Friday, July 27, 2018

Popsicle Lips for Summer, Clarins Water Lip Stains, Without the Sugar or the Mess, For 300 Kisses.

By Laura Medina

Even yearn for those stained, vibrant colored lips that you get when you're sucking on a traditional, artificial colored and flavored kids' popsicles.

If dealing with goopy, sticky lip gloss and dripping lipstick waxes are getting to you during an heat wave and you want to do without those kid popsicles, Clarins Water Lip Stains can give you those intense colors, fat-free, wax-free, sugar-free, and oil-free (save those for Winter).

Violet Water Lip Stain.

Pink Water Lip Stain.


Clarins Water Lip Stain combines an ultra-light and playful “water-like” texture with a breakthrough formula providing both skincare benefits and incredibly long-lasting color pay-off. The four highly pigmented ultra-matte shades, infused with pure plant extracts, nourish, soothe and protect lips, leaving a comfortable veil of vibrant color. Long-wear and transfer-proof, lips are instantly “tattooed’’

Water Lip Stain gets all the benefits of a lip treatment, leaving lips soft, comfortable and hydrated. 77% of it is water based.

Organic Aloe Vera helps hydrate & soothe. Organic Raspberry Water softens. Clarins Anti-Pollution Complex protects lips from indoor and outdoor pollution… the first time included in a Clarins lip product.

Clarins Water Lip Stain provides a fresh and barely-there feel. Lips are drenched in color, yet stay comfortable all day.

The applicator is a soft, sensorial brush which holds just the right amount of color and perfectly hugs lips for precise results. Apply to the center of your lips, trace the lip line, and play with the color intensity for a customized pout – 1 layer for just a touch of color or 3 layers for a bold lip look.

Wear alone or under Joli Rouge to maximize  color intensity. -  Combine it with Instant Light Lip Comfort Oil for an ultra-glossy finish.

Or do what this scribe does, just depend on the aloe vera, raspberry water and Clarins Anti-Pollution Complex in four intense tints that doesn't dry out, yet still softens the lips.

Simply Summer Lips.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Summer Hair Issue 2018: SERO-Vital, eSalon then Bumble + Bumble.

By Laura Medina

Dr. Amy Heaton , PhD, Director of Scientific Affairs for SanMedica and Director of Scientific Affairs for SeroVital Hair Regeneres, formulated the second and third generation formula of anti-aging skincare, StriVectin.

Now, she applies years of anti-aging research, from skin, to aging hair loss, due to declining hormones.

With her colleagues, she came up with SeroVital Hair Regeneres, anti-aging hair rejuvenation wellness kit.

For these Millennial and Gen-X scientists, it's more the matter of keeping, retaining, and improving what they have now, rather than turning the clock back.

For them, it's all about studying the hair follicle and the DNA for stronger hair.

The results of a 150-day consumer experience test with SeroVital Hair Regeneres of 30 men and women has been released with before and after photos and testimonials about their experience; the two-part hair-renewal system is scheduled to launch to the public on July 9, 2018.   One of the participants who had been suffering from age-related hair thinning grew an entire patch of hair on her balding temple area (Subject 1 below). Hair Regeneres is the only formula in North America licensed to include Chromaviv™, an exclusive compound rich in melanin and keratin that fortifies hair and restores its natural color, strength, and luster. This brand new, science-based hair-renewal system will be available to the public for $99.00 for a 30-day supply (or $79.20 a month as part of an autoship program) at www.SVHairRegeneres.com and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

For the consumer test, a group of 30 participants who complained of thinning, aging, and graying hair used the Hair Regeneres two-step system for 150 days. Photos were taken at day 1 and then again at 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 days to show hair improvements. None of the photos were edited or retouched in any way. The before and after photos of many participants show regrowth of hair on thinning areas‡, and reduced hair graying. Many in the group saw regrowth of their natural, vibrant hair color.

In a separate 90-day, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial on one of the key ingredients in the Hair Renewal Softgels, subjects saw significant improvements in age-related hair loss, hair tensile strength, hair appearance, reduced hair fall, increased growth of existing hair, and reduced breakage. In fact, 95.8% of subjects saw an overall improvement in the appearance of their hair. Subjects also experienced less shedding, hair fall, and breakage, as well as improved growth of existing hair. 

