LADIESFUND®

I must say I was intrigued when I heard  about Elizabeth Grant Skin Care’s new product “The Socializer™,” which had been inspired by their Public Relations and Marketing Manager Margot Grant who’s busy schedule had left her eyes needing morning and nighttime reboots.

Courtney Dunlop of Stylelist.com had called it “Canada’s secret weapon for de-puffing tired eyes” and it was being lauded by Ginnifer Goodwin and Blake Lively.

The coolest part, however, was that it had been designed with two separate click pens — one for morning brightening and the other for nighttime glow.  It was great that the product line recognized that a woman wanted two different types of brighteners for her eyes.

Trying it out proved to be very easy.  Simple to use and easy to spread, the two click pens were ingeniously designed.

Bright Lights, the morning treatment, uses Mica, a mineral light diffuser to instantly brighten and is effective at making a late night disappear … at least the evidence on your face, that is.  I liked the feel on my eyes and while I didn’t think it made dark circles fully disappear, I did think it was quite effectively compared to similar products.

Late Nights, the evening treatment, blends peptides and Ulva Lactuta to “repair, awaken, de-puff and rejuvenate.”  Essentially, this is to recharge the eyes after a long day to make them look fresh and glow.  I think it’s quite a good highlighter and while I prefer a lot of the cream highlighters, this was quick effective as well.

So, if you want a little boost to your eyes in the morning or an added oomph at night, The Socializer is well worth checking out.

It’s not just Canada’s secret weapon for puffy eyes, it’s the Canadian woman’s ideal resource for a making her eyes look their best, whatever time of day.

About Elizabeth Grant International: Elizabeth Grant International Inc. is a Canadian skin care company focused on producing the most advanced luxury skin care products for over 50 years. Each Elizabeth Grant Skin Care product contains the company’s exclusive compound, Torricelumn™- an unmatched formula of ocean minerals, proteins, nutrients, vitamins and natural active ingredients, each extensively researched and specially selected for their individual restorative properties.

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Lift them up girls.

Your perky perks needing a little uplift, so to speak?  Well, LUSH has come up with something fun and useful for you.

LUSH’s new Lovely Jubblies Breast Cream ($24.95) is made out of special essential oils to give you a lift.  Not quite sure how tiger lily petals and Meadowsweet really work, but apparently they are traditionally used to tighten skin which in the bust area means auto-uplift.  This mix is combined with fresh rose essence to soothe and make the skin supple and also enhance the scent I assume.

It’s easy to use and apparently firms up anything! LUSH teasingly refer to it as “Firm Nation.”

As sweater season has started, no better time to jiggly jubbly away and although they advertise that if you are built, you may just need too, if you use it sparingly, it does have plenty of effect.

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Reviewed By T. U. Dawood
Sunday, 05 Sep, 2010 | 10:47 AM PST |

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist was one of those life-changing books that contain poignant words of wisdom. In it he espoused that when one is on one’s true path, the entire universe conspires to expedite the process and make one’s dreams come true.

Inspirations, Coelho’s latest work, sheds light on the author’s own life path, particularly the journey that made him the bestselling writer and philosopher that he is today. In the book he has arranged his selections from classic literature into four sections — water, earth, air and fire — which reflect the four elements identified by the Ancients.

The Ancients believed that all things — visible and invisible — were composed of these four substances, not just in their material form but symbolically as well.

The author reminds us that ‘those four elements form an idea of the whole, of the universe … an anthology like this one can never be complete until, reader, is it read by you. And your insight completes the circle and makes it turn again.’

Coelho’s choices are not only interesting in themselves, but also in the way he has juxtaposed seemingly dissimilar works. In the first section ‘Water’ he has selected writers as diverse as Hans Christian Anderson and Machiavelli. They are followed by extracts from Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War.

Coelho admires Shahrazad’s survival instincts and likens her imagination and inventiveness to the hidden treasures in deep waters. Machiavelli’s work is akin to Sun-Tzu’s, in that both texts teach strategy but the former selection is more transparent while the latter is puzzling and full of unknown, deeper meanings.

He connects the two works with Carroll’s sequel to Alice in Wonderland because of the astute way it highlights that ‘how we perceive reality can be altered, sometimes in its own way, and without us.’

The next section ‘Earth’ revolves around the way Coelho sees this element: ‘disquieting and essential’. There is darkness in his earth and his choices range from Oscar Wilde’s gloomy De Profundis to D. H. Lawrence. They are followed by Bram Stroker’s Dracula which delves deep into the torments of the human soul.

This latter classic dates from the time when vampires were tortured and dangerous antagonists, rather than diamond-dusted studs like in the currently popular Twilight Saga. Earthly delights are the theme at the core of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

The section titled ‘Air’ is, according to Coelho, ‘fearsome and uncontrollable’. In it he has selected from texts by Nelson Mandela and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. No Easy Way to Freedom reads like a work of creation; its words are meant to direct the course of the future by sowing the seeds of new, urgent thought.

The selections included in ‘Air’ revel in their strangeness, with free rein given to the monstrous Jekyll in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

‘Fire’ is the stormiest section. In the author’s words, ‘Fire, like blood, is hot, it brings light, and it is the sign of spirit and love, but a high kind of love.’ The selections included in it range from Rumi to Mary Shelley.

A flaming desire burns in Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, while a fierce hatred between creator and his created drives the storyline of Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The selections than temper down considerably with a hymn from the Dead Sea Scrolls and excerpt from the Bhagavad Gita speaking of the way a man can become a god. According to the author, ‘divine fire can be like a hidden reality, and it is up to us to conquer and reveal it’.

The book ends as it begins by returning to the theme of connectedness with Rumi’s words of wisdom. Coelho has arranged this collection as a gift and a token of something much larger.

Whether it is inspirations for his own life or for his writing, there is great depth in the selections he has chosen to include and in the manner in which he has presented them to readers.

Inspirations
(anthology)
By Paulo Coelho
Penguin Classics, UK
ISBN 978-0-141-19400-4
240pp.

Originally published in Dawn

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By T. U. Dawood

This October, OPI has come up with the prettiest candyfloss pink as their 2010 “Pink of Hearts” nail laquer. This 2010 edition of Pink of Hearts follows in the tradition of OPI’s same name 2007, 2008 and 2009 Nail Lacquers in raising awareness of breast cancer during the month of October (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month).

Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, OPI Executive VP & Artistic Director relates,  “OPI is proud to join with Rethink for the fourth consecutive year, with Pink of Hearts 2010 Edition. It is OPI’s way to support the effort to end this disease, to honour those affected by it, and to give all women the power to help make a difference.”

Pink of Hearts contains no DBP, Toluene, or Formaldehyde, and features the exclusive OPI ProWide™ Brush for the ultimate in smooth, streak-free application.

I absolutely love the special pink-ribbon cap wrap that echoes the support of breast cancer awareness and find the shimmery pink shade both feminine and soft, yet subtle and sexy.  It’s a flattering shade for most women and is the kind of colour you can wear over and over again.

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