Alexander Mcqueen’s suicide is still on my mind. I feel the same way I did when Kurt Cobain committed suicide, somehow to me they seem so similar because of the futures they both gave up. I still can’t believe we won’t see his creative mind anymore. The Cut Blog did a round up of his best looks and when I watched the show it was both beautiful and tragic.

So I needed a pick me up and when its cold in the suburbs, I revert to my teenage self and I go to CVS. (But if I want to feel chic, I pronounce it CaaVaaSaa). There I trolled the beauty aisle for a cream that had my latest obsession: hyluronic acid to draw all this chilly moisture into my skin and lock it in with its pseudosciencentific technology. I purchased Vichy LiftActiv Retinol HA SPF 18, it was featured in a January beauty story I wrote for Self and it’s actually doing the job. I know it takes three weeks for your skin to adjust to a new routine but I feel like I’ve found a drugstore face cream I can use in the winter that actually makes my skin look younger. It’s on the high-end side for drugstore purchase: it was $43 for 1.35 ounces. But I’m comfortable with that because just this week I was lucky enough to receive a package from The Organic Pharmacy that contained two exquisite products: Antioxidant Face Gel and Antioxidant Face Serum. They are made from all natural organic ingredients that are quick to be absorbed, smell citrusy and made me look like I’d slept in a king sized hotel bed all by myself all night. I glowed—truly, until I checked the catalog and realized that the gel is $84 for 1 ounce and the serum is $130 for 1 ounce. It get why it’s expensive and I’m over complaining about that, my problem is   how fast I’m working through each vial. If I had to order this stuff I would have spent $2400 on skincare annually, which is also a summer beach house rental or my powder room makeover. What does it say that I want my powder room to look prettier than me? Anyway, I can’t commit to that kind of beauty pricing. So viva Vichy! (Until I find something newer and cheaper).

A reader asked about peels so I thought I’d elaborate because I’ve really seen a difference in my skin since starting one. A peel isn’t as scary or as invasive as it sounds. Usually, its pad like those old fashioned Clearasil pads, that’s soaked in alpha hydroxy acid and beta hydroxy acid, your derm may have his own line or you can buy one online, at Bliss or at your drugstore. Dr. Gross’s peel is MD Skincare Alpha Beta Daily Face Peel, it’s a combination of both alpha and beta hydroxy acid that makes your skin shine by gently sloughing off dead skin, dissolving the yucky stuff in clogged pores and builds collagen so you skin looks firmer. According to Dr. Gross skincare products with several different kinds of acids (AHA and BHA) are the most effective and least irritating, because when many acids are combined, the peel contains a milder concentration of each so you get a little bit of the good stuff, without irritating you skin. Your face will look a little red after and you absolutely have to wear sunblock when you are using a peel.

I’ve also heard good things about Earthen Instapeel which is face and body peel but it’s a gel that you use in the shower. Bliss sells it. But be careful because they also sell an Earthen kit with a French blackhead extractor which is a recipe for disaster. Even the most disciplined beauty lover can’t resist letting her inner-aesthetician use that tool to pluck blackheads. I’ll admit an extractor is extremely satisfying when it works, but it’s also dangerous because it practically eggs you on to dig just a tad too deep and end up with a huge zit that then becomes a pock that heals into a life-long scar.  Beauty treatments can turn ugly so fast.

And lastly, just yesterday I was at CVS and noticed this product: Medical University Face Lift Wrinkle-Free Kit. Granted the name sounds like a total fraud and the site is very much in the infomercial genre. Think the Ginsu of beauty brands. But the products use serious ingredients: GABA (which instantly plumps) and hyluronic acid, which brings moisture to your skin, even though they don’t explain its benefit very well. According to some Walmart shopper reviews their products work—especially the University Medical Face Lift 20 Minute Wrinkle Free Eyes. It got 5 stars and women said they saw a difference right away.

I should probably give up my bird obsession before somebody gives me a cuckoo clock, but The World’s Best Ever just posted these birch-plywood 3-D post-cards made by a Finnish company called Lovi. They are available in light blue, lime, and mustard as well as black. Irresistible.

The bar I recently set up and motherblogger is mentioned in the Time’s Home section in a story about the super fun bar cart trend. Unfortunately, the wrong url was printed in the story, but they fixed it online.

