Archive for Rebecca Alexander

Best Shampoo

Pantene Pro-V Restoratives Time Renewal Shampoo

The archetypal Pantene girl has hair so shiny, you can almost see your reflection in it. Rich in cuticle-smoothing silicon, the bestselling Time Renewal Shampoo may not carry any natural credentials, but it can be relied on to give hair a soft-as-silk finish that makes you want to run your fingers through it all day long.

Best Conditioner

John Frieda Brilliant Brunette, Sheer Blonde and Radiant Red Conditioner

For such a reasonable price, the softening results of John Frieda’s color conditioners are undeniably good. The purple-toned Sheer Blonde eliminates brassiness, Brilliant Brunette gives multidimensional shine to coffee-colored hair and Radiant Red stops auburn hair looking washed out. Aussie 3 Minute Miracle, the peachy balm that deep-conditions in next to no time, came a close second.

Best Styling Product

John Frieda Frizz-Ease Serum

Launched in 1990, this serum is a godsend for unruly locks, sealing moisture into curly and straight hair, so it falls either in perfectly formed ringlets or in a glassy curtain. And don’t we know it. It sells at a breakneck rate – 3½ bottles a minute in 2007. There are now four formulas: the original, extra-strength, one for heat protection and an overnight serum. The runner-up was Elnett hairspray, the session hairstylist’s choice for lasting hold.

Best Eye Shadow

Mac Eye Shadow

No matter how enticing it looks in the pot, the key to a good eye shadow is that the color stays true on your eyelids. This is where Mac excels. Its richly pigmented eye shadows come in a colossal range of 158 shades and eight finishes, from matte (the pro’s favorite) to iridescent frost. A back-stage staple at fashion shows, these pots are a joy for amateurs, too, providing easy-to-control color that glides on evenly.

Best Mascara

Max Factor Masterpiece Max

A previous Style winner, Masterpiece Max is the bestseller of Max Factor’s 11 mascara formulations. It claims to amplify lashes by 400% thanks to a rubbery, multi-pronged wand that transforms stumpy lashes into a thick, fluttering curtain. It flies off the shelves – one is sold every five seconds – and comes in three colours: black, black/brown and navy.

Best Foundation

Max Factor

There are six foundation formulas in the Max Factor range. The bestseller, and the most innovative, is the recently launched Miracle Touch Liquid Illusion. A compact that transforms from a solid formula into a lightweight liquid on contact with the skin, it minimizes pores and irons out imperfections without masking the skin’s natural luminosity.

Best Lipstick

Lancôme These days, lipsticks are so advanced that you should expect them to provide colour with clout and keep lips moist at the same time. Lancôme Le Rouge Absolu combats dryness with a water-catching polymer that is said to keep lips moist for six hours. You’re in good company if you wear it – Sienna Miller and Jessica Biel are fans. Your second choice, Dior Rouge Dior, comes in 35 shades and has a collagen-boosting formula.

Best Nail Polish

Revlon Nail Enamel

Revlon has managed to build a global cosmetics brand out of Revlon Red Nail Enamel, the first product it launched, in 1932, so it’s no surprise that it has sold more than 30m bottles since. The foolproof formula goes on in a thick, smooth layer, providing a durable coating of the perfect femme fatale red that has bombshells such as Halle Berry and Jessica Alba hooked.

Best Facial Moisturizer

Clinique We’re finally buying moisturisers that offer turbo-powered protection against future damage. Clinique’s bestselling antiageing moisturiser is Superdefense Triple Action Moisturizer. Packed with in free-radical-fighting antioxidants, it provides UVA/UVB filters to shield skin from the sun – the worst culprit when it comes to wrinkles and uneven skin tone. It comes in three formulas for different skin types and has a satisfying nongreasy finish.

