American Beauty

January 29, 2011

As much as I am addicted to some French beauty products such as Bioderma Crealine, there is some great stuff here as well that I would recommend you to buy and bring back to your home country.

1. ROSEBUD LIP BALM $6

You can find this cult non greasy lip balm almost anywhere, from Ricky’s to Duane Reade & Sephora.
A must-have for all the dry lips out there, perfect for a glossy effect, non sticky, a great base/moisturizer to get the perfect red lips!

2. MAX FACTOR COUTURE MASCARA $9

It is now hard to find as they are discontinuing it, but by far the mascara I have had in years ! I owe this discovery to Maud Laceppe, Rock-Star Make-up artist

3. MOROCCAN OIL Hair treatment $40

I love the smell (non ca sent pas le couscous boulettes…), works great on damp hairs or dry, and a can’t do without for extremely bleached hairs like mine !

4.Crest 3D White Whitestrips Professional Effects

Well so Effective that I have never used the whole box ( or is it that I am too lazy to do so ???) You can find them at almost any drugstore in NYC ( Duane Reade, CVS, etc)

5. OPI & ESSIE NAIL POLISH

You can of course find them in France now, but number one they are cheaper here around $6, and 2 I doubt you have all the crazy collections like the OPI Glee collection, or even Shreck…

If you want a classic natural color go for ” Sugar Daddy” by Essie, I know a few that are totally addicted to this sheer color.

And if you need the perfect red go for OPI “Big Apple Red” after all, you are in NYC no ?

6. Per-fekt Skin Perfection Gel $57

The make-up trick that smooth out and photoshop your skin …

New York Best Kept Secret

August 5, 2010June 29, 2012

New York’s Best Kept secret is NOT Century 21, trust me on that one, but the fact that it has so many beaches all accessible by public transportation. Here are some few options if you are spending your summer in NYC & still want to get a carribean tan!

☼ ROCKAWAY BEACH :

How to get there ? Take the blue line, the A train to Broad Channel, transfer to the S to Rockaway Park-Beach 116th St. (Last Stop).
How Much ? $4.50 Round Trip, Subway ride.
What to do ? Get a beer & a slice at the Sand Bar on the beach, or even order chinese take out and get it delivered on the beach.

☼ RIIS LANDING/ FORT TILDEN

How to get there ? it’s a boat ride & it only works on week-end. Take the Ferry on Pier 11 (same as Ikea boat), click here more infos and schedule.
How Much ? $30 Round Trip on the American Princess. add $5 more if you bring your bike.
Tips: Bring your own picnic to the beach and drinks as it is a wild beach with no lifeguards neither. The boat ride to get there is 45 mins and is amazing , you get to see the Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, and the Verrazano bridge.

☼ FIRE ISLAND:

How to get there ? Take the LIRR train in Penn Station to Bay Shore, then the Ferry to Fire Island .
How Much ? around $60 RT -> $26 for the train & $12 for the ferry (round-trip)
What to do ? try to spend the night there, or the weekend, as it is an 1.5 hour away from the city, and it is a little corner of paradise there, no cars, almost no stores and beautiful sunsets.

Et Voila ! Now You know how I spend my summer in the city 🙂

New York Photo Booth

July 29, 2010December 30, 2010

In the era of all digital images, it became more fun to play with analog pictures, and as I got my summer tan on, it means I am eligible for picture time without the ususally mandatory Photoshop retouching … Here is a quick round-up of the Photobooth (or Photomaton in French) in NYC:

1. Coney Island

Deno’s Wonder Wheel – 3059 W 12th St. Brooklyn, NY 11224- Color

2. 7B

7B – 108 Avenue B – New York, NY – B&W Only

3. Ace Hotel

Ace Hotel – 20 West 29th Street, New York, NY‎ – Black&White Only

And some others I haven’t tried yet:

Lakeside Lounge – 162 Avenue B New York, NY 10009- Black & White

Otto’s Shrunken Head – 538 E. 14th St.New York, NY 10009

Make me up before you go-go

October 28, 2009February 25, 2011

LOOK CREATED BY M.A.C ARTIST: KARIN STONE

STEP BY STEP …

1. Start out on your clean face. Lightly buff a thin layer of Luna Cream Colour Base all over your skin with a #187 brush. Set it with Gesso eye shadow and a #116 brush – pressing the eye shadow in rather than buffing it.