When Maria, the reporter for the Times was interviewing me, I realized that I received a bar cart one Christmas from Santa. I had forgotten about it, but while we were talking I remembered coming downstairs one Christmas morning to find an orange plastic cart with metal trim and bright shiny wheels decked out with a tea set and glasses. The mod tangerine plastic gleamed next to the tree lights and even though I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t even know a present this chic existed in child size— it was a wildly reassuring gift. The cart was my mother’s way of saying to me, I know who you want to be and who you will become. That summer I was voted clumsiest camper at Camp Chinqueka, but by giving me that cart, my mom was telling me that I could also be Grace Kelly.

My mom is still that kind of gift giver and she manages to surprise me every Christmas. When I was in college I was too controlling and specific about what I wanted so she stopped taking risks and I received lots of gift cards. It was what I had asked for, but when I’d open the little card it felt like our connection was diffused into an institutionalized transaction. Parent = Shopping spree at Anthropologie. It made me feel like a favorite neice, not her daughter and her gifts had been her unique way of mothering me.

So I stopped telling her what I wanted for Christmas because I didn’t want checklist gifts. I wanted her imagination. And it worked. In the years since, she has given me a vintage Tutu from a performance of Sleeping Beauty; a limited edition of The Flair book; a fur scarf; a set of Leeds china. This year she gave me a ruffled purse. Where I’ll use it, I have no idea, but it’s her way of saying, you need this as much as a new pair of yoga pants. All her gifts are her way of guiding my taste while boosting my confidence to be who I wanted to be in a way that only she can.

When my mom gives me advice, sometimes I can hear the worry in her voice. Her gifts, however, are clear they all say I believe in you. And often enough, her presents are ideas of myself that  haven’t even occurred to me. So it was funny to realize, that while Maria was interviewing me, I had said I set up the bar because I was having two parties and I didn’t want anyone crowding up our tiny kitchen, but I really set it up because I wanted to have that life that she whispered into my ear when I was seven on Christmas morning.

I am just tickled by these Alphabet Plates featured on Swiss Miss. The boys are average eaters, when they do eat. It’s getting them to the table and to stay there that is hard. Con is already on board with loving broccoli, Dash not so much but he lately he’s been craving meatballs. I can’t wait to craft some of our own plates and I wonder if there can be some subliminal messaging while they eat the food: Dash loves green beans. Or, maybe I could just motivate them to keep eating by writing rewarding messages on their plates. Everything in our house is a competition: who can get dressed fastest, who can be wetter in the tub (no joke) who can fart louder (I swear). I bet I can turn this to my advantage by customizing plates to say: Wow! You Ate More Than Your Brother!  If the plate says it, it must be true, no?

This image is from SwissMiss customizing her plate.

Even though I’m not a doctor, I play one when I go online. I surf the web and diagnose myself with any illness I think I might have. I’ve had ovarian cancer, IBS, hiatal hernias, and PID—all in my mind.

But after three days of a fever of 101 I realized that I had more than a bad cold.  I logged onto the CDC and compared my symptoms to H1N1: Fever. Check. Respiratory Cough. Aches. Chills. Check. Check. Check. The next day, I was at my doctor’s office and she was writing me a script for a Tamiflu and Codeine cough syrup.

With my scripts in one hand and my cell in the other I speed dialed Dr. Sirna, my kid’s pediatrician from the foyer of my doctor’s office because Dashiell, my youngest, has asthma. The receptionist told me she’d have him call me right back. I turned the volume up on my iPhone and told Dashiell he could not play Frogger on my phone anymore so I would be sure to get his call. I even brought the phone into the bathroom with me. I kept checking that the ringer was on as if had some Flu-OCD and it reminded me of when I was a staff writer for SELF, and I’d be waiting to do a celebrity phone interview.

Celebs prefer to call you because they don’t want you to have their number and they rarely call on time so I’d be stuck at my desk trying to occupy myself for anywhere for five to fifty minutes—but I’d really just be glancing at the phone, pretending to write another story.  The only person who called me on time, actually a few minutes early, was Jody Foster. I had to be called out of meeting to take her call. Hearing “Jody Foster is on the phone for you” is a love-your-life kind of moment.