Best Body Moisturiser

The Body Shop Body Butter

Body Butter is a rich body cream made from fair-trade shea or cocoa butter. Since its launch in 1992, it has become a tried and trusted favourite that locks in moisture and smells good enough to eat. There are now 15 varieties, including coconut, mango, pink grapefruit and moringa, which smells wonderfully clean and is brimming with fatty acids to give supple skin. A close second was Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula, for its emollient consistency.

Best Ethical Brand

Origins Organics

Organic beauty products are no longer just a well-meaning sideline. In 2006, the market in the UK was worth more than £2 billion – and the big brands are taking note. Origins Organics, a range of nine products, bears stamps of approval from three organic governing bodies: the US Department of Agriculture, Ecocert and the Soil Association. Try the Body Pampering Massage Oil, a 98%-organic blend of essential oils in a sumptuous jojoba-oil base.

Best Fragrance

Chanel No 5

When Coco Chanel commissioned her perfumer to create Chanel No 5 in 1921, she insisted on excessive quantities of jasmine, claiming that she wanted to make “the most expensive perfume in the world”. It paid off. The first to use synthetic floral aldehydes as top notes, giving it that grown-up, almost powdery smell, it is arguably the best-known fragrance in the world. It has an illustrious fan base, too: in the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe said that two drops of No 5 was all she wore in bed. Chanel is launching a modern interpretation called Au Première in October – you heard it here first.

Best Self-Tan for the Body

Johnson’s Holiday Skin

When it launched in 2005, Holiday Skin was an instant hit that spawned countless of imitations. It sold out so quickly that bidding wars started on eBay, where eager customers paid upwards of £40 a bottle. An innovative moisturiser/fake-tan hybrid, the gradual tanner promises a natural-looking glow, not a streaky finish. The improved formula promises to keep skin moisturised for 24 hours.

Best Bargain Buy

Vaseline Lip Therapy

Although it is made of petroleum jelly, a petrochemical many eco-beauty consumers do their utmost to avoid, the cute, retro-looking tin and comforting slip it gives to lips (and any other parts you choose to soothe) make Vaseline Lip Therapy a favored bargain buy. There are now aloe vera and SPF versions.

Best Beauty Website

Boots.com

With branches of Boots on every high street, and in train stations across the land, you would have thought that picking up everyday beauty essentials couldn’t get much more convenient. Then it launched a website. It’s not all toothpaste and cotton-wool pads, though. Visit the online Beauty Boutique and you can stock up on luxurious products from the likes of Urban Retreat, This Works and Caudalie at the click of a mouse.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Hautelook and Decadestwo have joined together to host the official “Sex And The City” West Coast Soirée. The celebration is taking place Wednesday, May 21st at the Decadestwo boutique (8214 Melrose Ave). The party celebrates the opening of the movie and will offer an opportunity for fashionable guests to sip cosmos, strike a pose in a recreation of Carrie’s bedroom, and shop vintage finds from Decadestwo.

The party is a pre-curser to the “Sex And the City” Sale on Hautelook, which will take place online May 22nd. The sale is the perfect way for women everywhere to get a taste of “Sex and the City” anywhere in the US, whether or not they are guests at the event.

Items available include: vintage Chanel handbags, Fendi handbags, Oscar De La Renta gowns, and Manolo Blahniks – think Carrie’s closet on sale!!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]

TATOOT has created a new mobile art movement. What started out as a competition on DrawLoud has turned into a revolutionary brand! TATOOT is giving talented street artists an opportunity of self-expression in order to reach the masses through their ground-breaking brand of bag products. Launching in mid-July of 2008 and just in time for the “Back To School” rush, TATOOT will unveil it’s initial backpack and messenger bag collection in select street & boutique retailers like Michael K. in Manhattan, FootSoldiers in Miami and in all Dr. Jays locations in New York.

TATOOT is a graffiti-street lifestyle brand. TATOOT is a revolutionary and unconventional brand in that it expands upon more than one’s typical perception of graffiti and street art. TATOOT employs the very same concept of self-expression, delivering social and political messages, and serves as a form of art appreciation – but, TATOOT is bringing street art & graffiti to the worldover through a new fashionable and exciting product line of TATOOT messenger bags and backpacks.

