Live. Life. La Fresh.

People on-the-go know what a godsend wet wipes are. Now, La Fresh Group takes the convenience of wet wipes to the incredibly luscious, good-for-skin and good-for-earth stratosphere.

New La Fresh Eco-Beauty Wipes are made of 100% biodegradable wipes material. Formulas are free of bad stuff (parabens, sulfates, petrochemicals, GMOs, glycols, triclosan, phthalates, PEGs, acetone, dyes, artificial fragrances & animal byproducts) and loaded with good stuff (botanical extracts, essential oils, vitamins). If that wasn't enough, these wipes help cut down how much hot water you use in the bathroom, which is good for the environment and your wallet (hello lower water & heating bills).

It used to be that natural beauty care = doesn't work well. Not so with La Fresh Eco-Beauty. These products stand up to the best beauty-care out there.

Here's the lineup:

• The revolutionary Waterproof Makeup Remover - slips off the toughest makeup with lavender essential oil, won't leave behind a heavy, greasy residue
• The life-changing Acetone-Free Nail Polish Remover - whisks off polish in a flash with an unbelievably fresh, juicy Tuscan orange scent, not a harsh chemical smell
• The delectable Instant Body Soother - infused with peppermint essential oil and a blend of 5 silky, natural oils to soothe away stress and tension from temples, neck, arms or legs in seconds
• The delightful Oil-Free Face Cleanser in natural Yuzu or Fragrance-Free versions - effectively cleanse and hydrate to remove dirt, oil and face makeup without clogging, stripping or irritating skin
• The quintessential Healthy Hand Sanitizer - wipes away 99.9% of germs without alcohol or triclosan, even moisturizes hands and helps strengthen nails

Items are available in convenient flowpacks or portable packet singles to give you the freshest experience with every use. Try Eco-Beauty for yourself - the line makes its debut in October at lafreshgroup.com.

Color Me Yummy

Crayon Food Bars

'Crayon' is a series of food bars by luxirare that are made from various other foods crushed together and formed into cylinders to look just like crayons. The set of bars are each a unique shade that is made from other foods of the same shade. The various foods where selected and crushed into a powder and bound with marshmallow. While each crayon is edible, some are more nutritious than others based on their ingredients. The crayons even draw on paper and come in a box of 8 with a full ingredient list for each shade.

Love and Toast Eclectique

Love & Toast is a naturals line which had its premiere at Urban Outfitters. Margot Elena Wells, the creator, designer and formulator, was conceptually envisioning a loose creative vibe with Love & Toast, what she refers to as “Brit Pop Folk Art.” Drawing influences from Japanese design, Love & Toast also has a Swedish feel about it with its bright colors and simple iconography and many will also notice a nod to the ‘80’s.

Margot Elena took it a step further with Love & Toast by deliberately choosing environmentally friendly packaging to convey her commitment to the natural ingredient deck she worked so many years to perfect. Almost all of the Love & Toast packaging is recyclable, and the paperboard is made from annually renewable and sustainable resources. Margot Elena chose to use vegetable ink because it has proven to be most kind to our eco system as it is derived from a wide variety of sustainable crops.

Margot Elena is also creator of Lollia and Tokyo Milk.

What's Your Fortune, Baby?

"It's astonishingly simple. Mysterio Predicts your baby's future on a t-shirt. There are 12 possible futures, each shirt sewn into a muslin bag, sealed until the parent pulls the red string, revealing their child's exciting future!

The battered wood display crates were printed (and treated) roughly to give the impression that they just got thrown off a boat from exotic, foreign lands."

Designed and Illustrated in-house by Wry Baby.

Absolut Brooklyn

A collaboration with Spike Lee, it has one of the most unique Absolut packaging changes…can you believe they Spike Lee’d the seal?!?! Adding glasses and baseball cap on Lars Olsson Smith! Additionally they have a line from Lemon Andersen’s spoken word poem “Somewhere in the world Brooklyn in da house and you know we won’t stop spreading love cause that’s our way.” on the bottle alongside the silk screened image of an illustrated Brooklyn Stoop, which is #165 as a nod to Spike Lee’s brownstone roots. As for the flavor ~ it is a Red Apple and Ginger flavor ~ “its flavor evokes the spice and vibrancy Brooklyn brings to the big apple”… it’s quite delicious, though a bit jolly rancherish.

Get a Whiff of This...

An article in Slate from took a closer look at human sweat and the Body Odor Wheel to make better sense of it. The article is based on findings by researchers at Firmenich.

