Beauty Stat - For the beauty obsessed who demand the facts not fiction.

To many, owning Chanel No. 5 has the same heft as owning a Ming vase. It’s precious, it’s pure and timeless. Of course the Ming vase can be auctioned off at Sothebys, but we’ll venture to guess that no one in their right mind would auction of their Chanel EDT.
Remember when Chanel rocked the perfume industry in 2007 with the release of its limited-edition “Les Exclusifs” collection? It was available only in Chanel boutiques and Bergdorf Goodman. The 10-sku range is housed in unusually large, 200ml spray bottles, with a high …

Ah, the nail lacquer trends have me in a Houdini knot this fall. On the one hand, you have deep, rich and vampy shades like Christian Dior’s Liquorice which is tinged with purple and metallic hues. On the other hand, you have Chanel’s obsession with gold.
But gold is not only a Fall shade. Look at Laura Mercier’s “Gold Digger” limited edition collection (from the summer) which houses a beautiful metallic polish, the 24 Karat. Being part reporter and part sleuth, I was interested in comparing the Mercier and Chanel and …

Jana of the Jungle would be proud of my adventure at my local Nordstrom. I tested Lancome’s new Black Carat virtuôse Mascara and guzzled up the dregs of the tester because they were sold out of the lanky tube.

Black Carat is an intense black color and shinier than the traditional Black virtuôse color. As you can see from the picture below, my lashes became as black as soot and more thickly coated than my intensely lacquered nails.
I used a tester brush so I’m sure the lash separation factor was not …

It is hot, folks! We may as well be in a swamp zone in Florida, and our makeup is migrating down to our knees. Watching our makeup, blush and eyeshadow vanish into an oil slick by noon isn’t our idea of fun in the sun. So hats off to MAC Prep and Prime Protect SPF 50 for giving us serious SPF along with a shine-proof complexion.
We love the convenience of a primer and sunscreen all in one (we’re singing hallelujah as we write this), and we’re in love with the Prep and …

Some soaps get you downright squeaky clean, as though you were dirty as a pig in mud before. When you lather up they make you want to scrub away for hours and forget about wasting water or the neighborhood drought.
But few soaps can double as a breakfast bar. Lush’s new Porridge Soap may be one of them. Made with oats and OJ, this bar puts any Cheerios box to shame. It exfoliates and lathers up into brown mushiness and slobbers your skin with moisturizers like sweet orange oil. It’s recommended …

I’m not the only person who loves bright skin. Hailing from India, where they use coconut milk to religiously whiten their face, I learned from kindergarten that having flawless white skin was the most beautiful thing you could have apart from possessing polished, uninterrupted nails.
So when I came to the United States and saw everyone frying their faces out on Jones Beach to get brown, I thought they were off their rocker. I wrote dozens of letters to my mom (not too e-mail savvy back then):
Do you know what these …

Okay I shouldn’t give political advice on a beauty site I know but that was too easy to resist.
On sale on Monday is Stila’s new Rock the Vote Red Lip Color to inspire women to vote. The lippie can purchased for $17 at www.stilacosmetics.com.
25% of proceeds from the first 500 sold will be donated to Rock the Vote in support of their efforts to mobilize young people to get involved in the political process.
My favorite part is the “Register to Vote” icon on the site which makes registration as easy …

There are better ways to protect your skin than wearing long-sleeved tees and full-length skirts like the Amish during the summer. When temperatures rise so high that even your slurpee starts to boil before you can drink it, it’s time to jump into a pool of sunscreen.
No one makes a better organic spray than Dr. Hauschka (even his name sounds all erudite, as though he received a PhD at birth and started doing R&D before he got to grade school).
His new organic SPF 15 Sunscreen Spray is my current object …

Every summer we offer up our winter-white legs to “new and improved” self-tanning lotions, only to be sucker-punched by orange blotches that wouldn’t look out of place on a giraffe.  Frankly, we’re tired of products that promise us the moon and end up giving us a chunk of an asteroid.
So we are thrilled to find a fabulous faux fix for our solar-shy extremities called Tarte Glam Gams Leg Bronzing Stick.
This push-up natural gardenia-scented stick is the real deal, giving legs a glowing, toned and taut appearance. The easy-to-apply bronzer is loaded …

There are smells — as I’m sure Pig Pen from the Peanuts Comic Strip would agree — that you are unlikely to forget.
Most smells make you want to block your nose completely and wish you had a cold. No amount of spritzing yourself with good ol’ fashioned Charlie or even a Glade house scent will keep your immediate air smelling pretty, because when Pig Pen hits you, he hits you hard. You feel as though your nostrils have been assaulted by some sort of olfactory hippopotamus. You feel violated, vulnerable …