the perfect red lipstick

It took some time before I felt comfortable wearing red lipstick.

As a ballet dancer for many years, I thought of red lips as stage makeup and found it weird to wear it out in the "real world."

I suppose, it takes some growing up to be able to wear red lips with ease. In my early 20s with very little life experience, I felt like a little girl playing dress up when I would attempt red lips.

But now that I'm just a month and change shy of 30 and my ingenue state is rapidly slipping away, I'm feeling very comfortable with scarlet lips. I don't need a special occasion to wear red; I will put it on even when I'm just spending a Sunday afternoon shopping in Soho.

It helps that I've found my perfect red: Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupté in Red Taboo. It's a  rich, blue-based red that stays put even after one glass of wine, two bottles of beer and a massive pot of mussels (true story). While it's not exactly cheap at $34 a pop, I think it is worth every penny. The texture is so rich and luxurious, and this particular brand keeps lips moisturized. I love it to pieces.

What's your go-to red?

the long-lost tokyo shopping chronicle

Found some shopping pics that almost got lost in the oblivion that is Celine's "My Pictures" folder. I snapped these while shopping in La Foret Mall in Harajuku last November. I wish I had taken Farah's advice and gone there sooner because I love, love, loved everything. Very cool clothes at not too steep prices. I bought a sweater dress/vest combo from there that I've worn a bazillion times already. I wish I had also gotten a fur stole and an anorak with a fuzzy hood. We need to come up with a term that means the opposite of shopper's remorse. I seem to suffer from that a lot.

I never thought I'd love the fur + something short + knee high boots combo since it sounds like something a "working woman" would wear, but I love how these looks were put together:

I just want to reach out and stroke that gray fox fur stole. And I want to learn how to wear a floppy sweater + ripped hem jean skirt + fur with insouciance. I also quite like that Japanese girl's boots. They look so comfy and would totally work here in Manhattan. 

I am kicking myself a little bit for not getting a military green anorak since they were everywhere in every imaginable iteration. I didn't think to get one because I didn't think it was my style and couldn't figure out what I'd wear with it. But now looking at this picture below, I'm thinking, here's an idea, wear it with everything in that picture. *face palm*

Well at least I have my pretty black tweed coat with fox fur trim on the collar and cuffs. I am in love with that coat. It was a splurge at approximately $250 but it's timeless and I'll keep it for a long time, I'm sure. It's also the failsafe coat for occasions when I need to look glam but also stay warm (read: winter weddings and New Year's Eve parties). The best pic I have while wearing it is below. I know, you don't really see much of the coat, but I look like a pimp in most every other picture I have wearing it (must have to do with the fur + New Year's Eve top hat combo). But you get an idea of how nice and plush the collar is. And I like this picture because I feel very Jackie O in it ... though don't be fooled, the look on my face is really just utter boredom masquerading as poise.

Oh my dear, Tokyo ... you made me love you in so many different ways. You definitely deserve another visit. Big hug.

i'm on twitter!

Never thought I'd do it, but I got on Twitter! I've been especially verbose these days, torturing my Facebook friends with incessant updates, so I thought why not get on a medium where that's expected right? So I hope that some of you who love Twitter as much as you love following blogs will follow my little feed. Check out the little widget on my sidebar.

Fittingly found this adorable picture above on Little Miss Sunshine's Flickr photostream. I just love her whimsical style! Oh to be blond, blue-eyed and talented ...

i call this my shanghai flapper look

Despite my own awareness of how annoying it is to come up with a New Year's Eve outfit at the last moment, I didn't really plan too well. The day before NYE, I was moving into a new apartment so I was shopping for pillows and duvets rather than showstopping dresses and accessories. But in the end I was able to throw something together by merchandising up a basic black tube dress. I call this my Shanghai flapper look. I was channeling Dita Von Teese ... in, um, a very Asian and fully clothed kinda way.

I had all these long strands of black freshwater pearls since they cost maybe less than $10 in the Philippines, so I just wore them in a big pile. All I had to buy was this hat by EEK! by Eugenia Kim at Urban Outfitters. For just $34, it really makes a difference to the whole look. I wish they'd had the white one; seems much cuter!

I think I'd love to throw a Shanghai flapper party one day. Any excuse to break out the pearls, fringe and feathers sounds good to me. Check out these pictures from the Nylon blog about Indochine's flapper party last November. Feathers, sequins and burlesque dancers ... now that's a party!

the walk of shame

I couldn't help but laugh when I got my regular Sephora email advertising this: Too Faced's Walk of Shame Set.

It's pretty funny. It comes with some morning-after necessities like a toothbrush and Oral Fixation mints, and a makeup "repair kit" so you can get to where you need to go with a glowing look, rather than last night's smeared eyeliner and mascara. I don't know if this would be effective realistically since it's a pretty big pouch of stuff, and that "lingerie-inspired clutch" isn't really something I'd wanna carry on a night out. It would make a funny gift to an adventurous girlfriend, but the $95 pricetag doesn't quite make me chuckle.

