BellaSugar

Beauty Companies Celebrate With Vintage Packaging

BellaSugar — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:40:20 -0800

This year marks the 70th birthday of Elizabeth Arden's Eight Hour Cream, the 40th birthday of Dr. Hauschka's Rose Day Cream, and the 30th birthday of Yves Saint Laurent's Opium fragrance. To celebrate these products, the companies have re-created the original packaging for a limited time. Here are the details on these three retro-cool items.

Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Gift Set ($25) contains a lip protectant and the famous cream that treats different ailments on the hands, legs, elbows, and cuticles.

The set isn't available online at the moment, but you can pick it up at Elizabeth Arden counters in Macy's stores.

For two more vintagey beauty products, read more

Yves Saint Laurent Limited-Edition Opium Luxury Anniversary Palette ($57) comes in a red lacquered case decorated with a gold phoenix and gold flowers.

Dr. Hauschka's 40th Anniversary Kit ($59.95) includes a one-ounce cleansing cream, a one-ounce facial toner, and a one-ounce tube of its famous and rose day facial cream. It all comes in a replica the original 1967 packaging inside a gold-tinted tin. The products are suitable for all skin types, but it's especially good for sensitive skin since roses help calm and soothe irritation.

Here's a fun fact: Did you know that 30 roses go into each tube of cream? I hear Madonna is a big fan, and considering this cute packaging, I may need to become a "material girl" myself.

Quick Quiz: What is the Best-Selling Perfume in the World?

BellaSugar — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:00:42 -0700

Have you been keeping up to speed on BellaSugar? The answer to this question is in a series from the last couple of weeks. Here's a hint: Fragrance sales dramatically increased when Marilyn Monroe was quoted saying, "All I wear to bed are two drops of ...." Can you guess which of these perfumes is the world's best-selling fragrance?

Take the quiz

Reformulation Station: Why Your Favorite Perfume Smells Different

BellaSugar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:00:18 -0800

Have you ever loved a scent, forgotten about it, then come back a few years later only to find that you aren't at all fond of it anymore? Recently, I was reading about the new version of YSL Opium, and it made me think about the prevalence of scent retooling. Most fragrances that stay out for more than a couple of years will be reformulated as a way to freshen the scent and attract a new audience, with new notes and sometimes an entirely different scent. Fragrance companies, however, don't usually make that clear when they relaunch a product. And while reformulation can sometimes mean the addition of cruelty-free ingredients or a subtle update to suit the tastes of a new generation, it can also spell disaster for the fragrance's original fans. Have you ever had something like this happen with a fragrance you love? And did you use the new version, or have to find a different scent?

Doing Drugstore: Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shine Nail Color

BellaSugar — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:00:35 -0700

You all know by now that I usually love some Wet 'n' Wild makeup. It's not just the ridiculous name - the brand makes several products that I swear work just as well as $20 or $30 versions. Their Wild Shine Nail Polish ($1.29), however, is not one of those products. I know, you're thinking, "Bella, why are you surprised/disappointed with $1.29 nail polish? It probably costs the same as dipping your nails in ketchup would, and the ketchup is probably more moisturizing." And you're right, my expectations should not have been so high, and I bet ketchup makes a nice cuticle treatment. The shade I picked up, Dream Poppy, perfectly matched my new sexyface lip gloss, though, and has a hilarious opium reference for a name, so I was really excited. But then it took me four coats just to get it sort of non-transparent, and even now, beneath five coats, you can still definitely see where the whites of my nails begin. Is this true of all their colors, fellow Wet 'n' Wild fans? Or did I just get a bad shade/batch?

Bella Brand: Saffron James

BellaSugar — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Former fashion magazine editor Katherine Growney grew up on the picturesque island of Hawaii, eventually landing writing jobs in New York City, roughly 5,000 miles east of her hometown. It wasn't until she began working as a beauty editor at Elle that a chat with a fellow staffer began the sparks that eventually would lead to the start of her own business. "I started talking about Tiare Gardenia, Plumeria, Pakalana, and she just gave me a blank stare. I realized the flowers that I had grown up with, that were commonplace to me, most people had never seen, smelled, or even heard of," said Growney.

Thus, the idea for Saffron James Parfums, a line of Hawaiian-inspired scents, was born. (Saffron, being Gowney's nom de plume from her magazine days, and James, her father's name). The current collection includes four tropical scents, with plans to add a candle and body oils in the near future. Interestingly, Gowney is also a trained chef, drawing inspiration for her newfound career in perfumery from her experience with the delicate balances of food flavors and aromas. Find out more about the notes in her perfumes after the break.

