1. Less is more Treat your skin like an intractable teenager; the best skincare routine strikes a delicate balance between providing for its needs and giving it the freedom to do its own thing. The skin has three needs: cleansing, exfoliating, hydration, and protection. Otherwise, let it breathe, let it heal, let it produce oil (oil is good for your skin).


2. Gently does it It's called skincare for a reason. Treat your skin lovingly, don't abuse it. Use cool water to cleanse, a clean towel and pat (don't rub) dry, use eye makeup remover when necessary (instead of rubbing with cleanser), avoid harsh ingredients, apply products lightly (again, no rubbing).


3. Cleanse should be thorough at removing makeup and grime, without stripping, and when rinsed, leave no film on the skin. If you wear tough eye makeup, I would recommend investing in a separate eye makeup remover like Lancôme Bi-Facil to facilitate the process, and avoid rubbing unnecessarily at delicate eye skin. Outstanding products, from the most emollient balm to a luxurious Japanese foam: LUSH Ultrabland (very delicate skin), Shu Uemura Cleansing Oil (balancing and effective), Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser (a perennial favorite), Johnson's Head-to-Toe Baby Wash (the best foaming gel, without any harshness), and Shiseido Benefiance Creamy Cleansing Foam (the ultimate lather). I do not like medicated or exfoliating cleansers because of the dangers they pose to the eyes.


4. Exfoliate Exfoliators are an amorphous category; they can take the form of a cleanser (physical scrubs), treatments and moisturizers (chemicals like BHAs or AHAs or vitamin C), sponges and mitts (like a viscose cloth or muslin squares) or even masks (often a combination of physical and chemical). They can be very gentle, like Dr. Hauschka Cleansing Cream (almond meal pressed into the skin with water) or Remede Sweep (microfine marble powder), or very powerful, like Bliss Labs Pore Refining Facial Scrub and La Prairie Retexturizing Booster. Due to the delicacy of my skin, I have yet to find an exfoliant that, in short, does not do horrible things to my skin, but I'm hoping Primavera Refining Exfoliating Cleanser, combined with an electric tooth brush, might be an exception.


5. Hydrate There are so many moisturizers out there! But here are some I like. Kiehl's Blue Herbal Moisturizer has a very light, noncomedogenic, medicated gel-lotion perfect for acne-prone skin. For oily but not acne prone skin, Decléor Ylang Ylang Aromaessence, though it's an oil, really normalizes oily skin and controls excess sebum. I think Better Botanicals Dandelion Moisturizer is the ideal weight for combination or normal skin. For normal to dry skin, Kiehl's Ultra Facial is a tried and true classic. For very dry skin, La Prairie Time Release Intensive Moisturizer can't be beat. Myself, I am interested in Embryolisse Lait-Cr`me Concentré, but have yet to try it. You may need more than one moisturizer, depending on how temperamental your skin is.


6. Protect A good sunscreen, like Olay Complete, is a necessity. The only true anti-ager. To be frank, I haven't found a sunscreen that doesn't smell bad or have a nasty texture, so I never wear any. Very bad, I know.


7. Treat If maintenance is not enough, and your skin still misbehaves, secondary skincare may be necessary. For generally lackluster skin, I have had great success with Jurlique Herbal Recovery Gel (techinically a treatment, but I've been using it as a summerweight moisturizer); it's like a vitamin for the skin. Those who need something stronger may prefer La Prairie Retexturizing Booster or Awake Vital Express (AHAs/BHAs and vitamin C, respectively), which will also double as anti-acne agents. For senstivity or dryness, Burt's Bees Repair Serum is really remarkable, and so simple. My mother loves this as well.

Labels: awake, beauty notes, better botanicals, bliss, burt's bees, cetaphil, decleor, dr. hauschka, johnson's, jurlique, kiehl's, la prairie, LUSH, minimalism, olay, remede, shiseido, shu uemura, skin

Good Home Co. Pure Grass Laundry Detergent $25: Turn a weekly chore into an everyday luxury. Even during the drear months of a New England winter, the scent of Pure Grass—of cut grass and sunlight and balmy breezes—wafting from your fresh linens will bring back summer. Your laundry will smell so fresh that you'll look forward to doing your laundry just to sink your nose into the wonderful scent. You won't be able to stop sniffing. A word to the wise: buy the big 64-oz bottles, they are only $5 more expensive, but almost twice as much product! (Even if the small bottles are more stylish.)

Kevyn Aucoin Liquifuschia The Moist Creamy Glow $24: Toasty tan blushes are all very well, but my pick for universal color is a bright, garish fuschia. Don't be alarmed by the intensity of the color: applied sheerly, the color picks up the creaminess of the skin, perks up sallow, tired skin, and gives you a glow that looks natural, not overdone. Looks especially good on yellow skintones. Like all other Kevyn Aucoin products, The Moist Creamy Glow is a superb product, with a waxy texture that disappears into the skin for a glow-from-within effect. A good blush makes you look instantly better. I want them all now!

