Rush Hour: Maybelline Lifter Plump Lip Gloss

Maybelline New York Lifter Plump in Blush Blaze.

Maybelline New York’s Lifter Plump lip gloss in ‘Blush Blaze’, ($12.99, drugstores) is the perfect fix when you’re in a makeup as afterthought state of mind. This hefty tube lives by my front door, so I can swipe on some colour before hurtling myself out the door, invariably late for something.

I love this shade because it’s both sheer and just bright pink enough, so it enlivens my whole face even though it only goes on the lips, which is a neat trick. There’s also added chile pepper to make your blood vessels swell up for a brief lip plumping effect. And best of all, because it’s gloss, not lipstick, you don’t have to be too precise about application. Which is why mine lives at the front door, waiting patiently, ready to serve.

Towards a Better-Smelling Bathroom

I have officially given up doing things I don’t want to do. I refuse to engage with tricky parking spots (no more backing into traffic at the mall) and I will not let air fresheners with scents like ‘Clean Linen’ or ‘Mountain Air’ cross my threshold. I want my bathroom to smell like the spa at a fancy resort, not the cleaning products aisle at Sobeys.

The best spa scent for home is Lotus Aroma’s Eucalyptus Home Spray, $21, Shoppers Drug Mart. And it’s Canadian. I give the air several blasts before my shower, so when I emerge, it is into a herbal, steamy fug. Just like the spa, but with no towel-wrapped strangers in my sight-line.

The internet discovered the joys of eucalyptus-scented bathrooms in a ‘complicated, but makes for a nice picture’ way early in Covid lockdown. Soon Pinterest was littered with images of twine-wrapped eucalyptus branches suspended from shower arms. But steam alone wouldn’t release the scent. It turns out you first had to crush the eucalyptus leaves with a rolling pin to release the volatile oils, which was a step too far.

I enjoy a silly craft as much as the next person, but spritzing Lotus Aroma Home Spray is much easier and way faster. And most importantly, you won’t be picking up dried eucalyptus shards for days afterwards.

Milk Makeup Jelly Blush Looks Real, Stays Put

Milk Makeup Jelly Tint in Splash (a deep berry).

Does your blush vanish by noon? My face eats makeup and I’m certain that my blood is 25 per cent blush and concealer by this point.

Applying a metric tonne of colour on your cheeks to ensure there is still some left at midday will only make you look dementedly clownish. Topping up with powder blush, although it’s easy to brush on, can add a dusty, dowager aunt vibe if your skin is dry. For a believable-looking flush, a sheer stain works best.

Enter Milk Makeup’s new Cooling Water Jelly Tint lip and cheek blush stains ($33 CAN, Sephora) that once applied, stay bullet proof for the whole day. They work as wonderful transparent lip colours as well (just add a wee dot of lip balm, because they can be drying.) The four shades look vivid when swatched (see below), but sheered out on cheeks, the effect is quite natural. The only caveat is that, as stains, you have to blend them out quickly before they set on your cheeks.

This means using your fingers (you’ll have to wash them afterwards) or, if you’re so equipped, a blush brush. But for this effort you will be rewarded with a glow that lasts well past lunch.

And not just any glow, but the lit-from-within glow of someone who attended a reformer Pilates class this morning while everyone else was still in bed.

I did swatches! (OK. Those four arms of various skin tones aren’t me, but they are helpful.) The colours, from the top down are Burst, Chill, Spritz and Splash. While swiping makes these shades look alarmingly bright on the lighter arms, once blended in they provide a natural looking healthy glow.

Soothe #winterface With Rhode Glazing Milk

Exploring Iceland, Feb. 2015. Rhode Glazing Milk would have come in handy. (Photo: Janine Falcon.)

Loving a celebrity skincare line feels unseemly when the celeb is 27-year-old Hailey Bieber and I am older than her mother. But Bieber, wife of Justin and creator of the ‘glazed donut’ glow, launched Rhode in 2022 and has the best new skincare product for menopausal women and I am as shocked as you are.

The Rhode line (Hailey’s middle name) has three core products: a serum, a rich moisturizer and the ‘must have been created for menopausal women’ Rhode Glazing Milk, a hydrating essence loaded with skin barrier repairing and strengthening ceramides that provides instant calming moisture so you can look into mirrors in the dead of February without recoiling. #winterfaceisreal

It makes Hailey (above) practically shiny, but if you are starting from a moisture deficit (aka ‘if desiccated is your baseline’) you will look more naturally glowy and less like a hot glazed Krispy Kreme.

Why it’s targeted to teens and tiktokers is beyond me. Just look at the ingredients list (below). It’s basically made for my cohort. And a daily concentrated application of those skin barrier-loving ingredients is all the more critical in these ‘low ambient moisture’ winter months. So thank you, Hailey.

