Eco-friendly

Color de natural for Spring twenty ten with neutral eyes, flushed pink cheeks and Chapstick lips. Well, not totally, but achieving your most natural look starts from the inside out. So it’s back to the basics: sleep, drink, wash. Making sure you are adequately rested and your skin has had time to form shiny new cells. Staying hydrated truly makes you glow. Washing off your make-up at night, so you don’t wake up with blackheads and wrinkles. Pretty simple stuff, but basics we sometimes forget when we are rushing around.

Then on your clean, glowing facial palette, moisturize. Clogged pores tend to result from dry, dead skin cells clogging the poor, so choose a skin type-appropriate moisturizer and be liberal. Around the eyes, never pull from the inner eye out. When removing make-up or applying eye cream, always dab gently from the corners inward. Even out skin tone with foundaiton or concealer and use a little rosy blush. We aren’t seeing much bronzer on the runways or red carpet as the look is softer and more effervescent. A few coats of mascara and you could be ready to go. If you feel too nude, then line your eyes with a soft brown or blue rather than a harsh black and paint your pout with something sassy. Because the face has less color, choose something pinky for your lips. A totally bare lip can wash out your face and looks best with a dark, smokey eye.

Your done and have an extra ten or fifteen minutes to read the paper, enjoy your coffee or walk to work.

Emma Dinzebach

Gone are the days where we paid top dollar for buttery beautiful leather. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past four seasons, here’s an update: Green is a the new black. And that buttery leather is O-U-T. This fall, designers like Stella McCartney and Miu Miu opted for animal-friendly pieces made from polyurethane, a safe alternative to previously popular PVC (AKA polyvinyl chloride AKA vinyl AKA the bad, poisonous plastic).

Eco-bags, jackets and shoes flooded fall’s ready-to-wear, and like all good fakes, they feel so real. This season’s soft faux leather has the weight and texture of real leather, is lined with silky taffeta, adorned with zippers and studs to rock it out, and available in a variety of colors.

The good news: Meat haters can still rock out. The bad news: It won’t come cheap. Veggie-friendly jackets can run you a pretty penny. Stella McCartney has a vegan faux leather jacket for upwards of $500, but you can find a good alternative from f1 (left) for a bit less than $200. Less expensive versions are priced below $100, but lack the weight and polished look of the designer versions.

Emma Dinzebach

Riding the green wave are restaurants screaming from their bamboo surfboards, “Eat local, Dude! Buy local, man! Cowabunga.” Tasting Table toots that it’s been suggesting local since it’s launch. Dude, wasn’t that like last year? Okay true, shoring the gap between what we eat and where it is grown lends to sustainable restaurant practices, supports local businesses and reduces heavy carbon emissions created from distant transports. In fact, eating locally has been a goal of many area restaurants way before green was the new black. Furthermore, choosing local produce is a better, more earth-conscious approach than choosing organically. (For more information on how eating locally as opposed to organically helps our planet and your health, click here.)

Restaurants like Mas Farmhouse, Five Points, and Blue Hill have been serving local ingredients for nearly a decade. These pioneers use seasonal ingredients, and talent, to achieve culinary artistry that tickles our tastebuds and touches our hearts. New Yorkers – and surrounding area farmers – realize that out of everything bad, comes something good, and are happy that the alarming state of our planet has at least awoken minds to the joy of eating locally.

How can you celebrate? Several area chefs are celebrating September by highlighting where their food came from. You can find a detailed PDF of how area chefs are celebrating this month at Tasting Table. Or, cook something yourself. You’re long overdue to host a dinner party, right? Hit up Union Square Market, New Amsterdam or the 77th Street Sunday Flea & Green Market and pick up some local ingredients to cook up some splendor of your own…dude.

Emma Dinzebach

When the temperature heats up, skin kicks into overdrive, spewing out more technical problems than a 1989 Audi.  A perfectly temperate complexion may suddenly transform into a hot mess of oil spills, dry patches and irritation, leaving one to wonder if she needs to call her dermatologist or a mechanic for a fix.  While summer is welcome with open arms, problem skin is not.  A good face mask is like one-stop shopping for the skin, offering temporary relief from the throes of humidity and, with continued year-round use, the promise of more even skin tone, a subtle glow, and well-behaved pores.  I tested a few for the sake of The Vogue City readers’ inquiring minds (and even included a homemade favorite that costs pennies – literally) and budgets. 

Clay masks reign supreme in sopping up T-zone oil, and are goof-proof:  apply, let it dry, and wipe clean.  I like Best Bath Store’s Dead Sea mud mask for $19.95.  Its rich formula is chock full of minerals, nutrients and has a grainy, thick texture that feels glorious when swiped on the cheeks, chin and nose.  I use it about once a week, usually when I’m busy stalking, er, browsing, Facebook and sipping a cup of green tea.  Do-it-yourself relaxation, indeed. 

If your forehead is dryer than the Sahara and your chin might spontaneously combust from dead flakes, I recommend the Body Shop’s 3-in-1 Honey & Oat scrub mask for $16.50.  While my genetics have me destined for a lifetime of blotting paper and hand-held fans, I have friends with dry, sensitive skin who swear by this eco-friendly power product.  The option to apply twice a week is there – if your skin is sensitive, start with a once-a-week application and work your way up.  Kind of like the starter boyfriend you have mixed feelings about:  easy does it.

Now, if your skin is neither here nor there and is lost in the transit of being labeled (and what’s in a label, really?), look no further than your pantry for a cure.  Honey, that delicious sticky sap that sends my aforementioned tea into a tailspin, can be applied as is to dry skin for a tasty – and cheap – mask.  Honey is naturally moisturizing, but also zaps oil and provides a hit of natural antioxidants to calm even the sassiest skin.  Just be careful to wash, not lick, it off after about 10 minutes or so.

Masks:  summertime skin saviors or time sapping treatments better left for the birds?

-Karyn Polewaczyk