I’m in Vegas now for work…my first time in the city. And let me tell you that I have seen more short shorts, fake boobs and spinning lights than I need ever see in a lifetime. What a spectacle!

And if you think I’m posting this at 8am EST, you’s crazy. It is now Monday night/morning, 1am in Vegas (early by Vegas standards) and 4am in New York (very late by old fogie me standards). I’m auto-posting!!

I swear, these late nights are making me nervous - I’m just waiting for a big eruption of pimples. I’ve been using my Boots No7 Beauty Serum religiously, in the hopes that it will help my skin cope. (And also, I promised I’d test it out for you guys.) Plus, I’ve been using Sothys Immuniscience Cream, which is heavier than my normal moisturizer - in the hopes that it has been countering any dehydration due to traveling, working and drinking.

Any tips to help you keep your usual glow while on the road would be much appreciated!!

Psst. Just a reminder. For those of you who are planning on heading over to CVS/pharmacy tomorrow to pick up your very own bottle of Boots No7 Renew and Restore Beauty Serum, plan to get there early.

The sale starts at 8am, and the first 50 in line will receive a $50 Boots gift bag full of products!!

The address is 630 Lexington Avenue (at 53rd Street) in New York City only. Good luck! Let me know if you snag a bottle!  I’m currently testing the product out on my face…!  Wish me luck!

Er…make that running.

Word from Boots’ PR firm is that Boots No7 “miracle serum” (otherwise known officially as Restore and Renew serum), will be landing in CVS/pharmacy at 630 Lexington Avenue (at 53rd Street) in NYC on Wednesday, July 18, and will be available starting 8am. Each tube will retail for $21.99, with a limit of two tubes per customer. (Bottles are reportedly being sold on eBay for over $100!!)

How did this whole hullabaloo start, you ask? With a little BBC documentary called “Horizon” that aired in the UK. The program examined the science behind cosmetics, particularly those that claim to prevent and repair the signs of aging. A team of scientists at Manchester University, which had been studying Tretinoin for years, were dead set on their belief that no over-the-counter anti-aging creams could match the effectiveness of Tretinoin (the stuff in Retin-A).

That is, until they studied an off-the-shelf product from Boots - the Boots No7 Restore and Renew Serum. Of course, mass pandemonium broke out and consumers wiped the shelves clean of the product. Now it’s everything Boots can do to keep the product in stock.

Ah, the power of PR.

I’ve not been privileged to try the product. But I’d be interested to hear if any of you have. What are your thoughts?

Let’s take a minute now and talk about eye creams. I’ve got a doctor father-in-law who says that you’re just as well off using regular moisturizer around your eyes as you would using a special cream. I’m not at a point in my life, at least where wrinkles are concerned, where I can refute him or not. But I look at eye creams as I do environmental vigilance. If I do my part and recycle my plastic bottles and magazines, eventually something good’s gotta happen, right? So with eye creams, it’s better something than nothing, right?

So I started using Avon Anew’s Alternative Intensive Eye Cream a couple weeks ago. It’s formulated to lessen darkness around the eyes, reduce puffiness, smooth fine lines and wrinkles, and treat the factors that can intensify the appearance of dark circles.

How does this happen, you might ask? Good question. One ingredient is TDPA, a patented, pharmaceutical-inspired ingredient that has been shown to inhibit tyrosine (an enzyme that triggers pigmentation) activity. In addition, you’ve got a host of botanical extracts including azadirachta indica (try saying that ten times fast), soybean root, yeast, fennel, green tea and rosemary.

The cream is light and sinks right into my skin. I don’t suffer from dark circles or wrinkles yet, so I can’t report on whether it works or not. But I do plan on continuing use of the product so that it’s a long time before I ever get to that point. In the least, the cream has helped hydrate the area around my eyes. And hydration is always welcome in my home.

A 0.5 fl oz jar retails for $25.

So tell me, what are your opinions on eye cream? Worth it, or waste of time?

I came into this one with high hopes, but alas, it ended up being a huge letdown.

I’ve been a Cetaphil loyalist for the past ten years. Besides their beloved Gentle Skin Cleanser, most of their other products have let me down. I have tried the Daily Facial Moisturizer, the Daily Facial Cleanser for Normal to Oily Skin and now this Moisturizing Cream. Each time, my skin reacted horribly. This time, it got all red and puffy. Does anyone else have this problem, or am I just a freak? Wait, don’t answer that.

Just so I’m not slandering the name of Cetaphil, I will say that the Moisturizing Lotion worked very well on my body. (I have had a bottle of it in my gym bag for the past three years. Ok, that sounds really unsanitary, but that should testify to my devotion to the product. Or else that just testifies to my laziness in leaving it in my bag for so many years. But anyway.) I have a hunch that the Moisturizing Cream will do the same. But for my face? Oh no. No no no no no.

For years, I thought I had oily skin because of my T-zone, and because I suffered from acne. But recently, I’ve been noticing that my T-zone has calmed down and that my cheeks are actually quite dry.

So what does this mean? I have dry skin, I guess. This revelation - call me crazy - has been pretty life changing. I mean, imagine, you’ve been going through life buying blotting papers and browsing “oil-free” and “weightless” products. Now you’re looking for the magic words “extra moisturizing” and “super emollient.” It’s enough to give a woman an identity crisis.

Well anyway, I’ve been experimenting with a couple of rich creams to layer under my good ol’ Purpose moisturizer. (At this juncture in my life, there’s no such thing as too much moisture, and plus my Purpose carries a great sunscreen in it.)

