Somewhere there’s a commandment that is saying just as much when it comes to hair. You see them everyday walking near you and around you. Women who have hair that is desperately in need of help. Desperate because of split ends, because of overuse of chemicals, because of being in a harsh environment (heat, humidity etc). Hamadi’s Healing Serum comes highly recommended for those having problems of that nature. Made of all the organic good stuff that you look for, it’s main purpose is to end the frizz and entanglements that you find so prevalent in today’s hair. The end result? Shiny, lustrous hair that seals your natural hair oils and makes you feel absolutely wonderful and ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound. You go, Supergirl.

Get it here: Hamadi Beauty

This comes HIGHLY recommended. Last week a former intern crossed me on the street and said hello. It’s like I didn’t even recognize the girl completely different face from last summer. So as to not embarrass the person I’ll keep it very vague. I wanted to come up with a way to ask, hey, what happened to all the acne and weird post-college skin that you had? She said, blog about Bare Escentuals RareMinerals Blemish Therapy. She used to pick at her skin and that would leave all types of blemishes and acne growing on top of acne. Gross indeed. She said she just started using the product on a lark and while not immediate she started seeing them going away. Then the blemishes from the picking went away as well. I thought plastic surgery, but apparently not. So this comes highly recommended if you’re facing the whole oily skin and acne thing. Get it here.

You’ll experience tons of different exfoliators and skin care products in your lifetime, the stores are literally littered with them but aside from the funny name, this Lalicious Island Guava product comes highly recommended according to our intern and now our general staff. As gross as this may sound we only received one so we sorta had a moment where we started sharing this. That has since ended, but still, there’s a feeling that I should not have shared that tidbit of into. Here’s where we try to sound official. As an office test we gave an intern this product to try (new things scare us). The end result is the following:

I tried it for 7 days and found that while there were little visual changes I could really feel smoother skin on my arm after the first two days. So I decided to go full bore and try using it all over. The first thing I noticed is that it leaves a bit of a moisturizer-type sheen on the skin after washing. This is an uncommon but welcomed effect because you literally need not over moisturize your skin. It’s as if the scrub finds a natural balance and gives it a this moisturized residual feel. It wears off as the day goes on but for the first couple of hours it actually feels pretty fantastic. Another thing that gets you right off the bat is the scent. While I wasn’t entirely crazy about having a sugary sweet smell for the rest of the day, it did beat having to apply perfume. It’s a naturally light clean scent. Overall, I’d recommend it without hesitation. If you have oily skin though you may want to be careful using this because it might leave a bit of a residue that exacerbates the problem. I’m glad I definitely have the full product though as I am going to keep using it!

So the cheeky Gisele Bundchen thing is tearing up the internet and, it reminds me of this makeup blush powder I tried last week. The correlation here is cheeks for the uninitiated. Normally highlight blushes are ignored as overkill. The blush aspect is enough you say. The thing about blush in general though is that it can either end up as too dull or too overpowering. In the case of the latter you can end up looking like some sort of clown, in the case of the former, you can end up looking as if there’s nothing there. In both cases the highlighting blush can help dramatically.

In case 1: With dull blush the highlighting blush can add accents to your undertones and create that “just right” minimalist effect.

In case 2: The over blush effect is normally ameliorated by simply taking a round brush and spreading it all out. In combination with that effect, Nars Highlight blush comes HIGHLY recommended. Simply take it and LIGHTLY flush it across the area that the original blush was used and voila. Many may say blush on top of blush makes absolutely no sense at all. Try it. Simply try it and depending on the color used it can help blunt the strong effect of the dreaded over-blush.

To that end NARS has two products that come highly recommended: the highlighting blush (seen above) and the combo blush/bronzer. That caking effect is a thing of the past with these two blush products. It’s something you find common with the cheaper bronze products but this is a cleaner makeup that comes off easily with makeup remover. I’d love it if there was a bit of a moisturizer or SPF product but you can’t get everything. They’re both available here.

The quintessential makeup artist, Shu Uemura died this past December from acute pneumonia in Tokyo. If there was ever a case for someone doing it all in their respective field, it is Uemura. From creating looks for movies that are often duplicated, to making a line of popular upscale cosmetics and opening an architectural marvel that is his cosmetics boutique (then opening stores all around the world). Uemura cast a long shadow in the makeup industry and most were inevitably touched by his contributions. He leaves his wife and son.

Read the Star obituary online