Bella Interview: Chandler Burr, Perfume Critic

BellaSugar — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:15:41 -0700

So, it's official: I am smitten with Chandler Burr's latest book, The Perfect Scent. Read it; you won't regret it. Burr, the perfume critic of The New York Times, was gracious enough to talk with me about perfume last week. Be sure to read his opinions on why a celebrity scent succeeds or fails, and read on to find out why a perfume can seem so great on paper, but can smell different when you wear it.

In your book, you mention that perfumes are now created to smell good on paper when you're in the store, rather than being formulated only for the skin.
It's the new construction because of the way people buy perfume. The way that people buy perfumes today has a huge impact in how a scent is constructed. It used to be that one would go into the atelier at Guerlain or Coty in Paris, and put the perfume on, and the assistant would bring cakes and tea. You'd smell the perfume and it would stay on your skin past an hour or two hours - for an entire afternoon. Today, you're trying to grab 10 minutes between the movie or the next business appointment, and you're not putting perfumes on skin because you're already dressed. It's like buying clothes without trying them on.

For Chandler's advice on shopping for perfume, read more.

So how should we shop, if the typical way doesn't work?
It's easy: Even if you have 10 minutes before the next meeting, go to work without any goddamn perfume on! Go to Sephora, you do a little bit of homework online, you think about what you want, you walk in, you have four perfumes you want to try. Put one on your wrist of your left arm, one on the wrist of your right arm, one above the elbow on your left arm, and one above the elbow on your right arm. Walk out of the store - and you wear them. You smell them, and you smell them 10 minutes later, 30 minutes later, an hour later, and four hours later. You live with the perfumes, and that's how you do it.

Sometimes I'm confused when perfumes are described by their notes alone. How can we train our noses to identify certain scents?
It's actually a problem, because you can't use any of the raw materials. Somebody should set up a series of courses; those would actually be popular. If somebody entrepreneurial ever did this, I think there would be quite a market for it. Somebody should set up a place where you can go in and actually do a perfume course, and have raw materials - your basic woods, your basic greens, your basic musks - and learn what these mean. Obviously I've thought about this quite a bit!

If you can't do that, then you should just do what's in the industry called a market product. Woodsy scents, for example - Gucci Pour Homme, that was a sort of paradigmatic wood perfume. If you're going to do floral, you should know Joy, you should know Chanel No. 5, you should know L'Air du Temps. Chypre, you should know Coco. And you could actually go in and learn the categories by smelling the perfumes.

Certain scents are associated with their time. For instance, Obsession was everywhere in the '80s, but now it feels very dated. Are there any scents that you wish would come back, or are there any that you think will be linked to this point in time?
Scents are always related to their points and their eras, even if they continue to be successes, like Chanel No. 5, which was a 1921 perfume. Or Eau de Sauvage, which is a 1966 perfume. Angel is early-nineties. These things have a life. Rive Gauche for women is one of the quintessential 1970s perfumes, as is Opium. And you can still wear them. Vintage works, I think, better in perfume than it does in clothing in a lot of ways. It really depends on the scent. Some of them simply smell so much of their era that you wouldn't want to wear them. And others are more timeless.

I think Gucci Rush - and maybe I'm deluded - is going to prove very strongly resistant to time because it's so unusual and it's so beautifully constructed. It's definitely a modernist perfume, but I think it will wear very well.

Lovely Links

BellaSugar — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:27:13 -0800

Beauty and the Blog points out a cool Stella McCartney beauty deal.
Need to look great on a budget? Check out this new steals and deals blog for crazy sales.

Beauty Snob loves the YSL Opium powder, and now I want it too.

Fashionista jokes about Kate Moss's beauty inspiration.

The Moment says that Versace EDP should be taken with a pinch of irony.

Ever want to find out what makes Nair work? Wired found out. It ain't pretty.
Now Smell This releases its top 10 winter scents.
Jezebel talks about fake ta-tas and the women who love-or hate-them.
Spoiled Pretty finds a well-priced makeup brush set for budget-conscious ladies.
While I'm working on the how-to for Sarah Michelle Gellar's plaited hairstyle, check out her makeup how-to at We Love Beauty.
Shake Your Beauty is gaga for grapefruit, at two separate price points.
So cute: Check out our tiniest beauty product junkie.