Some of her young fans have complained on social media that Rhode products break them out, which further proves that these products were meant for us, not them. When you’re a teen, your body is diligently pumping out oil and moisture and you do not need a ceramide and glycerin rich milk to rebuild your skin barrier and protect you from central heating.

But thanks to TikTok, there is a new tranche of consumers, young girls, the ‘Sephora kids’, spending their generous allowances on retinol and other anti-aging skincare. This is puzzling and humorous in equal measure. Wouldn’t tweens want perfume and lipsticks and bras before they need them instead of retinol? But then I don’t get their obsession with Stanley cups either.

Ingredients and benefits:

The Rhode Glazing Milk ingredients rundown is basically a checklist of menopausal skin-nourishing ingredients. There’s ceramides and cholesterol to help skin barrier recovery, humectant-rich beta glucan to soothe skin and calm itch, phytosphingasine, another barrier function booster that we produce less of as we age, zinc gluconate and copper gluconate which have anti-inflammatory properties, gluconolactone, a hydrating polyhydroxy acid to maintain moisture in the top layers of the skin and gently exfoliate.

It’s not at all greasy. You can pat it on like an essence to hydrate skin and prep it for skincare. Or just put some on if your skin is feeling dry or tight. It improves the whole crepey skin situation pretty much instantly. To that end, I am waiting for a spray version. A blast of Rhode Glazing Mist would be great during the day when you’re flagging and need a little something to bring you back to life.

I would like this sized bottle to drench my whole self with..

Cool Girl Beauty For Only Five Bucks

You could spend $5 on a Starbucks holiday peppermint mocha and get a brief sugar rush or you could snag this pomegranate lip balm from Burt’s Bees for months of complexion brightening and mood lifting. (At $5, you can get one for each coat and bag.)

This balm is a certified cool girl staple and I can say that because Julia Leach keeps citing it in online profiles.

Leach is a creative director (right now at Athleta) who has imparted her vision to brands like Apple, Target and Ralph Lauren. And just look at her Venice Beach home’s curated but laid-back style.

While some influencers do have a singular point of view, I still prefer an old school beauty reco from someone who is not in that game. Truly inspirational women do not have Amazon storefronts.

No lie, I’d be more interested to know what Christine Lagarde has in her medicine cabinet. She always looks so immaculate and sharp when delivering news about the euro.

Burt’s Bees Pomegranate balm imparts just enough of a faintly red tint that you look ‘well’ but not overtly done. And because it’s a beeswax balm, lips stay matte so it doesn’t read as ‘makeup’. It’s beauty subterfuge like glowing skin or groomed brows - nothing identifiable.

I’ve already sung the praises of Burt’s Bees Pomegranate balm here, but it’s an icon and I wanted an excuse to post photos of Julia Leach’s beautiful rooms.

And while I may be exaggerating the $5 price tag (it’s $5.49 in Canada, and the cheapest non-caffeinated thrill I can think of.)

#sweaterweatherperfume: Guerlain Eau de Cashmere

Guerlain Eau de Cashmere

Could the sky be any grayer?

#sweaterweatherperfume season is here and it’s time to fight the gloom with Guerlain’s not-nearly-famous-enough Eau de Cashmere eau de toilette. Soft and comforting with powdery iris, white musk and cedar, Eau de Cashmere ($225CAN) is perfect for when you want to hunker down and roll yourself up in a blanket until April.

Unjustly unsung and dating back to 2014, Eau de Cashmere is cozy and powdery yes, but also sunnily optimistic thanks to an undercurrent of lavender which is bright and herbal and not at all fusty.

Guerlain’s website suggests misting Eau de Cashmere on surfaces, and while I understand the temptation to go full-on Quiet Luxury with a room spray, I cannot, in good conscience, suggest spraying something this fancy onto your bedsheets and throw pillows. But definitely spritz it on a large scarf to wind around your neck and wear out of the house as a DIY scented talisman to protect you from the chill.

Good (Coconut) Things Come In Large Packages

Marketing has convinced us that the smaller the container, the pricier the contents. Think eye creams in wee jars accompanied by doll-sized spatulas or caviar in diminutive, shallow tins. (I’m so glad I never developed a taste for caviar.)

But if a bottle is huge like Renpure’s Coconut Milk & Vitamin E body wash, you might dismiss it as being somehow less than. And you’d be wrong, because Renpure’s coconut body wash is the ideal shower companion as Canadian winter approaches (insert portentous organ music here.)

Sulphate-free with coconut oil and hydrolyzed milk proteins, it is a gentle cleanser that won’t strip away your precious skin oils. This is especially crucial in the winter when central heating and low humidity conspire to turn your skin into crinkly tissue paper.

And more important to us picky fragrance people, in addition to its ‘clean beauty’ ingredients and post consumer recycled plastic bottle, Renpure absolutely nails the fragrance.