In a study on the exclusive Chromaviv compound, 87% of subjects noticed improved hair volume and agreed their hair was less gray. In addition, 94% of subjects surveyed rated the efficacy of this compound as “good” to “excellent.”
 

“We are absolutely thrilled with the results the participants in our before and after group are seeing, and with the research that backs the key ingredients in both formulas in our two-part system,” said Dr. Amy Heaton, Ph.D., Director of Scientific Affairs for SeroVital. 

Specific cases in the consumer experience test include:


SUBJECT 1: “Over the past few years, gobs and gobs of my hair fell out every day. My temples were receding to the point of my friends saying, ‘Your hair is really thinning.’ I was shocked to see that in only 30 days, an entire bald patch filled in and continues to grow. I’m blown away.” — Alyson D., age 54, day 1 and day 30 

Once you build the base of stronger and thicker hair, you can further enhance hair color with personalized, subtle hair color from eSalon, https://www.esalon.com/


If you want to subtly switch up and lighten or switch down and make it richer and deeper, if you're lucky to live in the city of the best of skincare, makeup, and hair care, pay a luxurious but knowledgeable visit to eSalon's two locations here in Los Angeles...


At their headquarters/factory/salon in El Segundo, directly below LAX, the hairstylist staff go over your wants and desire over a questions and answer while checking out your hair texture and health.

From there, they download your hair color preference into the on-site hair dye lab, dispensing your own personalized hair dye with your hair dye recipe, store on a barcode with your own name.


eSalon is Coded in color.

Their engineers and coders turned color into a language. Shade variations and pigments become characters and symbols that are sent to our on-demand color dispenser. Because to mass-make custom color, we had to make a custom machine. It individually fills each bottle with exact drops of pigments and has created over 165,000 unique combinations so far. See how our technology works »
Hair color is part art and part science. Their technology gives us them the ability to bring the two together in a way never seen before. Some call it the future of hair color, we call it Polly Chrome.

Reimagining color.

So this technology we speak of—how do they do it? They wish we could say it’s simple, but it actually took years of research, expert development, and fine-tuning. Like most hair color companies, they start with the basics, aka the color wheel. It informs how they use “harmonious color schemes,” “pure color,” and things like shade, tone, and tint to lay down the groundwork for their color formula. But they're not the kind of company that settles for “what’s always worked.” They wanted to make it even better, so they took a step into the future by customizing each hair color bottle we create. And that’s where the science and technology comes in.
To pull this off, they built two totally unique components that together disrupt the whole hair color industry. First, they created dual patented software that enables us to create unique color formula IDs. Then something else comes into play. The star of the show. The tour de force. Our do-it-all, label-making, color-dispensing, bottle-capping, watch-out-world machine—Polly Chrome. 
Their hairstylists are color editors...
You know the drill: you tell them about your hair history and color goal, then they run with it to craft your custom shade. They do it by using or Color Editor, which is able to tweak your color with a level of customization unseen in the industry. Think of it this way, your colorist is the artist and the Color Editor is their paint brush. But instead of hand-mixing dye and eyeballing tones, their colorists are trained to create color virtually. How?  Their engineers and coders turned color into a language. Shade variations and pigments become characters and symbols that makeup your color formula ID. 
In person at their salon locations, of course, it's easy for the stylists to personally analyze your hair for the right formula.
But, don't you know that eSalon first came out as a online and phone at-home hair dye company?
Take a photo, email it to customer care then...
Using the Color Editor, your colorist references your photo and the info in your Color Profile to determine your base color. Then, they can formulate less that ¼ shade difference in things like “tone,”“warmth,” or “vibrancy,” all while factoring in your hair history and grays. It’s how they meet your exact specifications, to make your color completely unique to you.

