Cosmetic Executive Women held their annual CEW Awards Luncheon today at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York; I’ve been lucky enough to attend myself twice, and it’s a huge to-do.  The ballroom is packed with tables full of beauty editors, high-profile executives and a smattering of B-list celebs, and everybody twitters and clucks and shrieks as the winners are announced.  (Yes, just like in high school when they announced Homecoming Court over the loudspeakers, only this time the role of Head Cheerleader will be played by Allure’s Linda Wells.)  Some of the the winners which also happen to be Jolie obsessions:

Scented Bath and Body - Prestige: Tom Ford Beauty Black Orchid Finishing Spray
I cannot express my love for this product enough.  I want to eat it.  I want to bathe in it.  I want to marry it and have all its babies.  It is so, so sexy—even more amazing than the already-fabulous Black Orchid EDT and EDP.  Tom Ford famously said when creating Black Orchid that he wanted it to smell like the inside of a man’s crotch, which is the very height of weirdness.  Apparently, the inside of a man’s crotch is also all in the world that Jolie desires to spritz on herself.  So, you know, that’s bizarre.

Facial Skincare - Acne Treatment: Bare Escentuals Rare Minerals Blemish Therapy
From my favorite beauty company comes a preservative-free, all-natural, mineral zit treatment that uses sulfur.  Dab it on at night and pimples will quietly flee.

Makeup: Eye Product - Mass: Cover Girl Lash Blast Mascara
Somehow, I didn’t get around to using this mascara until this morning for the very first time.  Predictably, I fell in love; the raves are all true, and it volumizes, lengthens and thickens like a dream.  This just might upstage Max Factor Lash Perfection as my favorite drugstore mascara. 

For a complete list of winners, click here, or check out Jessica Anderson from Sephora’s beauty blog’s live twitter updates from earlier.

Perfume, like many things from which pleasure can be derived, is both an art and a science.  Sure, there are qualifications, distillations, minute measurements of this and that, but what it really comes down to is…does it smell good?  The answer, of course, is: it depends on who’s doing the smelling.  For me, perfection can be found in bottles of Bond no. 9 Chinatown, Narciso Rodriguez for Her, Chanel Coco Mademoiselle and—my current obsession—Tom Ford Black Orchid.  (It’s what I imagine a turn-of-the-century Parisian bordello to smell like.  And yeah, that’s a good thing.)  Thierry Mugler Angel, on the other hand?  I respect it, I understand it, I bow down before its complexity…but it reminds me of cat pee, and I’d no sooner have it on my skin than work in said aforementioned bordello.  One woman’s olfactory trash is another’s treasure, so fragrance guides must always come with a “just because I like it, doesn’t mean you will, too” caveat.  Regardless, I’m excited to read Perfumes: The Guide, by Luca Turin, PhD and Tania Sanchez, containing reviews of 1200 scents.  I ran across a review in my beloved Elle, which mentions that Turin counts Chanel 31 Rue Cambon as 2007’s best scent: “I cannot remember the last time, if ever, a perfume gave me such an instantaneous impression of ravishing beauty at first sniff.”  I remain skeptical until I smell for myself…but with review like that, I must smell it immediately.

Looks like McDreamy is pimping himself out all over the place — not only is Patrick Dempsey lending his pretty mug to Versace’s spring/summer campaign, it’s also now reported that he’s “creating” an Avon fragrance for men.  (They’re keeping it in the family; his wife Jillian Fink Dempsey is Avon’s Global Creative Color Director.)  It amuses me to no end when celebrities claim to “create” fragrances.  (And yes, I’m going to keep putting that in air quotes.)  Let’s be frank, there’s very little “creating” going on with most famous-people scents, unless we’re talking about phone consultations and five-minute sniff sessions in between publicity tours.  Call me cynical, but I doubt Patrick will be spending hours in a lab in Grasse, thoughtfully adding juuuuust the right level of ambergris until he’s achieved fragrance nirvana.  More than likely, a suit will put three committee-approved choices in front of him and say, “Pick one!”  Nothing wrong with that; I’m sure it will absolutely smell divine.  But I’m also sure he doesn’t need to quit his day job.

Photo from People.com (Jeff Vespa/WireImage)

When I was at Ladies’ Home Journal, our beauty director was obsessed with Chandler Burr, and for good reason.  He’s the author of two books (The Perfect Scent and The Emperor of Scent) and has penned fascinating, loving, in-depth articles about fragrance for The New York Times, focusing not just on the technical aspects that make a scent sing, but on the ephemeral characteristics that transform it from good to divine.  Through Chandler’s articles, I discovered Hermes Un Jardin Sur Nil, finally gave Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely a much-deserved chance, and was vindicated in my adoration for Chanel Coco Mademoiselle (which he calls “a fresh-faced seventeen-year-old in a summer dress”).  (I’ve still yet to sniff Versace The Dreamer, but his description is mesmerizing!)  Check out Bella Sugar’s interview with Chandler here, and if you’re a perfume junkie, be sure to visit his website, as well. 

