolved into a go-to source for makeup and skincare reviews, beauty industry news and more. Look for the occasional fashion posts and interviews with beauty insiders as well.


It was gratifying that it seemed that someone took some to review The Style Page blog and find out what’s it about.

Still, I have to be grounded about this.  Andrea at Savvy Blogging writes in her article Compensation, Worth, Lists…and a flash back to Junior High:

And then I realized something. Blogging lists are like sitting at the cool table in junior high. … So if you made the list, Congrats! If you didn’t make the list, Congrats!

Indeed.  I had the experience of being extended an invitation to a beauty bloggers network, only to have the same person rescind the invitation because I didn’t have the blog traffic.  Who’s in, who’s out, who’s cool, who’s not – just like junior high.

My New Year aspirations for The Style Page blog

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Happy New Year 2012

I reactivated The Style Page blog in August 2011 after a year and a half absence.  I’ve reconnected with the terrific creative people whom I’ve met over the years that I’ve maintained this blog and made new friends.

So what do I want for this blog?  What everyone blogger wants: more readership, more blog traffic, and opportunities for remuneration (as long as I can maintain my integrity).  But what I want most of all is reader engagement.

Then, if there’s sufficient interest, I’d like to get my own domain name and engage a professional to design a logo and upgrade to WordPress.  Any advice?

Total Beauty Weekly Web Tour

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Total Beauty Web Tour

Viva Woman finds out if there is a limit to layering more skincare products on our face at any one time?

Beauty Anonymous is interested in checking out the MAC Hello Kitty Collection.

Beauty Junkies Unite hopes you win the Benefit 24K Sexy Gold GIVEAWAY!

Trisha over at Makeup Files shows you how to ask for makeup this holiday season.

Fabulous Over Forty is reviewing several 2008 Holiday Collections. See which ones are her favorites this season.

Neon Bible tells you what bra you need to buy today and reviews the new Heidi Klum collection lipstick from Victoria’s Secret

Fashion designer Vera Wang talks about Look her new perfume-a video clip by Talking Makeup.

Frappelattes gives us a preview of new Essie nail polish colors for Winter 2008!

Beauty Tyrant is hosting her first beauty giveaway this week. She is giving away a Karmin Titanium Hair Straightener Iron for FREE! to one lucky winner all this week.

Makeup Bag visits the Clarins Spa in Neuilly, France

Julie at More than a Pretty Face loves the new formula and colors for Obsessive Compulsive Colour Lip Balms

The Makeup Divas reviews MAC Adoring Carmine 5 Basic Brush Bag.

The Home Spa Goddess shares her obsession with Revlon’s Limited Edition Crushed Velvet Lip Creme.

Are you a recessionista? Chat with Beckie and Jamie of Girl-Woman-Beauty-Brains-Blog http://www.girl-woman-beauty-brains-blog.com/2492940about great drugstore alternatives?

Suzanne at RN Guide to Skin Care reviews Avon Skin So Soft Age-Defying+ Corrective Neck & Chest Treatment .

The Beauty Blog reviews Wen Hair Care.

Mineral Makeup Reviews discusses Serious Skin Care ProMinerals ProNano Brightening Powder.

Enter to win to a Karmin Titanium Hair Straightener Iron on A Mom in Red High Heels! Contest ends 11-17-08.

Boutique Flair talks about building your beauty with self esteem!

Monique at Beauty Girl Musings has used an amazing kit that has given her clearer, fresher looking skin! Find out what it is!

Beauty411 takes a look at MAC’s Passions of Red Holiday Collection!

Nur @ I Love Looking Good thinks this holiday is about All that Sparkles. Gorgeous makeup collection from The Body Shop.

Alison of the Advice Sisters has been blogging every day about beauty and gift-ables items for the holidays, but she also blogged this week about the Chocolate Show’s Runway Show where all the costumes were at least 40% chocolate!

Beauty Blogging Junkie shares how you can dazzle like Twilight‘s Edward in the meadow with these highlighters. Get gleamy!

The girls over at Beauty in Real Life have 5 copies of celebrity makeup artist, Carmindy’s latest book to giveaway. Click here to get all the info!

Are you a Recessionista? Chat with Jamie and Beckie at Girl-Woman-Beauty-Brains-Blog about budget-friendly drugstore alternatives.

Glossypink tells you about the little makeup brush with big possibilities!

Indian Girl is bringing you yummy Beauty Secrets from a Food Blogger, in her new weekly feature !

CaliforniaCosmetics gives an in depth review of Purminerals Starter Kit and Brush Set and what’s purfect about them!

Hot Beauty Health shows you how to prevent stretchmarks using Mamma Mio Countdown Kit during pregnancy.

Scooped!

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Beauty411 scooped this item:

Jemma Kidd, Napoleon Perdis & Pixi Cosmetics now at Target!
You can now shop for the new cosmetics lines online at target.com. Apparently, the products are already available at some Target stores (another tribute to Target’s erratic stocking). I checked yesterday at the Target store in Reston, VA where I shop and found that two shelves were cleared, presumably making way for the new lines.

The Makeup Divas published this item before I had a chance to blog on it:

CVS To Open Beauty 360 stores
These stores will feature high-end brands. The first is due to open later this year. I’ll wait and see if this concept is a success. Boots had a similar concept in the UK called Pure Beauty and it crashed and burned.

The keffiyeh controversy returns

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Rachel Ray for Dunkin’ Donuts

I know that my last several articles have veered away from discussing beauty, which has been my stock in trade, but timely topics such as Yves St. Laurent’s death and Barack Obama’s clinching the Democratic nomination for President have pre-empted blogging about beauty.