Each major hair color, tone, and shade are stored in their own individual vat while the enhancers of blue and yellow are stored in smaller vats, not different from crafting beer brews and wine.
Polly Chrome vats and bar code dispenser.
So how does your custom color go from numbers to, well, hair color? Here’s where it gets really good. They built a mixing machine named Polly Chrome, which means “many colors.” Polly speaks their language. It does communicate with their Color Editor by taking your formula ID and putting it into action. Here’s how it works: First, your personal colorist creates your formula ID using our Color Editor then hits “send.” It passes over to Polly, who prints that formula ID, your name, and the date on a label. That label gets placed onto an empty color bottle and travels down a conveyer belt to the dispenser. A little scanner reads your label and triggers the precise amount of varied pigments and toner to be dispensed into your bottle, down to a single drop. In fact, Polly is capable of dispensing over 2.2 octooctogintillion pigment variations (yup, that's a real number), all drawing from vats of color that have been custom formulated by our experts right here, on site. Each pigment dispensed is actually measured by weight (instead of volume like most places) on a high-grade medical scale (because we’re fancy). Then, your bottle is capped, packaged, and sent to its home—or apartment, or office, or wherever your hair desires.



A different kind of machine.



Polly may move each bottle effortlessly and with ease, but it’s actually a very complex machine. To create it, we had to push the boundaries of manufacturing. Most industrial machines are made to produce just a few colors in high volumes. That’s why most color companies offer a range of 15-30 premade, premixed shades. But Polly is faced with the challenge of making each bottle from scratch, every single time, almost like a printer. Prior to Polly, they couldn’t find machinery that could pull something that bold off, so they designed the machine ourselves from the bottom up. From the labeler, to the bottle capper, to the pipes that distribute exact amounts of color, they mean it when we say there’s nothing else like Polly Chrome.

eSalon brings the salon dye job to your own home or bathroom.
Don't worry about being confused, your own kit comes with an illustrated instruction list, showing you how to section your hair and how to apply. Your kit comes with your own sticker to stick your instruction list onto your mirror.
Based on your personalized preference, it even lists how long you allow the dye to settle in.
Most important step, is after sectioning off your hair, you need to smear stain guard lotion all along your hair line to stop the dye from bleeding into your eyes.


You pour then mix your own dye formula into the developer squeeze bottle than squirt along the roots and strands.

After your own customized minutes for dye to settle in, wash it out with their Classic Shampoo and Conditioner...
If you're lucky enough to get your hair dye at their headquarters' salon, you can get your hair washed in their massage chairs.
Now that you grew your hair back, stronger and thicker than ever. It's more vibrant than before.  Time for that new haircut.  With Bumble + Bumble's Thickening Spray and Surf Spray, it's easy sailing for your hair for the next six months.


Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Refinery29's & Facebook Watch's "Strangers" Season 2, The LA to NY Season.

By Laura Medina

In the first season of the Facebook Watch/Refinery29 online TV series, "Strangers," the main protagonist, Isobel was renting a spare bedroom in her rental Echo Park home to wandering travelers and entertainment industry wanna-be visitors, hence the name "Strangers."

Season One, basically, made fun of LA pretentiousness and how easy and how fluffy Angelenos have it, in regarding space and housing.  It's the entertainment aspirations and the inflated egos of instant social media celebrities that provide the negativity.

With the start of Season Two, when Isobel and a friend crash land in New York, the reality crashes hard on their soft LA heads.  Their situation is now flipped.  Instead of hosting wanderers, they're now hostages to New York's real estate and renting spare bedrooms.

Housing or the lack of housing, through-out Season Two, Isobel spends the entire season spare bedroom hopping from one borough to the next.  She went from being a LA host to NY bed and board hostage, to each family's crisis or an host's quirkiness, depending how much she can bear.  A good way to know a city.


This Season Two might as well be called, "A Stranger in a Strange Land," as native Angeleno navigates New York's various ethnic society's and quirks.  The best way to explore the boroughs' quirkiness.

Being a fish out of water helps reveal the true self and real relationships or the exposing the real state of friendship, especially when it comes to pricey rents and real estate or the lack of them and making do, being a roommate in a bedroom.

"Strangers" is a late Millennial/Gen-Zer striking out on their own and discovering relationship mine fields.

Isobel knew that a lesbian/bi/pan-sexual relationship is hard to find.  So, she went ahead with fulfilling a married women's lesbian angle, who's married to a straight man.

If Los Angeles Season One was an incubator, then Season Two is a real beginning of Isobel finding herself.

In Season Two of Strangers, Isobel switches from host to renter when she moves across the country with her best friend, Cam. On the cusp of 30 and now living in NYC, it's Isobel's year to explore the many different paths to adulthood, starting with a new neighborhood each episode. As a woman living fully in the bi-sphere - bisexual, biracial, and now bi-coastal - Isobel is saying yes to life and asking the most difficult question: where do you belong when you’re in between everything?
 