Maya writes:

Hi Nadine — by chance are there any men’s colognes you recommend at the moment?  I think the person I’m dating could use something other than Acqua di Gio.  Thanks, and thanks for everything you share!

Hi Maya!  Fragrance is obviously a really personal thing, so what one person thinks smells divine might be absolutely horrendous to another’s nose.  Regardless, there are a few classics that it’s pretty hard to go wrong with.  For a masculine scent that’s not your typical college boy musk, check out Givenchy Pi, which is my favorite cologne in the history of the world.  It’s fresh, woodsy and very mysterious. Other sexy, giftable, you-won’t-be-able-to-stop-sniffing-him choices: Chanel Allure Homme, Victoria’s Secret Very Sexy for Him (seriously!) or Creed Green Irish Tweed.  (By the way, they all smell fabulous on women, too.)

My perfume addiction

Tuesday, July 5th, 2005

As my friends know, I am completely addicted to perfume. Despite having done a bathroom purge about six months ago, when I got rid of 10-15 fragrances by giving them away to needy friends, a quick check shows that I still have 25 perfumes on my bathroom vanity. I suppose I could get rid of most of my fragrances, since I only wear four or five on a regular basis, but how can you toss classics like Amarige, Shalimar, J’Adore, Marc Jacobs and Fleurissimo?I currently rotate between Calvin Klein Eternity Moment, Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue, Narciso Rodriguez for Her, and Miss Dior Cherie, with the occasional Escada Rockin’ Rio, Chanel Chance, Givenchy Pi or Stella McCartney thrown in for good measure. But the one fragrance that provokes the most reaction when I wear it is Coco Mademoiselle—my current obsession—which has notes of jasmine, rose, bergamot, orange, vanilla, and patchouli. Fragrance writer Chandler Burr describes it by saying, “It is lovely, flowery, a fresh-faced seventeen-year-old in a summer dress…when you come across someone wearing it, you want to lean closer to them,” which is a pretty apt description from my experiences. If you’re looking for a gorgeous fragrance to make people say, “You smell delicious—what are you wearing?”, Coco Mademoiselle is it.

Sephora, Mon Amour

Monday, July 18th, 2005

Sephora has opened their new Union Square location, finally wising up to the fact that lazy 14th street shoppers like myself don’t want to walk all the way over to Fifth Avenue just to touch up their eyeliner before a big date. (Those avenue blocks—they’re killers.) I spent half an hour browsing the new store today, playing with the makeup, spritzing on the perfume (my new must-haves: Hermes Un Jardin Sur Le Nil and Lanvin Eclat d’Arpege) and sizing up the skincare lines (currently reinfatuated with Lancome. And what has become of Darphin, an old favorite?). The wonderful thing about Sephora for somebody like me is the rare opportunity to see an entire line laid out—no press releases, no selective mailings from PR people, but simply row after row of blushes and gloss, moisturizers and cleansers. It also makes me realize that, no matter how much time I devote to it, I will never be able to try all of the beauty products in the world. I find this exciting: there will always be new products and new innovations. And, alas, my bathroom cabinets will never be tidy.

While walking down Fifth Avenue this afternoon, I passed a stunning, sexalicious Saks window display devoted to the new Gucci by Guccifragrance and decided to go inside and sniff it out.  Within seconds, I was pounced on by the perfume sharks, who sensed a potential sale and pulled me this way and that, shoving fragrances under my nose.  The Gucci sounds great on paper (according to the website, it’s a “chypre floral…top note of guava and pear, heart note of tahitian tiare flower, base note of musk and honey”) but in practice, simply didn’t work for me.  (Sort of like that really gorgeous guy from high school that you always died for, but when you finally had the chance to kiss him, you were like, “Eh.  Damn it.”) I spent ten minutes testing out other scents (some old, some new) and was surprised to find myself liking Juicy Couture (very fresh and playful; it has a fruity, apple-y quality that reminds me of Ralph), and unsurprised to find myself melting over Guerlain My Insolence (smells like raspberries tinged with vanilla) and Delices De Cartier (which has cherry, bergamot and sandalwood and is absolutely scrumptious.) I’ve recently been testing Marc Jacobs Daisy and Sarah Jessica Parker Covet, which are both quietly lovely, but we’re still in the courting phase. I’ll let you know my full opinion after (if!) I finally get seduced.Check out David Lynch’s Gucci by Gucci commerical here, if you haven’t already seen it.  It’s very late 70’s Halston-era Studio 54