Celebrities are always a step ahead of the game when it comes to hairstyles and fashion, thanks to free “samples” from designers, so it makes sense to look to those in the spotlight for up and coming trends.  Whether you’re looking for the perfect outfit for New Year’s Eve or just adding a few items to your wardrobe, take a look at these five trends celebs have been seen sporting lately.

1. Jewel Tones

Rich, vibrant, saturated colors have been seen on everything lately – from eyelids  to clothing, and even nail polish.  Need a little inspiration?  Browse through your grandma’s jewelry collection and draw ideas from your favorite pieces.  Does the richness of the ruby catch your attention?  Or perhaps the deep, dark shine of the sapphire?  Find the color that speaks to you and make a bold statement by incorporating it into your apparel.

Jewel-toned eye makeup is making a major comeback as well.  The bold look adds drama to the eye, with a smoky application of the rich, pigmented colors.  Emerald green specifically, has been touted as the season’s “it” eye accent color.  Pair it with a dark crimson lip color and you’ll be the hit of your next holiday party.

2. Animal Prints

Though animal print may be considered “tacky” to some, it’s back with a vengeance.  Leopard print is particularly hot and can be found on anything from apparel, to tights, and even shoes. Celebrities have recently been seen wearing the stylish prints on the red carpet, at parties, and even in their casual everyday wear.  Adding a pop of animal print does wonders for an otherwise drab outfit. Just make sure to use animal print responsibly – overdoing it can take you from fashionista to fashion disaster very quickly.

3. Autumnal Tones

Earthy colors are on the rise this season, inspired by the warm, spicy palette of fall.  Mustard yellow is a current favorite, and celebrities are particularly loving cardigans and other knits in the vintage hue.  Adding a scarf or handbag in the color will instantly put you at the top of the trends.  Embrace the retro vibe the deep shade of yellow brings by trying pin curls on your hair or wearing red lipstick on your pout.  Spicy shades of red, sunset orange, cinnamon, and yellow-greens are all excellent choices.

4. Faux Fur

That’s right, fur is back, but not in the head-to-toe, Cruella DeVille sort of way.  Instead, it’s appearing on vests, coat collars, gloves, and hats.  Fur adds an air of cold-weather charm, while keeping the iconic look of wealth.  Pair a furry accessory with jeans and a simple tee to create an appealing mixture of retro and glam.

5. Fair Isle

This traditional knit stems from a small island north of Scotland.  Once again the trend is nothing new, but rather a resurgence of an age old fashion. We’ve been seeing this type of sweater in ski shops and woodsy towns for years, but only recently did it make its way mainstream. Try layering the rustic sweater over a collared dress shirt. The juxtaposition of contrasting styles works together to create a high-fashion ensemble.  The look works for males, females, children, and even the occasional pooch. Wear this Scandinavian-style sweater with some lace-up snow boots to complete the look.

Follow this five simple trends and you’ll be looking like a star in no time.

xx,

Lisa

About the Author:  Lisa is an avid yoga enthusiast who enjoys writing in her spare time for Usdirect.com.

Related posts:

This week, I asked one of my oldest (not in age, but in friendship duration) and very dearest friends if he’d be willing to share one of his recipes.  I know I’m partial, but I can’t believe that not only can my pal speak German fluently, recite Shakespeare, and mix up the perfect purple drank, he can cook!   I mean, ladies, how is this man single?  Anyway, this isn’t some froofy girly girl recipe … so if you wanna impress your main man with something delicious that he will appreciate, keep reading. (Oh… and please behold this amazing school dance photo of me my male bff.  Sorry, dude, had to):

After a pilgrimage to Neely’s Interstate BBQ in Memphis and sampling their phenomenal BBQ spaghetti, I was determined to recreate it for myself.  It’s not nearly as difficult as one would think, but it does take a bit of time.  For the record, if my writing seems disjointed or broken, I’m watching Nigella Lawson and am enthralled by her accent and, um, other attributes.

What you need: 

• 1 tablespoon good olive oil
• 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic salt
• BBQ sauce (recipe follows)
• 1lb pork, beef, chicken, turkey, dog, cat – cooked and chopped to bits
• 1lb spaghetti

First things first, the BBQ sauce:

• 2 cups of ketchup (about 1 20oz bottle)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 5 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon black pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon onion powder
• 1/2 tablespoon ground mustard (don’t skimp – get Colman’s)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1. Combine everything in a pot, bring it to a boil and then reduce to a slow simmer for about an hour or an hour and a half.  Length of time depends on how thick you want it.  There’s also a lot of wiggle room in the sweetness/bite of the sauce.  The recipe I listed is Neely’s original and it’s got decent balance.  However, I like a little more vinegar flavor so I added a bit more and cut back on the sugar.  If you want it sweeter, add more sugar/brown sugar.  The sauce as is has decent tang, but if you want some heat, throw in some cayenne pepper or some hot sauce to bring the spice up a bit.
2. Once you’ve got the sauce square, heat up the oil and throw in the peppers, onion and garlic salt and cook everything until it’s nice and soft.  Once done, throw in the BBQ and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, put in your chopped meat and reduce to a simmer.  Bring your pasta water to a boil, salt it appropriately and then cook your pasta til al dente.  Mix the sauce/meat and the pasta and voila, BBQ spaghetti.
3. For the meat, you have a lot of options – you can buy pulled pork (sans any kind of sauce) or brisket, brown some ground beef/turkey/chicken – whatever.  Just make sure you chop it up small enough so it blends well.  When I made this, I bought smoked pork loin from one of the BBQ joints down here and chopped it up and it turned out really well.  I doubled the recipe and it fed a dinner party of 10 perfectly, and I’ll take the lack of leftovers as a testament to how good it was.