We’ll witness Isobel fall madly in love with a woman in an open marriage, find comfort in a flirtatious friendship with her male co-worker, ride the ups and downs of new and old friendships, all the while pursuing her dream of being a writer in this city where dreams either come true or come crashing down.

Season Two is also the typical NY versus LA cultural/professional snobbery.  In New York, Isobel experience cultural snobbery from a New York-Asian American publishing executive who puts down LA bloggers, saying they're not real writers.  Soon, Isobel landed her first writing job to prove she can write...twenty pages first thing in the morning.

Strangers Season 2 is about second chances and Isobel will soon learn you are never too old to try something new.


**NEW** Episode 206 - "Smash The Plate-triarchy" (debuts 7/29)
Description: Valentine’s Day and Lunar New Year converge when Isobel stays with a newly single mom (Georgie) in Tribeca. With Mari away, things heat up between Isobel and Milo and Isobel gets a surprise visit from her family as well as some motherly advice she wasn't asking for.


Episode 205 - “Big Little Chill” (debuted 7/22)
Description: Isobel is thrilled to be invited to a special weekend upstate with Mari's friends. But she quickly learns that leaving the city doesn't mean avoiding Mari's past and present, and starts to wonder if their relationship even has a future.


Episode 204: The Disappearance of Katia Romaine (debuted 7/15)
Description: Homeless yet again, Isobel lands in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn with a new host who creates Escape Rooms for a living. But when a double date goes horribly wrong, there’s no escaping the reality that Isobel and Cam’s friendship might be over and that Isobel needs more from Mari.

Episode 203 – Maskulinity (debuted 7/8)
Description: Isobel lands her first writing job, navigates her new relationship with Mari, and oversteps when she stays with a Hindu family trying to reconcile with their son’s homosexuality in Richmond Hill, Queens.

Episode 202: Open Mari(age) (debuted 7/1)
Description: Isobel finds herself homeless in NYC when reality comes crashing through the floorboards. With the help of her new work friend, Iso goes to stay with a boxer in Bed Stuy. She rolls with the punches when she meets a gorgeous woman who might not be as available as she would have hoped.

Episode 201: “The Big (Gr)apple” (debuted 6/24)

Description: Isobel and Cam have made the big move to New York City together, but quickly find their experiences couldn't be more different. When their apartment search gets tricky, Isobel has to get creative.

Whether it be Season One's career pretentiousness and pompousness or Season Two's harsh real estate reality, you just have to pick your cultural poison. 

A Girls' Night In with Stacy's Cheese Petites and "The Bachelor's" Becca Tilley & "The Bachelorette's" JoJo Fletcher.

By Laura Medina



It was a Girls' Night In with the stars from "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," Becca Tilley and JoJo Fletcher.

Thrown by Stacy's Cheese Petites, https://www.stacyssnacks.com/cheesepetites and OK! Magazine, https://okmagazine.com/sweep/meet-becca/,..




Stacy's Cheese Petites threw and showed how a Girls' Night In snack buffet is presented, healthy, simple fruit and vegetable crudites, with chilled buckets of rose and white wine.


Becca and JoJo did a Q & A on their lives off the screen and after "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette."  JoJo flips houses and doesn't want to do it onscreen because she really does the work, being dirty and sweaty yet the women audience demand she does a flipping renovation show on HGTV.

Both ladies say being on that courting show help them better define what they want in a spouse, by dating a variety of men, it help them whittle down traits they want in an husband.

They add behind the scenes tidbits.  In the beginning, the producers cram 19 girls in a mansion without air conditioning because the humming is too loud for the microphones.  One of the bathroom mirrors had grids, so the girls had to fix their hair and makeup, using their makeup compacts out on the balcony, using natural sunlight.  When it was down to four girls, then the producers put them in hotel rooms.  It was Survivors in gowns and high heels.

The meat and potato of the night was "Ok or Not Ok," a game where Becca and JoJo and the audience vote "Ok" or "Not Ok" on the most awkward moments on "The Bachelor."

