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.