2. Using Blacktrack Fluid Line and a #266 brush – paint in your eyeliner and brows – don’t be afraid to experiment with painting an expression on.

3. Sculpt your cheek bones with a bit of Concrete or Omega Eye Shadow and paint your lips a daring red.

4. Finally, find a chopstick or something in your house with a small round shape that you can use as a stamp. Scrape some Passionate Eye Shadow onto a small kitchen plate. Mix some Fix+ into the scraped shadow – make it not too watery and then dip your stamping tool into it and go to town with your dots.

There is also other step by step Halloween make up inspiration, avalaible here (Just change the number at the end of the url to have acess to all the pdf , ex :…./looks/print/Halloween1.pdf, …/looks/print/Halloween2.pdf)

So Frenchy So Not Cheap

September 30, 2009October 28, 2010

Even though I have been living in NYC for a while now, and that here you can find anything at anytime , there are still some French stuff that I miss from La France , so every time I go back to Paris here is what I bring back:

1. BIODERMA CREALINE H2O : The best make-up remover and skin cleanser hands down !! All the make-up artists I know are using liters of it especially during Fashion week. It is around 10 Euros for the 500 ml in France, here forgetaboutit …. the cheapest I found were on ebay for $22 plus shipping

2. DEMAK’UP COTTON PADS: they are softer, bigger and stronger than any cotton pads here, and may I add sooo soft.

3. VICHY DEODORANT 48 HOURS: Because I am never gonna wear SECRET :), but the spray version is not available in the US, I don’t know why …

Secret 1983 ad

4. FRENCH CIGARETTES: They taste different, and duty free makes them so much cheaper than here in NYC ( at least $10 a pack…), and the European Marlboro Lights have a brown filters, not a white one like here in the States.

Yves Saint Laurent cigs so chic ...

5. MARIAGE FRERES TEA: Even though there is some places where you can find Marco Polo, I still miss some of the flavored tea only availble in France, such as ( irony) American Breakfast … Also I love their Tea Boxes:

So next time you come and visit me in NYC, you know what to bring ….. 🙂

Note: If you would like to know where to shop those items in Paris, and more on affordable shopping In France check this post.

The End of an Era.…

June 9, 2009October 19, 2010

The Famous DKNY wall is no longer a mark for tourists in despair, has been covered up. It was a great sign for lost tourists, and ready to shop girls like myself, to enter the Soho Mall

Here is what is looks like today:

Blank DKNY wall — Pic via Animal New York ( great NY by locals site )

for those who missed it

My Hairs in a Recession ??? Hell no !!

June 8, 2009March 8, 2010

With the summer coming (hopefully..soon) and the budget of the unemployed, I still need to rock the “because I am worth it !” hairs.

It no secret that the best hair mask from far is Kerastase Masquintense for dry hair (thicks or thins) it does magic !! But the cost to it ,,, unbearable especially nowadays.. the big jar (500ml) is $100 at Rickys, and around 80 Euros in France.

BUT you can find it on ebay for $ 50 that is only if you don’t speak French, or if your browser is not a Francophone. Let me show you the example in images:

Here is below the screen shot of ebay.com on Safari on my laptop ( French and English are installed in the main languages pack)

Kerastase search on ebay

the search for Kerastase returned 0 results !

Now on the same laptop with Firefox in which I removed the French Language in the preferences , same search for kerastase on ebay.com:

here you go , over 1,000 Kerastase products available and this demo is available for all L’Oreal products

Maybe je devrais finir ce post en francais, bref, pour obtenir du Kerastase a un prix raisonable il vous suffit d ‘utiliser un autre navigateur internet que celui de d’habitude , d’enlever le francais des langues installees du navigateur et commander votre stock pour l’été. Si vous avez des questions n’hésitez pas a me laisser un commentaire sur ce post je vous répondrai des que possible.

UPDATE: I had my kerastase jar in 4 days, with this great seller from the south of France for $45 , his name is hairgume.

