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How does Chanel always manage to create cult-hit nail polish that's just the right amount of lurid high-school goth and shimmering stardust-like gossamer? Blue Satin, a semi-translucent navy that says, with equal confidence, "job interview" and "kinky in the sack" (though not both at once), will be the manicurist's hit this spring. And if we're feeling fancy, and we always are, maybe we'll add a topcoat of Azur, an opalescent blue the shade of Tinkerbell's dress, for a look that's half halcyon, half Hellraiser. $19, at most department stores.
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Remember when you first started experimenting with makeup and you frittered your allowance at the drugstore's troughs of Wet 'n' Wild, dolling your eyes in bonker-blues and tarting your pucker in garish corals, like a Palm Beach retiree crossed with a hooker? It's time to revisit those carefree preteen days, only with a little more artistry, and Yves Saint Laurent's spring cosmetics collection will show you the way. Touche Éclat, the stellar pen-brush that raised worldwide standards for concealer, now comes in the form of glowing, water-resistant eyeshadow in shades of muted Golden Girls ($27.50). Lollipop-swirled tubes of Pop Stick Blush ($42), sheer lipsticks in what would be daffy colors if cranked up to full saturation ($28), peacock-blue Mascara Volume Infini Curl ($26.50) and limited-edition pinky-bronze Palette Pop powder compact inspired by a greeting card Monsieur Saint Laurent once drew ($60) round out the look of granny-meets-gamine—just in time to welcome the loony yet lovely day jackets and bloomers hitting shops for spring. At most department stores.
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We're not gonna lie: Shu Uemura's spring cosmetics collection is endearingly, gorgeously nutty. And that's the way we'll always remember the Hollywood-via-Japan guru-artist who famously invented skin cleansing oil, the best eyelash curler on the planet, an outrageous eyelash bar—and who succumbed last month to pneumonia. Fittingly named Rebirth, the collection focuses on the eyes: a cross between theatrical grease paint and toddler play makeup, tiny stackable crayons in dewdrop, lily pad and butterfly ($25 for a stick of three) provide a light, even application that invites blending and layering. Combined with pressed eyeshadows in grape, lemon, lime, root beer, and orange fizz laced with a ribbon of pearly white ($20) and, um, ivy green—yes, green—mascara ($23), the look trills like a twitterpated forest nymph at a soda shop. At Shu Uemura.
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The arduous praxis of even readying the face for cosmetics is full of corrections: cleansing turns the visage ruddy, hence toner; toner begets shininess, hence serum; serum benefits from an activator, hence moisturizer. And so on and so forth until it's 20 minutes later and we're still just getting started. La Mer's Cleansing Foam ($65 for 4.2 oz) with magnetized tourmaline and positive-molecule waters (that attract dirt), sea algae fibers (that scrub like a superfine wash cloth) and fine jade and pearl powders (that brighten and finish) eliminates all the middle nonsense. It's wash and go. At Saks Fifth Avenue.
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A little toxin's good for letting the body know it's alive, so we're resolving in 2008 not to give up our sybaritic habits. And Skyn Iceland, known for their empathetic treatises on the things we do that feel good for our enterprise but end up looking bad on our bodies, loves us heathens just the way we are. They've just released Cloud Cream ($75, 1.7 oz), a stress-relieving anytime moisturizer that heals and protects irritated, inflamed and aesthetician- or weather-damaged skin. With endorphin-stimulating peptides, an immune-boosting matrix that absorbs icky UVB light and a biospheric complex that contains Iceland's naturally mineralized healing waters, this goodness-packed goop chills us the heck out. At Sephora.
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Strange Invisible—a botanical perfumery that strictly excludes all synthetic and commercial-grade ingredients, most of them organic and/or free-trade—extracts fragrance in the most gentle manner possible, then blends delicacies into elegantly dissolute elixirs. New to the family is a bath and body line, a slick Life-Changing Body Wash gel ($35) that minds its own business in the shower—i.e. not much foam in the lather, followed by an immediate and immaculate decamp down the drain—but with the help of a complimentary Invisible Body Lotion ($40) makes its presence known all the livelong day. At Barneys New York or Strange Invisible in Los Angeles.
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