Whatever moment is voted "Not Ok," was about not being cool on dating faux pas, like getting a girl's name wrong or dating or proposing to two women at once.

The only moment that got the "Ok," was when two male "The Bachelorette" contestants fell into a "bromance,"and quit chasing after "The Bachelorette."   Everyone is fine with love, in all its forms.

Now, you can throw you're own "Ok or Not Ok" watching party.


Friday, July 20, 2018

Flower Cosmetic's Drew Barrymore, Snoop Dogg on Haircare & Jessic Simpson Makeup Demo at BeautyCon LA 2018.

By Laura Medina

Drew Barrymore always yearn to be a real person among real people.  Can't blame her, with her chaotic Hollywood childhood and thespian family history.

She's also aware that she got a free fashion and makeup education from her former father-in-law, former Chanel CEO Arie Kopelman.

Basically, her Flower Beauty is her way to gaining revenue, long after her acting career is over and connecting with her fan base at an affordable price point in attainable places, like Wal-Mart.

She returned the favor back to her legions of fans at the recent BeautyCon LA.  

This was also the same time she launched her fragrances line and a new mascara for her Flower Beauty.  Her appearance visit was a unexpected surprise for BeautyCon LA.


Fans cheered when surprise guest, Snoop Dogg talked about being all-natural with his dreads, no weaves, no extension but just a lot of conditioning and pampering then wrapping them all up.  Of course, he has to rap for crowds of fans.


Blonde bombshell mom, Jessica Simpson did a makeup demo when she released a beauty secret, six layers of false lashes then top them off with black mascara.

Jessica used her makeup demonstration to promote her newest beauty endeavor, 
Beauty Fiend, https://beautyfiend.com/?utm_source=beautycon&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=email1, her new line of makeup brushes.

BeautyCon LA is now the bomb.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Premiering on Amazon Prime Video this Fall, Marisa Romanov, "Fringe meets Supernatural with twists of David Lynch."

By Laura Medina

The creator/writer/director of "Marisa Romanov," Miranda Spigener-Sapon described the journey of bringing her sci-fi/noir thriller to screen as fine art.  Chiseling a sculpture actually.

She said that with each step, with each story and plot and character development, is like using a chisel to better refine the story.


What started out as a way to use up leftover 16mm film, is now on its way as Amazon Prime series, aligned with Sony Television France and Noirtainment.

That leftover film became a festival prize-winning indie nine minute short that made a Paramount Studio executive to tell Miranda, stick with this movie then further develop it.  This was the seed to "Marisa Romanov."

Marisa Romanov was inspired from a 9-minute short film that Miranda wrote and directed that went on to be part of the Official Selection of the International Venice Film Festival on September 2001, earning Audience Choice.  The film was also screened in an Alternate Selection screening during the 2001 Berlin Film Festival, earning accolades as the Audience Pick. Additionally, a book deal on the prequel has been secured by Winterwolf Press and the feature film rights have been optioned by Vaussier at SPT France. The novel will be written by Miranda Spigener-Sapon along with Ross John Gosla.  The series will be Executive Produced by Jean-Michel Vaussier of SPT France, first time Showrunner/Creator Miranda Spigener-Sapon along with Executive Producers Pete Freeland, Nick DeLaRosa and Producer Soraya Tascon from Noirtainment.  
Elias Toufexis 
Elias Toufexis, one of the lead actors on the sci-fi/noir thriller series, talked about how lucky he is to in the series,..
"I moved to Los Angeles after working on a lot of American shows that shot in Canada.  I usually died on them so I was literally running out of work."
"When show runner, Miranda, wrote me about working on Marisa Romanov, I initially dismissed it. I get a lot of offers for parts that either don't usually pan out, or are badly written and produced that I tend to pass."
"This time, the script is great and Miranda is a great producer and show runner.  I am so excited to begin."
Joining Elias are Pete Freeland, fellow co-star and one of the executive producer on "Marisa Romanov."  He's a Renaissance Man, astronaut and character actor and producer.  The stars are the limits for this gent.
Jean-Michel Vaussier, a development executive with Sony Television France and an Executive Producer/Development Consultant at France 2 Television Network, with Miranda Spigener-Sapon, is helping in helming this soon-to-be international television series, a sci-fi/spy thriller that the whole world can get thrill out of.