They’ll never be able to accuse me of staying downtown. In the last two weeks alone, I’ve been to up to Eastchester (Bronx), over to Little Haiti (Brooklyn) and, as of today, Glendale, Queens. That said: for how much I’ve been bopping around the city, I’m dying to get out of here. Perfume can be an escape that costs less than a plane ticket — and in this case, we are talking Spirit Airlines (RIP). I discovered this inexpensive Sicilian perfume via a google search about local Italian grocery stores. Made in Eatalia is tucked away behind two overgrown Linden trees on Myrtle Ave & 67th street. Along with a generous amount of pantry imports, they have a robust selection of Felce Azzura, Malizia, Proraso, and other farmacia brands. Listen, I like Marvin toothpaste and Ortiga soap as much as the next Italophile but I want to know what the average Nonna(o) is using, and I’m pretty sure this spray is IT. It smells like the mafia blindfolded me and took me out into a Catanian field of orange blossoms and used neroli instead of kerosene to set me on fire. It’s bright, tangy, and probably indicative of what it smells like rightthissecond somewhere in Sicily, as April is the month when the orange and lemon trees of the region bloom and release their citrusy aroma. The warm air allows the natural fragrance to stick around for weeks. Ugh, the tragic irony of Made in Eatalia being engulfed by two huge trees that smell like something I can’t repeat here! Alas…I will be using this ‘fume to (mentally) flee to my motherland mind palace 🇮🇹.
I know that time has not been kind to Mario Badescu but I will forever and always get butterflies when I see a floor-to-ceiling display of their products. I held onto a bottle of their Enzyme Cleansing Gel for TEN YEARS because I was gifted it at the Makeup Show 2012 where I was working the Armour Beauty booth. That made me feel like a rockstar (I was 21 and still working during the day as a publishing assistant) and the smell brought me back to the day every single time. Life is really long.
This display is at @grove_apothecarynyc which I visit whenever I’m in the vicinity of @casamagazinesnyc .
BEEF season 2 premiere! I wanted to do a band across my eyes like Pris in BLADE RUNNER (1982) but gilded. I used Kiko Milano wet & dry eyeshadow shadow in shade 235 and revlon lipstick in shade 803 “whiskey business.” I always use whatever lipstick I’m wearing as a blush (I also like to match my shoes to my purse). I did this very last minute without any real technique or plan. I’ve been wanting to do sloppy red carpet makeup just to see how it shows up on the high-powered Getty cameras and this is definitely slouching toward that direction. I’m kind of like that doctor who did surgery on his own ruptured appendix?
yesterday I took a trip to Arthur Ave to see what’s popping. e rossi import store down in Manhattan little Italy has a lot of great gems but I find that the few remaining import shops in the Bronx’ Little Italy reign supreme. At Cerini Coffee & Gifts, I was immediately lured to the back where I found pine shampoo and pine perfume. I’ve been going through a pine phase lately, beginning with discovering these pine candies made by monks for the ancient pharmacy of Camaldoli in Italy (slide 3). They don’t ship to US so I had to find a workaround, which, of course, was Eataly! For $9, they sell a big bag of sweet pine candy that tastes like you’re sucking off Father Christmas. Personally I’ve never had anything like it, not even when I gnawed on the branch of a Douglas fir branch once to see if a little bit of sap would come out (no). AAAANYWAY, I did not get the shampoo because SLS and the perfume I am going to get vintage on eBay (the markup on it on the store was also nuts—I love shopping small—but I don’t think it was even imported based on what I briefly researched about the producer). forza, obviously
I meant to upload this back in December—hence the decorations—but Christmasposting on Easter feels close enough. the claw clip went over her hair net, and I thought the way her hair lay made it look like a palmier cookie. we were there to get coladas and pastelitos de guayaba y queso 🇨🇺
at Miramar Bakery in Hollywood, Florida. her name is Maria.
the cultural obsession with Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy is at an all-time high. I don’t think there’s any other figure in modern history where the public yearns to know hyperspecifics about her consumption, like what shampoo she used or what brand insoles she put in her Prada kitten heels. Allegedly she used Cranberry Veil lipstick by Face Stockholm, though I have dug around for years and I’m not sure where that originated, so until it is corroborated, I’m filing this under “factoid.” Face Stockholm has had a storefront in Hudson, New York for years — it’s their only brick and mortar in the entire US and it’s about an hour from my parents’ house. I visited today to see if my feelings about the lipstick changed since I first tried it a decade or so ago…I do not think it’s the sisterhood of the traveling lipstick many people think it is. I do have extremely weird green-yellow undertones (as Liz lemon once said “the Clinique lady said I have witch undertones”) and I do not have the face or aura of CBK, so I’m partially to blame here. Wondering if anyone else has tried and what they think!