Sue Devitt Northern Lights Balanced Sheer Lipstick $20: I don't understand. I must have a dozen of these shades. They're essentially the same color, but I keep buying them! Every time I open my makeup drawer, there are dozens more! It's like they breed! This is a common complaint among makeup junkies everywhere: the same shade of lipstick multiplying in one's stash. Why do we buy the same shade over and over again? My answer: because, over time, and over many, many lipsticks, we figure out what looks good on us, and learn to detect the subtle distinctions within that particular color family, all automatically. You get to sample diversity while basking in the assurance that it looks good, no matter what. My particular vice goes the way of roses: red roses and pink roses, even the stainy blackcurrant stain of dried roses. Hence Northern Lights, part of the Fall 2006 color story by Sue Devitt, Viking Voyage, a warm, sheer salmon pink, matte but with gold and silver sparkles (all at once!). I had to have it.

Fresh Lotus Eye Gel $48: Looking haggard is de rigueur 'round campus (come visit during finals and you'll get it). When it comes to skin, no place shows this more visible than the eyes: shadows, wrinkles, puffiness. Enter Fresh Lotus Eye Gel, which is emollient enough for the delicate skin under eyes, but not so greasy that concealer slips and slides over it. Pop it in the fridge to make it refreshingly cool, and thank me in time.

NARS Push Eyeliner $25 and NARS Bengali Eye Shadow Single $21: While mascara is what most women deem "most essential" (with good reason), I've chosen eyeliner, instead. Why? It's got more versatility. With liquid eyeliner, you can make sex-kitten bedroom eyes, à la Marilyn Monroe. With smudgy kohl, you can give yourself a Cleopatra-eque smoky eyes. Bright colors are easy to wear in the form of eyeliner, so that even the most timid of gentil ladyes can venture forth with periwinkle or violet. But best of all is when eyeliner is natural, with a flat eyelining brush, like this fantastic one from NARS. It's subtle enhancement to one's eye color, lending definition to eyes, and lushifying lashes. Just blend the pigment-rich eyeshadow (here, I've chosen a looks-good-on-everyone dark brown with plummy tones) into the lash line, and you just look... instantly better, not made up.

Bvlgari BLV Notte pour Femme EDP $60: You just need to get to know BLV Notte better. When first you meet BLV Notte, it engages in olfactory theatrics: ginger, vodka, and dark chocolate. The chocolate note is rich, not sugary, and the ginger is spicy but crystalline (and I don't like ginger). But within ten to fifteen minutes, this aggression fades, into something like musky iris and velvety cocoa powder, and for most of its life, is nothing more than a glorious 'skin scent', rich and spare, cold and hot, sweet and musky, all at once. It's subtle, but sexy, like the way I would have dreamed Thierry Mugler's Angel to have smelled (except that Angel smells like cat piss on me). BLV Notte is incredibly seductive, I can see this being an incredible man-magnet, but it's cozy at the same time, so a snuggly sort of man, if you please.

Awake Vital Express $68: Tired skin is anything but radiant, clear, and healthy. The cure-all answer to dull, spotty (and aging) skin is vitamin C, which, when effective, forages free-radicals and reverses sun damage, as well lightening scars and spots, and working as a sort of anti-bacterial agent. The trouble is, of course, that vitamin C is highly unstable and loses its efficacy within a very short period of time. Awake Vital Express solves that problem, because it comes dry, so that all of its potency is retained until you apply it to your skin. I don't use this every day, but on occasion, just to effect a 'glow'.

L'Occitane Shea Butter $36: It may strike you as obscene, to buy a tin of shea butter at such prices, but if you've dry skin, it's a veritable miracle worker (it's my favorite lip balm!). There are a score of does-it-all balms out there, from Elizabeth Arden Eight-Hour Cream to Jing Jang Creme to Vaseline to Smith's Rosebud Salve, meant to target everything from elbows to heels to cuticles to lips to hair to knees—whatever is dry and sensitive—but I favor this silky stuff. It's simple and gentle, fragrance free, luxe, 100% pure, and it comes in a travel-friendly, stylish container. It's good for you, everywhere. Try the little tin ($8) for lip balm!

Kevyn Aucoin The Sensual Skin Enhancer Foundation $45: SSE, as this product is fondly called among addicts, is not really a foundation, though it certainly could be used as such (using a sponge for sheerest application, or mixed with moisturizer). It is so pigmented that it works better as concealer, and then, in the TINIEST amounts. And I do mean, TINY. A dollop the size of a grain of rice is sufficient for most. Dab it on with a point concealer brush, then blend by gently patting with your finger, and that's it! Though the jar is tiny, for $42, you'll get a lot of mileage from a product so concentrated. My perfect shade: SX 05.

Labels: awake, beauty notebook, bvlgari, fresh, good home co, kevyn aucoin, l'occitane, nars, sue devitt