A cheaper laugh would be to check out this AMP Energy Drink commercial that ran awhile back. It still cracks me up!

blond and bobbed

My friend Ludette tells me to just say no to bobs because therein lies the danger of ending up with soccer mom hair. But how can I not think about it when even Scarlett Johansson is rocking a sexy tousled blond bob on the Mango fall campaign?

Add to that Marie Claire's proclamation of the bob as the Ultimate Winter Haircut. I guess if it's longish like this, it could work for me. But that would entail a lot of time with my flat iron every morning.

Fluffy, cotton candy-esque hair seems to be all the rage these days. These shots are meant to show the versatility of the long bob.

Wonder if it would look as good with black hair ... Thoughts?

under my trench coat

Getting your nails done in a new color is such an underrated pleasure. I bought a new nail polish this week: Under My Trench Coat from Sephora by OPI. Despite having two Sephora's within walking distance of my workplace, I rarely wander in there. But I did one night this week and became completely obsessed with this nail color. Been wanting to veer away from my fuchsias and reds, and go for a more putty-like neutral. This is perfect.

I just adore the grayish/khaki-ish hue with light gold shimmer on top. And this is seriously one of the easiest polishes ever to apply. I did all my fingers and toes in one go, with nary a mistake. I feel like my nails look quite professionally done even though I just did it from my bathroom.

Next up on my list: a dark and mysterious nail color. I'm thinking Dark Room, also from Sephora by OPI. Simple pleasures.

out the door in 7

Soooo tempting to get this 7 in 7 kit from Cargo that claims to get you "pretty, polished, and out the door in 7 minutes." My favorite part has to be the eye makeup with the foolproof labels. I've always sucked at doing my eyes so that would be an awesome tool to have. But the set is a pretty awesome deal. For $59 you get the Essential Palette, Sunset Beach blush, lip liner, reverse lip liner, mascara, eye pencil and OneBase, which is a concealer and foundation in one. If that's not enough, shipping is free too. Pretty sick deal, I say.

multiple orgasms

I hate it when Sephora convinces me that I NEED to buy something. How can you not whip out the plastic for multiple O's huh? For $49, you can get a set which includes NARS' cult-famous Orgasm blush with the Laguna Bronzer AND this Orgasm nail polish. I NEED. Grr.

Curled Up

Our friends Jenny and Justin came to the city for the weekend to visit from upstate NY. While the boys went off to play pool, Jenny and I had girl time all Saturday. We started by getting all dolled up. Jenny curled my hair into these pretty curls using, get this, a flat iron!

Jenny told me that she learned this technique because there was a hairstyling school on the way to the bar she used to own in Korea and she would stop and watch them. Try to ignore my bangs that badly need a trim and concentrate on the curls. Here's how to do it.

First, make sure your hair is completely dry. Ironing wet hair damages the strands (believe me, I've made that mistake and it literally fries your hair).

Grab a section of hair and straighten the section from the top of your head to about your ears to get the top section perfectly smooth. When the iron is at the point above the ears, twist the hair around the iron once. With one hand holding on to the end of your hair and the other holding the iron, tap the iron up and down all the way down the section of hair until you reach the end of your hair. This tapping motion creates and sets the curl. Repeat until you've curled all of your hair, then lightly spray with hairspray.

This works best if you have a thin flat iron, about 1-inch in width. I was so happy to learn this technique because it means I only really need one hair tool, which is great because it makes packing for travel and storing stuff in my tiny Manhattan apartment so much easier!

Justice is beautiful

A lot of people have heard by now that retailers like Bloomies, Macy's, Bergdorfs and Saks started giving away cosmetics today as part of a class-action settlement charging that the retailers had colluded to fix prices on these products. You can read about it on this MSNBC article. My friend Roma, god bless her soul, emailed the article to me with a note telling me to "Go there, it's worth it." So after work today, I popped into Bloomie's and found myself in a rather intimidatingly long line on 60th and Lexington. Thank god the line moved very quickly. I was given a short list of products from Clinique, Clarins, Lancome, L'Oreal, Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, Guerlain and Coty to pick from. In no time at all, I was walking out with a 30ml jar of Clinique Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief moisturizer. Very cool. To those brilliant people who filed this lawsuit, a big and beautiful THANK YOU.

Waxing Poetic

Before I begin, if any of my guy friends who click on the blog when they're bored are reading this post, I suggest you stop reading now. NOT content that you would enjoy.