But when you have the flu and your kid has asthma during a possible H1N1 outbreak getting a call from your kid’s pediatrician feels even more reassuring. It also doesn’t hurt that Dr. Sirna is a Jason Bateman look alike.

I told Dr. Sirna that I had the flu but I didn’t know what kind, he said, “If your doctor diagnosed you with the flu and gave you a script for Tamiflu, you have H1N1 because seasonal flu has not started yet.” He also told me that the H1N1 is not behaving in the way they expected, its much more mild.

Well not mine. (more…)

I’ve been reporting for a beauty story and talking to a bunch of experts. One of my favorite interviews has been with Troy Suratt, a celebrity makeup artist and we were talking about shimmer shadows and whether or not they make you look old. I think they do.

I told Troy that I haven’t worn shimmer since 2000, when I was getting ready for my 30th birthday party with a beauty editor friend and she told me that I shouldn’t wear shimmer eye-shadow because it would draw attention to the wrinkles around my eyes. I dropped shimmer from my makeup kit and I dropped her too.

Here’s what he Troy had to say:

“Yes in the past shimmer shadows had a tendency to collect in wrinkles or emphasize  fine lines however today the pigment technology is such that pigments are so micro-jet-milled that the particle size is so small the light-reflecting-pigments actually  bring forgiveness to the eyes and the fine lines around the eyes.”

I’m running to CVS for a champange shade for my lids.

I’m starting a new advice column on Motherblogger. My dear friend, Peter Schaeffer, Ph.D an amazing psychotherapist will also be on hand to answer questions. Here’s the first installment. Send us the questions that are keeping you up all night and we promise to answer them as best we can. My specialty: gifts for friends. Schaeffer’s specialty: all real problems.

Dear Motherblogger,

I want to lose weight before my kid’s school starts so I look good when I see all my old mom friends on the playground at pickup. But it’s only a week away and I refuse to do the Cabbage Diet. I don’t have time to workout because we’re hosting friends for Labor Day weekend and frankly after a summer with my kids my willpower is shot and I need to eat and drink whatever I please to feel happy. Any suggestions?

Signed,

Always a 10, never an 8

Dear 10,

I feel the same way. Somehow I always start off fit in June and soft around the edges in September.  For me summer is like the holiday-time only it lasts for three months. Someone pours me a glass of rose at 2:30 in the afternoon and I think, “What the heck its summer.” Same goes for when I see corn or the cob and lobster salad.  Or I hear the ice cream man ring his jingle. I wave him down, ostensibly for the kids, and order a Toasted Almond bar too telling myself, “What the heck it summer”. When it’s time to start packing school lunches, I’ve packed on a few too.

Now that the weather is cooler though I’m ready to slip into something less forgiving than a tankini and a cover up. A friend invited me shopping today, but I had to work and I was relieved because I wasn’t ready to watch myself try to wiggle into a pair of jeans that are just a wee bit to tight.

So she went off to Nordstrom’s without me and while there she was fitted for a new Wacoal bra. She came back walking taller looking like she lost ten pounds. When I complemented her new silhouette she told me about her new bra and said, “I feel like I’m being supported by a strong man’s hands.”

Cross my heart.

Forget the crash diet, just go get a Wacoal bra. They run about $55. But for an instant drop in dress size, it seems worth the price and come Sept 9th, you’ll feel like you have a brand new body.

I got to roadtest the new Reebok EasyTone sneakers for More.com that are supposed to tone your butt like MBT’s without making you look like you’re wearing orthopedic shoes. Read all about it here.

Given the economic downturn, and the success of Obama’s positive messaging it seems inevitable that there would be a spate of 70s “Hang In There Baby” posters. Though this time around everything is a heck of a lot more chic. Here are some prints I’ve stumbled upon, they are so calming, I’m thinking of calling them Paxil art.

This is not new. It's a reproduction of a British poster that was issued in 1939 before the Germans invaded England. But the message is timeless. Lord knows I could use this in my kitchen when the 7pm witching hour rolls around. $65, keepcalmandcarryon.com

Then there's this beauty by Jennifer Renninger. You could turn to this poster 100 times a day and it would never get annoyed (unlike friends or lovers). $30 (8.5x11) at littlepaperplanes.com

My mother is upset about the economic crisis and has taken to bed. I'm thinking of sending her this one by Lisa Congdon, $35 (8.5x11) at littlepaperplanes.com