I live litteraly in ALPHABET CITY, and I am…

March 1, 2008October 22, 2010

NYC is a very typographic city, If you love fonts and typography, this is one of the richest environment four your pupils …

The Best coffee in town is at Nine Street Espresso ( on 9th street between avenue C and D)

MEET THE NEIGHBOR : ALLEN GINSBERG 🙂

1. ROSEBUD LIP BALM $6

2. MAX FACTOR COUTURE MASCARA $9

3. MOROCCAN OIL Hair treatment $40

4.Crest 3D White Whitestrips Professional Effects

5. OPI & ESSIE NAIL POLISH

6. Per-fekt Skin Perfection Gel $57

☼ ROCKAWAY BEACH :

☼ RIIS LANDING/ FORT TILDEN

☼ FIRE ISLAND:

1. Coney Island

2. 7B

3. Ace Hotel

And some others I haven’t tried yet:

LOOK CREATED BY M.A.C ARTIST: KARIN STONE

STEP BY STEP …

1. Start out on your clean face. Lightly buff a thin layer of Luna Cream Colour Base all over your skin with a #187 brush. Set it with Gesso eye shadow and a #116 brush – pressing the eye shadow in rather than buffing it.

2. Using Blacktrack Fluid Line and a #266 brush – paint in your eyeliner and brows – don’t be afraid to experiment with painting an expression on.

3. Sculpt your cheek bones with a bit of Concrete or Omega Eye Shadow and paint your lips a daring red.

Even though I have been living in NYC for a while now, and that here you can find anything at anytime , there are still some French stuff that I miss from La France , so every time I go back to Paris here is what I bring back:

1. BIODERMA CREALINE H2O : The best make-up remover and skin cleanser hands down !! All the make-up artists I know are using liters of it especially during Fashion week. It is around 10 Euros for the 500 ml in France, here forgetaboutit …. the cheapest I found were on ebay for $22 plus shipping

2. DEMAK’UP COTTON PADS: they are softer, bigger and stronger than any cotton pads here, and may I add sooo soft.

3. VICHY DEODORANT 48 HOURS: Because I am never gonna wear SECRET :), but the spray version is not available in the US, I don’t know why …

Secret 1983 ad

4. FRENCH CIGARETTES: They taste different, and duty free makes them so much cheaper than here in NYC ( at least $10 a pack…), and the European Marlboro Lights have a brown filters, not a white one like here in the States. Yves Saint Laurent cigs so chic ...

5. MARIAGE FRERES TEA: Even though there is some places where you can find Marco Polo, I still miss some of the flavored tea only availble in France, such as ( irony) American Breakfast … Also I love their Tea Boxes:

The Famous DKNY wall is no longer a mark for tourists in despair, has been covered up. It was a great sign for lost tourists, and ready to shop girls like myself, to enter the Soho Mall

Here is what is looks like today:

for those who missed it

With the summer coming (hopefully..soon) and the budget of the unemployed, I still need to rock the “because I am worth it !” hairs.

It no secret that the best hair mask from far is Kerastase Masquintense for dry hair (thicks or thins) it does magic !! But the cost to it ,,, unbearable especially nowadays.. the big jar (500ml) is $100 at Rickys, and around 80 Euros in France.

BUT you can find it on ebay for $ 50 that is only if you don’t speak French, or if your browser is not a Francophone. Let me show you the example in images:

Here is below the screen shot of ebay.com on Safari on my laptop ( French and English are installed in the main languages pack)

Kerastase search on ebay

Kerastase search on ebay

the search for Kerastase returned 0 results !

Now on the same laptop with Firefox in which I removed the French Language in the preferences , same search for kerastase on ebay.com:

here you go , over 1,000 Kerastase products available and this demo is available for all L’Oreal products

UPDATE: I had my kerastase jar in 4 days, with this great seller from the south of France for $45 , his name is hairgume.

NYC is a very typographic city, If you love fonts and typography, this is one of the richest environment four your pupils …

The Best coffee in town is at Nine Street Espresso ( on 9th street between avenue C and D)

4. FRENCH CIGARETTES: They taste different, and duty free makes them so much cheaper than here in NYC ( at least $10 a pack…), and the European Marlboro Lights have a brown filters, not a white one like here in the States.

Yves Saint Laurent cigs so chic ...