Have you picked up your copy of Beauty Confidential yet?  Methinks some of my new readers have not!  For those of you that don’t know I’ve written a book, it’s a real girl’s guide to everything beauty, including plenty of tips for the lazy snooze-button-slapper in all of us.  Curious about organic beauty?  Wondering how to look shine-free in photographs?  Always dye your palms and ankles orange when you self-tan?  Need help on how to create the perfect smokey eye?   Want to know which products are in every single beauty editor’s cabinet?  It’s all there.  Check it out, and don’t forget to leave an Amazon review!  (By the way, Confessions of a Beauty Addict is available for pre-sale on Amazon, too.  I’m really excited for you all to read it.)

This excellent Ellen Tien article (She’s Happily Married, Dreaming of Divorce) appeared in Oprah a few months ago, but has been steadily making its way around the internets, popping up again, as if new, on CNN.com.  Maybe you’ve already read it (about five times, like I have), maybe not, but I’m curious, young married ladies: what say you?  Is the writer overly cynical?  Simply been married for too long?  Wrong five ways ’til Sunday?  Or…gulp…correct in her belief that it all comes down to thoughts of divorce in the end?  (Nuanced, thoughtful, appreciative of the finer points of marriage…but correct all the same?)  Either way, I’m still digging in my heels.  It’s going to take an entire army of horses to drag ol’ Jolie to the altar.  (And will I be eating my words in a few years?  Um, yeah, probably.)

Otherwise titled as “A Post That Really Has No Point, But Just ‘Cause…” 

When I started working at Lucky, fresh out of college, I was a lowly beauty assistant with little input, terrified of everybody around me.  My job initially consisted of opening packages, arranging products in the beauty closet, organizing the in-demand director’s schedule (well, okay, that would be attempting to organize the in-demand director’s schedule, since I was universally acknowledged to be a terrible–but oh-so-eager!–assistant), and answering phones.  Hardly tasks necessitating an Ivy League diploma—yet I was hooked.  The place was drenched in glamour, each editor was more fabulous than the next, and as time progressed, I was passed micro-pieces to work on, eventually graduating to the Secret Ingredient page and occasional Q&A’s for the burgeoning website (oh, 2003, how long ago you seem!)  Those Q&A’s became the inspiration for the Beauty Questions I now answer (but which y’all have been lazy about recently, so send ‘em in!), and, of course, led to the creation of beauty blog 1.0 formerly called Jolie in NYC.

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See review

Guest Review: Nars The Multiple Rated a 7.5 by TotalBeauty.com Editor Kristen Oldham-Giordani Nars The Multiple is a cream-to-powder formula that can be used anywhere (though it leaves lips feeling a little too powdery). The jumbo stick glides on smoothly and feels moist on skin, making it ideal for dry skin year-round or combination skin in the winter. …More

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If there’s one thing We don’t like, it’s a judgmental person.  (And people who use the Royal We.  Oh God, We hate Ourselves!)  Jolie believes in a Live and Let Live, To Each Their Own kind of Kumbaya universe, and feels that everybody has enough on their plate without worrying about their neighbor’s portions.  So, I have very mixed feelings about plastic surgery.  As you know, I work with two remarkable facial plastic surgeons in LA, and I love what they do, which is to say fixing the rhinoplasty eff-ups of other surgeons.  In Beauty Confidential, I specifically set out my policy toward plastic surgery: life is too short to obsess over imperfections, so either learn to love ‘em, or fix ‘em and move on.  I still feel this way.

Except, today marks one year since I’ve been living in Los Angeles, and, as so often happens in life, my views have changed without me realizing it.  I used to automatically lean toward the “Hell, fix it!” end of the spectrum.  Now, I pause.

I live in a city full of pneumatic bottle-blondes with pillowy lips and no hips…some genetically cultivated (thanks, Mom!), but most acquired through blood, sweat, and lots of money.  When you wander by the OR on a daily basis and are the only A-cup with soft thighs in a five-mile radius, it’s hard not to think, “Well…maybe…”  Why not a nip here?  Or a tuck there?  For me, the recent, and very real, proposition was even simpler: I know the anesthesiologist (who’s on her third surgery in what seems as many months), am chums with the Dr. 90210 surgeon, can get a free room at the after-care facility, will have the operating room fee comped, can get ample publicity for my book, be on TV again…and have thinner thighs, to boot!  Everybody wins!

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Jolie is thrilled that Allure’s Daily Beauty Reporter included her skincare tips alongside those of fellow beauty gals Daneen from Spoiled Pretty, Erika from Makeup Bag, and Amber from Beauty Blogging Junkie (if you’re not reading their blogs, you should be, as not only are these ladies super knowledgable, but they’re just good people to boot!).  Daily Beauty Reporter Jessica Matlin, an old magazine chum, quizzed me on which skincare product is currently revving my motor.  My answer?  IS Clinical Super Serum Advance, a powerhouse serum that’s full of antioxidants, brightens the complexion, helps keep acne at bay, increases collagen production, and does your laundry.  (Okay, not true…but it does everything else!)  It is, let’s be real, hardly cheap—$130 for a serum?  Dude, I still don’t have a car!—but if you’re as skin obsessed as I am, genuinely worth every penny.