And so I begin. This is an ode my Romanian waxer, Elizabeth. I hadn't gone to her since my days of studenying at FIT. When I moved to the Upper East, the W. 39th Street location of Elite Day Spa became geographically undesirable. For the last year, I suffered through painful (on the pocket) waxes at Maria Bonita in Nolita and at-times-excruciating (literally) sessions at random places surrounding my apartment. But because I'm running out of time to do my errands before I leave for Europe tomorrow, I had to think of a way to pencil in a wax today during my lunch break (gotta be prepared for those Finnish saunas, y'know). It dawned on me that Elite Day Spa is just about a 15 minute walk from where I work! By the time Elizabeth was done, I was left thinking, "How could I have left my bikini line in anyone else's hands?" Elizabeth is phenomenal—super fast and clean. It only hurt (and not even that much) when she pulled, but by the time I walked out of the door I felt no stinging and tenderness. Plus, you get a great Brazilian for just $34.50! So worth it. I'm never entrusting my bootie to anyone else!

Where: Elite Day Spa is located at 24 W. 39th St. between 5th and 6th Avenues, New York, NY (It's around the corner from Lord & Taylor). Phone (212) 730-2100 for an appointment.

Smoke Out

I am love-love-LOVING the blacked out eyes seen on the Roberto Cavalli Spring '09. So sexy. Style.com gives a step-by-step tutorial on achieving the look the Pat McGrath way, which involves layers of black eyeliner, black cream shadow, black shadow and lots of black volumizing mascara, of course. I'd feel compelled to try it had I not spied a cheat sheet on one of my favorite blogs, That's Chic. Raych's version involves black liner and lip balm, which ups my chances of succeeding considerably. We'll see how it goes ...

I Heart Her Bangs

Forget Heidi Klum, I want Sheila Marquez's hair! I suppose mine is already pretty darn close to it in terms of hair color and length, but my bangs don't quite fall like that. Would it be idiotic though to go to a salon and ask them to just do my bangs? Do I dare try to do it myself? Memories of my brother hacking off my hair and giving me 1.5 inch bangs as a child come to mind ... Darn it, where's my OCD bang-cutting Finnish boyfriend when I need a trim?

Update: Who needs haircuts when you have a curling iron. With the weather cooling down and air drying not an option (lest I want to come down with a cold), I've been reunited with my straightening iron. I look a bit like an anime character in this pic, but what the heck.

I need a haircut ...

I know I need one because Posh just got one. There's nothing like a Victoria Beckham hair change to spark makeover madness ... I think she looks great in this pixie cut, as reported by Myfashionlife.com. But mere mortals with round faces like mine were not put on this earth to rock a pixie cut, so I'll have to look for inspiration elsewhere ...

Damn, Even Gossip Girl's Little J has a new look, as caught by the Nylon Magazine blog. She looks all chic, edgy and grown up in it, which is good when you're angling to be a manipulative baby biatch on TV. But somehow I don't think that's me either ...

I guess I'll stick to my ever-reliable Heidi Klum haircut. Gotta print out this photo and bring it to my next Chinatown haircut appointment.

Yes, I get my hair cut in Chinatown with a Vidal Sassoon-trained chap who does not speak a word of English but understands a photo of Heidi Klum very well. If you're an Asian girl in NYC, there's no better place to go than 22 Pell Hair Salon in Chinatown. It only costs about $30 to get a haircut there, and afterward you can get some soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai across the street! Yum ... Besides, I strongly feel that no one does Asian hair better than, well, Asians! I am getting a little tired of my hair color though, and feel the urge to experiment ... that I'm not so sure I'll do in Chinatown. I think I need to speak the same language as the person applying bleach to my hair. More research required ...

One last Summer fling with Brights

I've been wanting to swathe my toes in sunny weather brights all summer long, but somehow couldn't figure out what color I wanted to use! I spied a chic hot pink on my friend Ludette, who was sweet enough to give me a bottle. This morning, I woke up and thought it was time to seize the day (fall being a tad in the air and certainly just around the corner) ... but for some reason, it doesn't quite look as good on my feet! Maybe it's because Ludette has tan, long, grown-up looking feet, while mine are quite pale and look like a child's. I fear I kinda look like a kid who snuck into Mum's closet and played dress up ...

So back to the drawing board ... and then, an epiphany! What about magenta? Bright enough for summer but the shades of purple segue nicely into fall. I Googled madly until I found this shade suggested by Allure.com.
Made by my all-time favorite polish co. Essie, this shade is called Bermuda Shorts and sells for $7. I LOVE IT. Now the next challenge is actually finding the shade in one of the 20 Duane Reades within a 1-mile radius ...

UPDATE: Just as I thought, it was impossible to find Bermuda Shorts! I hit up 4 Duane Reades and a couple of them were just completely wiped out of Essie polish, nevermind this particular shade. I had almost given up when the polish gods smiled down on me. At the location on Lexington Ave between E. 61st and 62nd Sts, I found the perfect polish from Essie's fall collection: Big Spender. It is a tad darker than Bermuda Shorts, and the perfect color to take my tootsies from Summer to Fall. From the first flourish on my big toe, I knew this was "the one." It's a shade that goes with everything without being painfully boring. And it just takes one coat to deliver a rich pop of color. A top coat is necessary, however, to bring a bit of shine and for the color to last. Nothing makes me happier than a successful shopping expedition!