Brows, Bloggers, and Bad Bathroom Timing

One of the highlights of the weekend? Getting my brows done by my friend Elke von Freudenberg, brow gal extraordinaire this weekend in L.A. She's available for appointments in both NYC and L.A. Elke cleaned up my admittedly neglected brows and fancied them up with some of her shimmery (specially for night, she told me) brow powder. Loves it. My brows look seriously phenom. Marina told me multiple times. And Marina knows her stuff. Elke says that scrubbing over eyebrows with a facial scrub is the best way to prepare them for plucking. It also sloughs off any dead skin making them look more abundant and smooth. I've been following her advice sloughing the area with my fave scrub, Origins Never a Dull Moment.

Annie before

Anastasia doing the eyebrows

Annie after


Speaking of eyebrows, my fave stop on the beauty tour was Anastasia's salon in Beverly Hills. We listened to Anastasia's product development exec talk about the new Anastasia products in store and then watched Anastasia HERSELF clean up my friend Annie's brows. Now, I thought Annie had divine brows to begin with, but Anastasia perfected them. After she worked her magic, they looked longer and arched gorgely. Check out the before and after. Also, I totally missed it, but Elke whispered to me that Billy Baldwin (aka, the hot Baldwin) walked into the salon while we were there. I obv informed Elke that when it comes to Baldwins, I'm on a need-to-know basis. We left Anastasia's with her Brow Tool Kits, $45. The kit includes classic stencils (a set of four classic eyebrow stencils that suit any face shape), scissors (precision handcrafted stainless steel in the perfect length and blade shape for trimming brows), and her signature tweezer (customized slanted tip and calibrated tension made of the highest quality steel for the ability to tweeze even the finest of hairs).

At the summit, I had the opportunity to meet so many bloggers!
Christine - What a doll she is! Snarky enough to keep me entertained during an 8am-6pm all-day session, but darling enough to cart my non-driving ass all around L.A. Thanks for the rides, Christine!
Monique - has two children who NEED to be represented, stat. They're little budding models.
Jennifer - Jennifer and I had emailed re: wardrobe and I'm so pleased to say she made great choices. She's supersweet and fun as well.
Nancy - Nancy is a hilar DOLL. We had an entire conversation about how turnips are STUPID. I'm still laughing about it.
Tammy - I had a lot of fun with Tammy on Friday's beauty tour! She totally caught me eating three sandwiches post-tour (who eats that much in L.A., of all places? I was HUNGRY) and joked with me about it later. She's hilar.

I caught up with my old blogging friends whom I've met previously: Delphine, Erika, Julia, Daneen, Marina, Annie, Tia, Michelle, Jamie, Elke, Anne, Christina, and Teri.

Last but not least, I won an Award for Best Community Contributor to Total Beauty! But the story of how I came to receive it is... mortifying. MORTIFYING. I turned casually to Marina to ask her if she thought it would be good time to slip out to the restroom during lunch. I didn't want to MISS anything. I hate to miss things. She nodded, saying it seemed like the perfect time. Well, I came back to the room of 100+ people CLAPPING AND TURNING AND LOOKING AT ME as I "inconspicuously slipped back in." If by inconspicuous, you mean, totally and utterly CONSPIC. Apparently, the awards had started while I was out and I was the second award announced. It was very confusing. Marina, it couldn't have been a worse time to take a restroom break. But I am thankful! I'm proud of Total Beauty's accomplishments during its short lifespan and want to contribute more to its success! So, my apologies for almost missing it, but THANK YOU for the honor of being chosen.

Something similar happened once at a formal I attended with a guy in college. I'd mentioned how I adore Frank Sinatra's "Luck be a Lady" so he'd had the band dedicate the song to me, publicly ... while I was nowhere to be found. Because once again, I was in the bathroom. On the phone with another guy who was definitely not worth missing a dedicated song for. Oh, and I finally turned up during the part when Sinatra sings, "A lady doesn't leave her escort... it isn't fair... it isn't nice." Yeah. Let's hope that's the end of my MIA-ness at largely-attended events situations.

Thanks to Jennifer for taking the pic of me with my award!

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