OK – back to Nigella.

JC

Related posts:

They say good things come in small packages, but in a society where we’re always stressing bigger, better, more, more, more, sometimes it seems hard to believe.  Luckily, Stephie is here to remind us just how great the “little things” really can be.

I die for beauty product samples and recently Sephora has been on a tear!  A number of very exciting minis have overhauled my usual summer skincare and makeup routine. A Beauty Insider VIP-sized sample of DDF Ultra-Lite Oil-Free Moisturizing Dew is my new defacto nighttime summer moisturizer. During the winter, I opt for a thicker formula, but this one is truly hydrating without leaving my face an oil slick. It’s heavy duty moisture without the weight. For seriously sticky days, I turn to Elemis Daily Shine Control, a treatment moisturizer for oily to combination skin that fights shine while it moisturizes.  Two birds, one sample.

Of course, all of this goes under Laura Mercier Oil Free Tinted Moisturizer SPF 20, or what many beauty buffs would call the best all-around light coverage product on the market.  Speaking of SPF, a facialist recently told me not to use SPF 15, but  rather 50 on my face, neck, décolleté and hands every day to prevent aging. I took SkinCeuticals Physical Fusion UV Defense SPF 50 for a test drive.  Not only does it not stink, but it also goes on (YES, girls) in a strangely accurate human skin color not that creepy pasty white.  SkinCeuticals avers it a “universal tint.”  Somehow I believe it.

Sephora hit a sour note with a Father’s Day promotion giving samples of men’s products. Who gifts dad three tiny tubes of random skincare? Awkward.  Rather than waste these samples, I selected a few men’s cleansers I could test myself and compared them with a Kiehl’s specimen stolen from my husband’s drawer (he only gets one). The test confirmed that although men’s cleansers can be truly awesomely gritty (Clinique Skin Supplies for Men Face Scrub) and wonderfully experientially tabacco-y (Kiehl’s Energizing Facial Fuel Skin Buffer for Men) or energizing and brightening (Anthony Logistics for Men Facial Scrub), there are simply no men’s cleansers that can remove eye makeup- ya hear that Adam Lambert?

Forget a chihuahua in your handbag: Fresh Soy Face Cleanser is an eyeliner-wearing lady’s best friend. It is also somehow gentle enough that if you left a smidge on, it would be good for your complexion. It has a lovely scent and a famous gelatinous texture (if you tapped a bowlful, it would jiggle). It’s better than anything the boys have got, trust me.

Summer means light and fresh for color on the face too.  Guerlain Terracotta Skin Healthy Glow Foundation is the only bronzer that doesn’t look dirty on my very fair pink-undertoned skin and a Sephora sample is what introduced me to it, (kinda makes up for the father’s day weirdness). Fear not: this gel formula did not make me look like I walked into a dusty clay factory, like some powder bronzers – it actually made me look tan (what a concept)! Smashbox O-GLOSS
Intuitive Lip Gloss provides a pretty pink counterpoint. The O-GLOW (cheek version) will not work if you pile on hydrators, sunscreens and tinted moisturizers like I recommend above, because it needs to come in contact with both bare skin and air to work. But, O-GLOSS provides that magical same out-of-thin air magical fuschia branded just for you – it works with your lip chemistry to create a shiny, entirely non-sticky “custom shade of pink” (usually in the hello-kitty cuteness category).

Now get your summer sampling on and don’t forget to wear your sunnies!

xx,

Stephie

Related posts:

Like most, I had a Tuesday for a Monday this week (due to Memorial Day).  I initially thought, “Yay, no way will the start of this week blow like the others do!” But I was dead wrong.  I arrived at work with double the usual amount of work and attempted to make it through my day with RedBull alone.  Half way through the day I started up my iPod on my fav song and decided to let Genius do the rest.  A minute and a half into Le Blorr’s “Oh Christopher” I was smiling ear to ear.  I’d like to share this great mix in hopes that it can have the same effect on you fine people.  If I was a Von Trapp these songs would def be things I’d sing about.