The creamy, light coconut scent is a dead ringer for Skin Trip, the luxe hippie cult favourite body lotion sold in posh health food stores like LA’s Erewhon Market.

But unlike Skin Trip, you can get Renpure in Canada. Its generously-sized bottle, all 710 ml (24 ounces in old money) is only $8.79 at Shoppers Drug Mart and $7.97 at Walmart. Be still my penny-pinching little heart.

Caudalie Fig Body Oil: Practically Perfect in Every Way

Caudalie’s new Smooth & Glow Oil Elixir, (Sephora Canada, $66) is for anyone who spent the summer in the water until their fingers got all pruney and their hair turned to straw. Or it’s for that optimistic soul who stayed too long in the sun, trying to bank enough residual heat to keep them warm throughout the winter. Pity that doesn’t actually work.

But dreading winter aside, this is the oil blend to take your dried-out, late summer skin from faintly reptilian to a hydrated, ‘let’s turn the clock back, shall we?’ dream state. Loaded with antioxidant-rich prickly pear, argan and shea oils, Caudalie Smooth & Glow Elixir also adds softness and shine to crispy, frizzed out hair. All with a wonderful, ‘fig bush after a summer storm’ fragrance. And while the scent is epically figgy, there’s also a faint undercurrent of warm cedar to temper the sweetness. (If you like Diptyque’s Philosykos, Caudalie Smooth & Glow is for you.)

But I’m betting you won’t truly appreciate this oil until you crack open a bottle in deepest darkest November. Then you’ll get a serotonin jolt of happy from the scent and your skin will be very grateful for the much-needed moisture. But why would I even mention November? That seems unnecessarily negative.

Sunscreen For People Who Hate Sunscreen: Shiseido Clear Sunscreen Stick

Choosing a sunscreen can bring out your inner Goldilocks — this lotion is too thick, this one is weirdly greasy,  this one makes your face ghostly white. It’s a boring exercise, especially when all you want is applause for your diligent sunscreen use.

So cynical me, I was immediately skeptical of Shiseido's clear sunscreen stick which promises to avoid all those issues and seemed too good to be true. But it is actually that good.

Shiseido’s Clear Sunscreen Broad Spectrum Wet Force stick ($40, Sephora) is a gel solid in a swivel-up stick that you swipe on with broad strokes, so your fingers never touch the product. When sunscreen application is simple and mess-free, you are hopefully more inclined to reapply, because for sunscreen to work, you need to keep topping up every two hours if you are outdoors and wet (preferably from being in a pool or lake, if it’s a day like today.)

Shiseido’s Clear Sunscreen stick protects against both UVA (aging) and UVB (burning) rays with broad spectrum SPF 50, and Shiseido’s proprietary Wet Force and HeatForce technologies that cleverly leverage heat and water to amplify the sunscreen's effectiveness. (It’s as if Shiseido is compelling you to get in the water.)

And because it’s a gel solid, It won’t drip into your eyes when you ride a bike, play tennis, tend to your garden or just live your life in our unreasonably humid climate. And if you are a makeup wearer (and props to you for wearing makeup in this heat) you can even swipe it over top and it won’t disturb your makeup at all. It is the easiest sunscreen to use by far. So no excuse. Go get it before it sells out again.

Crone Relief: L’Oréal Revitalift Line Plumper Is a Tatcha Water Cream Dupe

Pre-coffee morning face saver.

I love sharing well-priced skincare dupes. They’re the beauty equivalent of your grandmother adding a crisp twenty dollar bill to your birthday card.

New L’Oréal Revitalift Line-Plumping Water Cream, ($42, Shoppers Drug Mart) is a super skin hydrator that’s a twin to Tatcha’s best-selling Water Cream, but the Revitalift costs less than half. That’s good to know as inflation is still climbing and Loblaws now apparently charges seven dollars for celery according to this TikTok. (There are so many other food examples I could cite, but I enjoy that girl’s pure, crystalline rage.)

Water creams are high in ceramides, glycerin and hyaluronic acid to hydrate skin quickly, which is key when you are feeling shrivelled and pruney-faced. Revitalift Line-Plumper contains low molecular weight hyaluronic acid to plump skin quickly while ceramides (the ‘mortar’ between the ‘bricks’ that are your skin cells) work to strengthen your skin barrier which can get temperamental and needy as you age. A strengthened skin barrier acts younger and retains moisture better, making skin less sensitive and more resistant to redness, irritation and general discomfort.

On mornings when I wake up feel especially crinkly, I stagger to the bathroom, splash water on my face and get some Revitalift water cream on before hying myself off to the kitchen for coffee. By the time the caffeine hits, the cream has done its work and a much more presentable me greets the day.

And because the Revitalift is so well-priced, you can use it lavishly and still have money left over for things like celery.