The Beauty Bunny

I used to think mud baths were weird. Now the Yvonne Hair and Nails Salon in Washington, D.C. is giving me a new procedure to balk at: fish pedicures.

How does it work? Customers’ tootsies are submerged in a tub of 100 flesh-eating fish called “doctor fish,” which then nibble away at the dead skin on your feet. (The fish are toothless.) The spa’s owner, John Ho, claims that the hot water in which the fish thrive doesn’t support much plant life, so the fish learn to feed on whatever was available — including dead, flaking skin. They leave live skin alone because, without teeth, they can’t bite it off.

Continue reading Fish Pedicures: The Cadillac of Flesh-Eating Spa Treatments

Does milk really do a body good? Cleopatra supposedly thought taking milk baths daily would maintain her gorgeous skin. Was it all for naught, or was the Queen of the Nile onto something?

Milk is an excellent source of lactic acid, an alpha hydroxy acid (AHA). But lactic acid already exists in our cells, so the body recognizes and accepts it more readily than it would a fruit-derived AHA. For the same reason, lactic acid creates less inflammation as it assists in new cell growth than other AHAs.

But don’t go jump in a milk bath just yet - homogenized milk will show little to no effect on the skin. Why? Unfortunately, the milk has to sour before the lactose in it can be converted to lactic acid. And no amount of skincare benefits are worth smelling like old cheese all day.

Continue reading The Milky Way: Using Lactic Acid in Skincare

With all of the blanket cosmetics lines out there promising solutions for your every beauty need, it’s refreshing to see a company like Anastasia Beverly Hills, which focuses on creating beautiful brows. The centerpiece of Anastasia’s novel collection of products is the Five Piece Brow Kit, a complete set of tools focused on delivering full circle DIY eyebrow beauty.

The kit comes in a range of colors suitable to every brow color found in nature; I tried it in Golden Blonde. The products included are:

Continue reading Makeup Reviews: Anastasia Five-Piece Brow Kit

If you’re a Gossip Girl fan, you probably a) can’t wait until September 1st for the Season 2 premiere and b) love to hate Blair Waldorf. Her personality may be lacking at times, but beauty is one area in which Blair can claim flawlessness. Leighton Meester’s look as the Park Avenue princess is both classic and tragic - not to mention gorgeous! Here’s a guide on copying Blair’s fabulous daytime makeup look:

1. Blair’s strong brows reflect her confidence and severity. Pluck yours into a straight shape with a definite arch, and fill in with Anastasia Brow Powder in Brunette. Don’t over-tweeze!

Continue reading Gossip Girl Makeup: Blair Waldorf

Beauty blogger and all-around purveyor of fabulosity Jamie over at The Beauty of Life is running a fabulous giveaway on spa favorites Farfalla and Bliss!

The items up for grabs are Farfalla’s Frangipani Shower Cream and Bliss’s superstar The Youth As We Know It Skincare Kit. Simply jump over to the giveaway post, enter your name and email address and check back on August 2 to see if you’ve won.

Burberry Brit falls into my favorite fragrance category: oriental. The scent is crisp, sweet, charming and sexy in a “I’m busy” kinda way. It makes me think of taking a brisk stroll through the streets of London, and isn’t that how anything from Burberry should make you feel?

• Top notes: Italian lime, icy pear, crisp green almond
• Heart notes: sugared almond, lush white peony
• Down notes: warm amber, mahogany, vanilla and tonka beans

Burberry Brit is available in eau de parfum for $85 or eau de toilette for $75.