TATOOT will give street artists a new outlet of expression, making their art OUTLAWED No More. TATOOT Bags are visually stimulating, fashionable, functional and downright Hot! The name TATOOT is a combination of two words meaning ‘DRAW LOUD.’ Talented artists can now express themselves on a new platform. From subways to bags, TATOOT is indeed the new mobile art movement.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Looking stylish would probably be the least of your worries during a terrorist attack, but then again you’re not Paris Hilton. Trendsetters like her might trade in your duct tape and Cipro for the Urban Security Suit. Designed by Tim Smit, the USS is made of neoprene, though it’s also lined with body-molded Kevlar to ensure you can stop bullets while turning heads. There is also a gas mask, in case of deadly chemical release into the air.

And if the USS isn’t your cub of fashion, there are always the rifles, chainsaws, machine guns, and artillery shells. But, these aren’t your normal army weapons, these are branded with big designer names: Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi, not exactly what you would imagine for a rocket launcher or an electric chair, but way more stylish than the AK-47. There is also a Pac-Man grenade!

Louis Vuitton for Guantamano Bay

Popularity: 2% [?]

With brick-and-mortar stores for Narciso Rodriguez, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren under his belt, Jeffrey Hutchison has established himself as a go-to architect for luxury retailers. Hutchison learned the ropes working with Peter Marino, who architected the Chanel and Louis Vuitton stores, and in 1999 he struck out on his own, establishing the firm Jeffrey Hutchison & Associates in New York. While at Marino, Hutchison worked on the Barneys flagship store, and today he continues to cultivate the storied retail institution’s architectural image.

Describe your aesthetic.

“While I have worked in many styles and genres—from classical to minimal—I feel it is more important to allow the aesthetic of the project to reflect the image of the brand than imposing a particular aesthetic. That said, my work does have a number of consistent attributes, such as the creative use of light and implementing rich and luxurious materials. And all the work I do strives to create an emotional connection between the consumer and the location.”

What are the current trends in retail architecture?

“While there is still a big push for retail brands to maintain the same image from location to location, I believe this is in the process of changing. The consumer is starting to get “consistency fatigue” in both what the stores look like as well as the merchandise being pretty much the same. To address that, I always try to respond to each project individually and give it a unique design without losing the overall language of the brand.”

What architectural elements do consumers respond to?

“Probably the biggest response comes from good lighting and its creative use. In retail design a lot of people talk about the importance of lighting but so many brands just don’t follow through. Consumers not only need good lighting to see the product (try distinguishing a black pair of pants from a blue pair in a poorly lit area), but they also want to feel comfortable in the space.

Lighting has so much do with the emotional characteristics of the design, and I always make it one of the highest priorities when we design a store. I want both effective lighting but also creative designs that people can respond to. Wherever possible I also include the use of natural light through windows and skylights because the quality of natural light has a big impact on how people emotionally connect to the space.”

If you had a dream project, what would it be?

“I would love to design the entire customer experience for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which is for air travel into space—the ship interiors, the lounges and everything related to your physical experience. It would be like designing the first Pan Am airplane and lounge back in the 1930s. It would be fascinating to develop a design that involves new technologies but speaks to the bygone eras of the luxuriousness of air travel.”

Who are the architects you admire?

“Definitely Peter Marino, for whom I used to work. Also, David Chipperfield and Thierry Despont.”

What are your upcoming projects?

“Currently, I am working on a new flagship for Barneys in Chicago, which will open in 2009. I have also designed a new store concept for Dooney & Bourke, the first of which just opened in Macau. We are doing many new locations for them, implementing this new concept and working on its evolution.”

Content source: JC Report. 

Popularity: 1% [?]

One of our fave designers, and total sweetheart, Sheila Frank, is now selling her amazing collection of swimwear at Topstitch in Philly. But don’t fret, if you can’t get to PA, the collection is also available online at Sheila Frank.

Popularity: 2% [?]