Back when Andy and I were in Boston for our one year anniversary weekend, the saleslady at Fresh gave me a small sample of the Creme Ancienne. If you clicked on the link, I can tell you that your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. A 3.5oz jar costs $250.

This cream is made by hand in a monastery which is neat, but the way they hold that factoid up next to the product makes you think that it’s supposed to do something for your skin. Which, how can it? Unless the nuns say a special blessing for good skin over the cream as they’re mixing…

I will say that this cream, nuns or no nuns, is absolutely splendid. It felt like I was rubbing Crisco on my face, but it amazingly didn’t leave my skin at all greasy. And the moisturizing power was intense. If you got the moola, definitely worth the investment.

The second product I’ve been trying is the California Baby Calming Botanical Moisturizing Cream. This cream is another great moisturizer for dry skin, but the texture is lighter than the Creme Ancienne. It’s appropriate for both face and body (I love the multi-purpose factor of this product). Plus, the price tag is unbeatable - $8.89 for a 2oz jar.

If you click on both of the links, you’ll notice lots of glowing testimonials in favor of each product on Drugstore.com - which is why I love shopping this site. It never hurts to have a a second (or third or fourth) opinion.

Ah winter. Plenty of things to love about the season: holiday parties, cute snow bunny outfits and Christmas cookies. And plenty of reasons to dread it, including Santa sweaters and, you guessed it, dry skin.

Thankfully, I don’t suffer from terribly dry skin, but I have my moments in the dead of winter. And I know for some people, it’s the bane of their existence.

Which is why I put together my tips for beating dry skin. So get your notepads out!

1. Drink lots of fluids. This is a good piece of advice all year round, but especially in the drier months to keep your skin hydrated.

2. Limit the length of your shower, and use warm - not hot - water. I know, I know. That sounds absolutely wretched, doesn’t it? No hot showers? Yes, no hot showers because they can dehydrate your skin. So keep it short and snappy.

3. Add a little oil to your bath. See? I’m not trying to kill you. A short bath is good, but add some oils - try a tablespoon of bath oil (my pick: elizabethW) after you’ve soaked for about five minutes. Soaking first plumps up your skin. Adding the oil second seals in the absorbed moisture.

4. Apply moisturizer to damp skin. Again, it’s the same idea as above where you want to allow your moisturizer or lotion to trap a little water in your skin. So pat your skin almost dry. Then apply moisturizer while your skin is still slightly damp.

5. Use humidifiers. Not only do humidifiers keep your skin from drying out, they’re also great for preventing illness in the winter as they keep the mucous membranes moist. But be sure to clean your humidifier often and change the filter, though, otherwise bacteria and fungi will start growing in your tank.

That’s it! Not too hard or complicated, but these tips should put you on the road to very pretty and very hydrated skin.

And for additional tips, and to supplement your reading, head over to Faking Good Breeding. She wrote a great post not too long ago on the same topic!

I found this interesting book while surfing around on iVillage: Passport to Beauty by Shalini Vadhera. Shalini, who also writes for iVillage, shares in an article on the site specifically about the beauty secrets of European women.

I’m Asian myself, and as such, I have my own arsenal of beauty tips and tricks (many of them, I admit, a bit dubious, except that I grew up with them, so they’re pretty much as good as gospel to me).

But there is something about European women which I find fascinating. They seem to do beauty so effortlessly, almost as an afterthought, and yet it comes off as really hip because “they didn’t mean to.” You know what I mean?

Anyway, for some reason, reading this article reminded me of the book, Naomi, which I read in a Japanese Lit class in college. (I think this was the same book.) There’s this one part that I’ll never forget. The main character, a Japanese man, is completely obsessed with the West. He signs up for these dancing lessons from a Russian lady who has this terrible B.O., and yet he’s completely intoxicated with her. As they’re dancing, he would lean in and secretly smell her B.O.

Okay, totally gross, I know!! But for some reason, I thought of the book, okay?

So here are some of the tips from the article that I found especially interesting:

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So most of you know that I’ve been conducting an unintentionally long-running Fresh Series where I test a number of products by Fresh.

My first test product was the Sugar Face Polish, which I’ve been using on-and-off due to some breakouts.

After having resumed use of the product again this past weekend, I’ve concluded that I cannot use it. My skin started looking red and irritated the day after I used the scrub. The following day, a couple pimples had erupted to the surface. Ugh.

This is extremely unfortunate as I do think the product is a great exfoliator (not too rough) and also wonderfully hydrating. I did like it the first time I tried it. Until my skin started rebelling.

I would say that if you have normal, non-wacked-out skin (unlike mine), then you should go for this product. Especially since it seems to have a devoted following. But my skin isn’t just sensitive, it’s ultra sensitive. (God bless companies like Jurlique for understanding that there are two different breeds.) Unfortunately, this product just wasn’t something I could use.

Have you guys heard of Borba yet? I remember the first time I saw it, I was in Sephora in Boston, and there was a refrigerator off to the corner filled with bottled drinks. HUH?

Borba’s philosophy is that beauty starts from within, so they’ve developed drinks, drink powders and candies that include vitamins, minerals and botanical ingredients to get your skin looking its best. The line expanded to include topical products (i.e. moisturizers, cleansers, etc.)…basically your more conventional beauty products.

I’m not sure how I feel about Borba yet. Being Asian, my family’s always believed in the philosophy of “you are what you eat.” You know, good and bad “qi” and all that. And I’ll have to say that I do buy into the belief. But I may have to draw the line when “buying” into something means shelling out $150 for a one month supply of the stuff.

So I was given a couple samples by the Borba PR people to test out for the blog. They sent me one bottle of the Borba Skin Balance Water, which tasted okay. It wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, but it also didn’t make me barf or anything.

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