I am in the middle of a superstorm as Fashion Week descends upon New York City.  Running around the city like a chicken with it's head cut off, long hours and mass amounts of coffee has caused my feet to swell to gargantuan purportions.  Based on my previous experiences with Conair beauty appliances, I immediately ran to Duane Reade and picked up this bad boy pictured on the left.  All for the low price of $19.99, I became the ultimate multi-tasker.  This weekend as I continue to put the finishing touches on Coutorture's Fashion Week agenda, I will be foot spaing as I work.  

 Afterall, multi-stasking makes the world go round, and my world doesn't rotate well without a good foundation.  I've seen a significant improvement, plus the bubbles make me feel like a princess.

You can purchase one of Conair's four foot spa models online.  

A recent MainStreet.com article reports on "The High Cost of Being Lauren Conrad". No offense to the author, Juliana Bunim, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that being a woman in the public eye costs money.  Heck, being a style conscious woman of any sort is costly.  The article points out her beauty, wardrobe, transportation, shelter, and endorsement deals, not to mention her salary for her role on The Hills.

Being someone who works in the big machine we know as fashion, I am privy to the access these types of celebrities can obtain.  Her cosmetics deal with mark should afford her any product the line offers, and her handbags and clothing should come from her eponymous lines (a fatal mistake Jennifer Lopez made with her Sweetface line).  A well placed phone call by an assistant/publicist should have clothing and jewelry pouring in for the reality star to photographed in.  Additionally MTV using her home as a set should be some sort of tax write-off, if she even paid for the home at all. Not to mention Conrad charges fees for her appearances at restaurants, nightclubs and the like.

In fact, I would wager that it costs more for me to maintain my look than it does for Conrad to maintain hers, on a sliding scale of course.  Offset for the major difference in our incomes and lifestyles, and I would wager that being Lauren Conrad isn't all that expensive.  If I'm walking around in free jeans, you know she has to be.

It happens to every good beauty product loving woman - you find your perfect shade and naturally, it becomes discontinued.  From drugstore to department store, every woman emits the same sound as she hears the news. The MAC devotee might be a bit more used to this situation, given the number of limited edition pieces the company produces but the sting remains the same. 

My mother is the kind of woman who is devoted to one line, and one line only. Her brand of choice happens to be Estee Lauder, and every GWP, PWP and special holiday collection safely makes it way into her home.  Fortunately for me, she often purchases duplicates and receives products she can't use, and they're lovingly cast off onto me.  One day last year, my mother slipped me a gold ridged tube that I paid little attention to until I swatched colors in an attempt to clean up my makeup arsenal.  Suddenly in front of me appeared the most perfect pink-blue-red, and from the moment I brushed the color onto my lips, my entire face lit up like a child's at Christmas time.  I had finally found the holy grail of lipsticks.

I often used the color recklessly until I realized that barely an nub remained.  I casually went on the Estee Lauder website to peruse the free gift options and check the price of the color.  Staring back at me was a blank space where my color was supposed to be - it wasn't listed.  In fact, the more I looked around, the less information I found.  Even ebay held little hope for me, as only one tube was expensively available.  Even my darling friend who works for Estee Lauder corporate could not locate so much as a tester for me.  Was all hope really lost?

Of course taking the tube to 3 Custom Colorists was an option, but did I really want to pay $55 for 2 tubes of lipstick? Was this one color worth it? And then, on a casual Saturday afternoon I accidentally crossed paths with a shining beacon of hope. In the middle of a 6th Avenue street fair sat a booth filled to the brim with every type of cosmetics imaginable.  Even my beloved L'Oreal Lineur Intense was available in various shades for only $4. As I weaved my way through the gaggle of women browsing the selections, I spotted a case of Estee Lauder lipsticks.  I asked the woman behind the table if she had any of the shade, Shocking Plum.  After checking her drawers, the reported that she had not one, not two, but five tubes.  At $7 a piece, naturally I purchased two.  

After the transaction, she gave me her card.  Street Fair Cosmetics, their tagline reads "We carry all major brings: Lancome, Revlon, Borghese, Almay, ADM, Clinique, L'Oreal. We specialize in discontinued colors."  If you are on the verge of taking your beloved to 3 Custom, give these people a try first.  You can at least postpone your $55 expenditure.  

Street Fair Cosmetics

orders@streetfaircosmetics.com

(201)823-9500