1. Bastard LoveChild of Rock and Roll- Oh Christopher
2. Phantograms- Mouthful of Diamonds
3. Fleetwood Mac- Gypsy
4. Jonsi- Go Do
5. Billie Holliday- The Way You Look Tonight
6. M83- We Own the Sky
7. Warpaint- Stars
8. Donora- I Think I Like You
9. Telepopmusik- Breathe
10. YACHT- Psychic City (voodoo city)
11. Ghostland Observatory- Give Me the Beat

xx,

Katie

Related posts:

We beauty folks tend to get caught up in our $350 Chanel Sublimage, our Claudio Riaz makeup brushes, and our Clé de Peau Beauté this-n-that often forgetting the simple products that made us tumble head-over-heels into the world of beauty in the first place.  I’m talking about the cheap thrill of drugstore beauty basics that actually do what they say do. Remember being 12 and in awe over what rouge did to your face? Was it $160 Serge Lutens Blusher, you big fusspot? No, it was Almay!

We love our fancy, weighty, grown-up Barneys beauty department -and that’s OK- but we musn’t forget that “inexpensive” doesn’t mean bad if it works. Beauty is about the glitz and the packaging and frills, but more importantly about function.

If you read my last Whydid guest blog entry, you know I heart my mascara workhorse. Herein, I share a few of my other favorite bargain beauty basics. (Yes, you can look fantastic and still have a retirement fund).

Breaking up with your favorite shampoo is hard to do, but the “other gal,” Neutrogena’s, romantic promise is so lovely in her simplicity: dump your regular shampoo once in a blue moon for a lathery date with Neutrogena’s Anti-Residue Formula Shampoo, and your regular shampoo will work harder for you when you get back together. The Anti-Residue Formula works by removing the build-up that gunks up your fro, allowing your regular shampoo to do it’s job better. Give your scalp a scruberoo… and the best part is you’ll only be out $6.

I know someone close to Essie Nailpolish founder Essie Weingarten, and hear she’s a totally badass babe who personally bestows the names upon every single nailpolish color from Blanc (one of her first formulas) to After Sex (changed to After Six in conservative markets). She had a cow upon hearing that Kate wore Essie’s Allure nailcolor shade whilst becoming the Dutchess.

As any cosmopolitan chameleon knows, a quick change of polish color can alter your personality, and sometimes your life.  You don’t need to pony up for Uslu Airlines or Scotch Naturals. Get the effect for $8 – less than the cost of a single manicure! The number of home manicures you can get from an $8 shade is virtually endless – have you EVER finished a nail polish bottle? Nobody has. Google couldn’t even tell me how many uses are in a bottle.

Essie makes shades sold at J. Crew, and its childrens’ outpost, Crewcuts. From left: Splash of Grenadine, and Forget Me Nots. Can you say sizz-ummer? Or, head to Essie.com for my other two favorites, Merino Cool, seen her on Lady Gaga, and for you Ballet Slippers-obsessed, try Fed Up for a smidge-more-beigey, ever-so-slightly less sophomoric version.

You’re gloss-obsessed, I know.  We all are.  Lately there’s something so fresh and posh and European about the surprising and rare burst of actual opaque lipcolor. Lipcolor with eyeliner and everything else downplayed is just so French (mais oui!). American beauty tells us to tan, color our hair, get a mani/pedi, shape our brows, get a Latisse prescription, use the whole makeup drawer, then follow it up with injectables and hairspray. French beauty is about lips and eyeliner and looking like yourself (novel idea). Enter Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Fire and Ice, for when you’re feeling a little bit Carla Bruni Sarkozy – on a budget.

Apparently Carla hates makeup, but when she wears it, goes the simple route with lip and liner, as you see in the above. Revlon Super Lustrous is a drugstore basic – that actually feels retro in it’s lipsticky-ness. It’s creamy and moisturizing and leaves a gorgeous kiss-mark on your coffee mug. Fire and Ice is in the true red family with a slight warmness to it.  It just screams “confident woman.” The voluptuous new throwback packaging makes it look just as fantastic on your lips as it does on your vanity.

***Sidebar – is every Revlon lip product named after fire, ice or stone fruits? See: Cherries In The Snow, Hot Coral, Smoked Peach, Iced Coffee, Raspberry Freeze, Cherry Ice, Snowsilver Rose, Smoky Rose, Icy Nude, and Flame, amongst many others. ) Have them all for $7.99 a piece.

Remember the geezer who loved Windex in My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Windex is to him what Aquaphor is to me. I use it on my lips, my knees, my eye wrinkles, burns, blemishes, and scars and my baby’s butt. Fast forward to my mom being shot for Real Simple Magazine.  Editors shot her in a great DVF dress (she bought it later) holding a rich maroon bag, standing before a cerulean doorway.

The shot is great – mostly because she is gorgeous (brush the dirt off my shoulder), and partly because they SLATHERED her exposed skin with Aquaphor. My mom looks like a darn spring chicken with that smooth skin. An enormous Aquaphor tub can be yours for $14. (So long, Sublimage!)

I leave you with the humble bobby pin. To experiment with updos, pick a picture in any magazine and just play with bobby pins till you get it right. Or smooth your quotidian ponytail, create a hot little faux-hawk, or just do something different. With the bobby pin, it’s all possible. At $3.50 for 50, you could give half your bobby pins away, and still have some sweet moolah left over for your beloved Serge Lutens.

Until next time… Don’t forget me!

xx,

Stephie

Related posts: