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.

I took a few videos from inside the Gibson Amphitheater; please forgive me for the crappy quality!  This is of the Cheetah Girls, Blake Lively and Ed Westwick’s arrivals; more to follow tonight (including Posh and Becks, Ryan Sheckler, Channing Tatum, Will Smith singing Rapper’s Delight, Hayden Panettiere, Leighton Meester, Jordin Sparks, James Marsden, Penn Badgley, Zac Efron and Kristen Bell.) 

Random, exciting news!  Neutrogena has invited me to the 2008 Teen Choice Awards this Sunday, hosted by Miley Cyrus.  (You know, at fifteen, I was barely cool enough to watch an awards show, let alone host one, but whatever.)  I’ll be in Santa Barbara in the morning at an old friend’s baby shower, so I won’t be able to make the red carpet, but I’ll be Twitterin’ up a storm from the actual show, and will come armed Monday with as many videos, photos and gossip as I can throw at you.  Have a great weekend!

Should I really call it “Daily Links”?  Maybe “When I Feel Like It Links” would be more appropriate.

Vanity Fair’s Sun-Hee Grinnell meets Patrick Dempsey, swoons, and checks out his new Avon fragrance Unscripted. 

Speaking of that rerun Jessica Simpson Elle cover?  New York Magazine’s The Cut points out that some trigger-fingered photoshopper lobbed off her hips.

Were you a Pretty Girl in high school?  (I was firmly in the “Jesus, I’m so awkward” camp, but it’s all good now, I suppose.  Yay for late-blooming confidence!)

One of my favorite recent time sucks: Park Avenue Peerage.  Best consumed with G&T’s and a hearty helping of irony.

I’m having a weird beauty blogger existential dilemma right now.  The Lancome Oscillation mascara, as you might know, is on sale today (for One…Day…Only!) at Sephora.com, Lancome.com and in select boutiques.  (It appears to have already sold out at at Sephora, FYI, but is still currently available on the Lancome website.)  Everybody is freaking out over the fabulosity of said mascara (and by everybody I mean a select group of beauty obsessees, assorted bloggeratti and various editors), and of course I’m also dying to try it, seeing as I’ve championed Lancome’s formulas for years, and have sung their praises all over Beauty Confidential.  But, as I went to the website, filled out my information, and was about to press the “buy” button, I thought, “Wait a second.  What am I really buying this for?”  So that I can feel exclusive?  As though I have the inside track over millions of women who won’t try it until it’s released in December?  I already have six unopened mascaras in the queue, and it’s not as if I’ll be the only beauty blogger writing about it tomorrow.  In that case, is it really worth the $34? 

And if I’m not willing to fork out money for beauty products unless I do actually have the inside track–or am in dire need, feeling impetuous at CVS, or traveling in Europe…does that just make me a cheap bastard? 

Over the years, I’ve written at length about how beauty editors (and now bloggers) receive free products, and I’ll admit that I haven’t paid for any makeup in ages.  Hell, even random items like deodorant and razors often arrive on my doorstep.  We serve as guinea pigs, testing and writing about things so other women can decide for themselves how to spend their cash.  But today, I’m just a beauty consumer like everybody else…and practicality (hey, the economic crisis stretches to Jolie, too!) is winning out over curiosity. 

Vanity Fair, official curators of the International Best-Dressed List, have released their 2008 picks.  Winners include our girl Kate Middleton, Ivanka Trump, David Beckham, Kanye West–who I saw just this afternoon, sporting neon green jeans and purple kicks–and Zac Goldsmith, who is glamorous enough by himself, but finds his quotient zooming through the roof by virtue of the fact that his eco-chic wife is named Sheheradaze.  Filthy rich names, indeed.

Surgery or not, Ivanka Trump is undeniably beautiful…and smart, aussi!

Le sigh.  Perfection.

For the full list and pictures of my favorites, read on! (more…)

No surprise here: Bachelor sweethearts Matt Grant and Shayne Lamas have split.  I thought they seemed visibly strained during their recent “After the Final Rose” appearance, but it’s still always a little sad when “true love” (giggle) fails.  Do you think DeAnna and Jesse will actually make it to the altar?

Future Shayne will be thankful if Current Shayne lays off the tanning–I predict leathery skin and unnecessary wrinkles–but I do love her white blonde, artfully messy Hollywood hair.  On another girl, it would be way too much, but Shayne (she of the makeup compacts and blush brushes on the ski slope) somehow manages to pull it off.  Get your own Shayne ‘do with prodigious amounts of mousse (we’re talking three golf-ball sized squirts here!), long layers, and a deep side part frozen in place with hairspray.

Check out Allure.com Daily Beauty Reporter Jessica Matlin’s take on her five current favorite volumizing mascaras.  Her picks include Avon Supershock Mascara, which she compares to DiorShow in terms of brush chubbiness. 

Ahh, DiorShow. 

Can I confess something here?  I might be the only beauty editor and makeup aficionado on the planet who doesn’t have spontaneous orgasms because of DiorShow’s so-called fabulosity.  Now, I like DiorShow.  I name check it in Beauty Confidential (page 110), and it is, indeed, very, very good.  But I always feel like I’m missing something when I read flowery, gushing, OTT reviews proclaiming it as The Best Ever!  Really?  Ever?  For me, the brush is just a bit too fat, and I can’t reach those tiny hidden corner lashes that you don’t notice until they’re defined (and then it’s, like, Wow!), and I find it awfully prone to clumping, and I simply can’t stand that rose scent.  I feel like I’m using my great-grandmother’s mascara from 1893.  Don’t get me wrong: I don’t stabby-hate it.  There will just be no babies made with it.  Et tu, beautés?