Last Saturday, I came back from Copenhagen, where only one Starbuck’s was spotted (in the airport) and Dunkin’ Donuts is non-existent. I came back to learn about the controversy concerning an ad for Dunkin’ Donuts, in which spokesperson Rachel Ray wore a fringed scarf suggesting the keffiyeh, which is closely associated with the late Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat.

The campaign was driven by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin and the strongly pro-Israel blog Little Green Footballs. Dunkin’ Donuts has since pulled the ad, thanks to Ms. Malkin and LGF and their thousands of followers. However, other conservative writers think that Ms. Malkin and LGF are reading into the adthings that really weren’t intended.

In Copenhagen, street fashion includes scarves, even keffiyehs, loosely worn around the neck. No wonder that dELiA*s called their version the “Euro scarf.” I don’t know if the kids have any knowledge about the keffiyeh and its associations and are merely buying into radical chic. It would help if there were a campaign to inform people about the terrorist attacks guided by Arafat and to prod them into questioning if they can justify wearing an item so closely associated with a terrorist.

Soul Piercing Reflections: TG!!!

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The blogger for Soul Piercing Reflections has been one of my biggest supporters. I’ve been tracking the progress of her graduate thesis, and was sorry to learn that she wouldn’t be able to graduate at the end of this semester. She wrote,

… It’s likely we can finish by the beginning of the summer, though. Of course, that means I have to see if my two readers are willing to continue over the summer, which is a big if. After all, the summer is when they’re supposed to be free from we [us?] students.

Graduate advisors really have a habit of yanking students around. Today, I learn that the readers will be available: TG!!!

Congrats to Retainer Girl!

Friday roundup – March 14, 2008

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Notable posts from Friends of The Style Page

Elke notes that Whole Paycheck, er, Whole Foods Market has created its own standard for Premium Body care. This is not a standard for what constitutes organic personal care products. Multiple organizations are developing standards for what constitutes organic personal care products and/or certiying personal care products as organic. This creates confusion in the minds of consumers. A global standard for what constitutes organic personal care products is needed.

The Beauty Brains reports on how the skin care company Elle Bache is promoting its new line: by installing a 40-foot long sculpture of a nude woman made out of peaches.

BTW The Beauty Brains book has gone to print. Buy the book now, and Beauty Brains will provide instructions to download a PDF version to enjoy until the book is published.

Girl-Woman-Beauty-Brains-Blog reports on A Beauty Secret That Will Leave You Less Chafed Financially, namely using Monistat Soothing Care Chafing Relief Powder Gel as a face primer. But will consumers get past the “ew” factor, as the Monistat brand is associated with treating vaginal yeast infections?

Lastly, Soul-Piercing Reflections shares her current favorite eye makeup look, a mix of plum shades.

Friday roundup – March 7, 2008

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It’s Friday, and time for the Friday roundup, for the fourth week running! The Friday roundup highlights blog articles written by Friends of The Style Page in the past week.

SugarShock loves the Pop Beauty Eye Class in Brown Eyes. She writes, “While the shadows looked kind of sparkly in the kit, when you apply them they actually have a nice iridescence that’s not too glimmery, but just right.”

Pop Beauty Eye Class in Brown Eyes

Mischo Beauty announces the debut of her Facebook page.

Scandalous Beauty features Whitney and Bobbi!! No, not Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston’s ex-husband. Rather, Bobbi Brown. Scandalous Beauty recommends the new Bobbi Brown Nudes Collection to recreate Whitney’s makeup (but not that Carol Brady hairstyle):


Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston had been on a downhill slide since she married Bobby Brown in 1992. I was routing for her comeback when she filed for divorce in 2006.

It should be evident to regular readers of this blog that I share i♥make-up’s love of Indian beauty. I’m not Indian, but my husband is. In Recreating the Sixties’ Look, i♥make-up discusses how to recreate the dramatic winged eyeliner look popularized by Indian actress Sharmila Tagore:


Sharmila Tagore

TV presenter (and ex-wife of Salman Rushdie) Padma Lakshmi recalled that she spent hours trying to recreate Sharmila Tagore’s look.

The late Bengali film director Satyajit Ray discovered Sharmila Tagore when she was just a teenager. He cast her as Apu’s bride in the third and last film of his Apu trilogy that won international acclaim and brought attention to Indian cinema. Ray must have been prescient about his actresses: similarly, he discovered Aparna Sen and Jaya Bachchan nee Bhaduri, both of whom had gone onto major careers in Indian cinema, when they were mere teenagers. Non-Indians might remember Sharmila Tagore as Meena’s mother in Mississipi Masala, about the unlikely romance between Meena, a young Indian woman (played by Sarita Choudhury) and an African-American man (played by Denzel Washington).

Friday roundup – February 29, 2008

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It’s Friday … and a leap year as well! Since it’s Friday, it’s time to recognize notable blogging activity from friends of The Style Page:

Mischo Beauty discovers the butter London line of nail polishes, which are free of formaldehyde, toluene or dibutyl phthalate. You may find butter London at b-glowing.

Beauty Maverick loves the Cannabis Santal Scented Candle from Fresh. She also reacts to the news that druggie Amy Winehouse is set to launch her own beauty line: No, no, no.

~charng of Frivolous Rants returns to blogging after a month’s absence. She examines how changing female roles have affected marriage. Given the angry response my article on Let’s Stop Glamorizing Pregnancy Out of Wedlock has generated, I think that some might be offended by the traditionalist views (not necessarily her own) that ~charng describes and seemingly longs for at some level. In that case, it’s important to remember that she’s writing as a member of the Chinese community in Malaysia – a far more traditional society than the U.S. or, for that matter, Europe.

Beauty Addict has disdained most celebrity fragrances, with the exception of Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely and Covet. Now she admits her fondness for Glow by J. Lo and the new (married) mother’s latest fragrance Deseo.