Readers who were with me during the craze of the 2007 holiday season know of my consuming obsession with solid perfumes. The format just lends itself so well to irresistible little compacts and trinkets, I find myself drooling over them no matter how frivolous. But when solid perfumes start to appear in pendant form, things start to get a little murky. These tend to pop up around the holidays,...

When it comes to home fragrance, I feel like Goldilocks. Reed diffusers are pretty, but tend to have poor throw. Room sprays don't last and need to be re-sprayed frequently...too much effort for me. Candles are nice, but require monitoring; I'm always worried about falling asleep or leaving the house without blowing them out. Where's my "just right?" It would seem that some kind of safe,...

Yves Saint Laurent's summer collection, The Lights of Africa, is an earthy, bronzy color story in the same vein as Clarins Summer Fever and MAC Neo Sci-Fi. Frankly, I'm just surprised that the YSL collection doesn't include a bright pop of color like the others; teal, orange and fuchsia are practically de rigueur this season. The marquee item in this collection is the Soleil D'Afrique Collector...

Now that it costs $65+ to fill my gas tank, I find myself avoiding Sephora and Neiman and perusing the aisles of my local CVS or Walgreens instead. (That's not to say I don't still enjoy a nice jar of CDLM or a new Serge Lutens, but I'm trying to keep the impulse purchases on the cheap side.) Thus, my latest obsession is Vaseline Cocoa Butter Vitalizing Gel Body Oil. The formulation is similar...

I mentioned in the June newsletter that I'd be launching a new monthly feature in which I'd lay out all the best and worst products reviewed that month. I had intended on listing EVERYTHING I'd posted about, but that turned out to be a bit unwieldy, so I decided to focus on the ones I loved or hated the most. So, here are the 10 best, and 5 worst, products of June 2008. (If you want to see...