"In January, a Swiss fragrance firm concluded after years of study that female perspiration smells like grapefruit, passion fruit, and onion, while male sweat smells more cheesy, rancid, and animalic. Several years earlier, the same firm had analyzed male sweat and detected these flavor notes: chicken broth, butter, vinegar, onion, and grapefruit. The presence of grapefruit and onion--the scent of a woman--in male sweat gives the lie to the notion that men's B.O. is from Mars while women's is from Venus. For this reason, the B.O. wheel expresses gender differences on a gradient."

Vivienne Westwood Bubblegum Scented Shoes

Brazilian shoe brand Melissa makes plastic shoes that smell like bubblegum. From their FAQ: A few years ago, to add to the melissa experience, the decision was made to infuse all melissa shoes with a sweet bubblegum smell. The smell will not last forever – but it does remain for quite a few months and is one of the most talked about features of melissa. Our customers love it! Shown above, two shoes from the Vivienne Westwood collection. On the left, the Lady Dragon shoe, about $150 at Zappos or Saks. On the right, a version for children.

Topshop Colour Pop

The core range comprises 97 SKUs, priced between $8 and $20, available from May in selected Topshop stores and online at www.topshop.com.

Inspiration by hot spots in London, New York, Tokyo, Rio and LA, the matte-finish pale grey packaging is described as "bespoke rough and ready". Cute hand-drawn spots, stripes and smudges were scribbled using the range's kohl pencils. The items are also housed in a matte black box with an illustration of the product inside.

Each season, new trend-led colours will be injected into the core range to offer more scope for creativity, while limited-edition capsule ranges will appear throughout the year, starting with spring/summer 2010 (also available beginning May), an ethereal collection of festival-inspired make-up, and face and lash adornments. Standout products include feathered lashes, gold transfers, metallic crayons and pots of shimmering glitter dust. Each season these capsule collections will be accompanied by a fashion story, which will encourage make-up experimentation.

The Cholive

CHOLIVE = Chocolate + olive.

No, it is not a chocolate covered olive, it is actually a dark chocolate truffle shaped like an olive. With a dark chocolate shell and decadent whole cream ganache, the Cholive is the first cocktail chocolate made specifically for dessert drinks. Each cholive comes with a skewer to hang on your martini or classic cocktail.


Source: www.thecholive.com

Arte de Jabon

Compagnie de Provence La Sardine

Compagnie de Provence Le Maquereau

Compagnie de Provence La Girelle

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Marseille-based soap and skincare brand Compagnie de Provence presents three limited-edition liquid soaps.

Each glass bottle has been illustrated with special designs by celebrated Marseillais artist Stephen Muntaner. The three bottles, La Sardine, Le Maquereau and La Girelle, are named after Mediterranean fish and the drawings were inspired by the port city's iconic tattooed sailors. It features colorful designs showing the Marseille harbor, a fisherman's catch and the Marseillais reverence to the Virgin Mary.

The fragrance of the soap is said to be inspired by the Provencal capital's salty air and mistral winds and are made from vegetable oils.

Source: WGSN

Proud Mary

Wear your heart on your sleeve. French designer Catherine Malandrino and songstress Mary J. Blige have teamed up to debut a luxurious collection of t-shirts to benefit Blige's women's advocacy charity FFAWN - Foundation For the Advancement of Women Now. The shirts, which feature messages like "I'm Free", "I'm Love" and "I'm Power," are lyrics taken from Mary J's songs. Prices start at $39, and the line is available at Bloomingdales stores.

Source: popsugardaily.com

Green is in at H & M

Swedish high street clothing chain, H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) is launching its first skin care range made with Ecocert-certified organic ingredients at the beginning of March.

Products include shower gel, body lotion, body scrub, hand cream and lip balm, and are available in either a combination of raspberry and melon or lavender and mint. According to H&M’s head of design, Ann-Sofie Johansson, introducing an organic skincare range seemed logical to the company given its previous work with organic materials. “It felt like a natural step, since we’ve worked with organic cotton garments for a few seasons now,” she said, adding that decision was also in part driven by consumer demand for organic products.

Organic skincare at an affordable price
The Swedish company is famous for its budget friendly merchandise, and the organic skincare range is no exception, coming in at between €3.90 and €4.90. A spokesperson for H&M explained to CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com that the higher price tag associated with producing organic products was not a barrier to the creation of the line. “Organically certified products are slightly more expensive to produce. However, the prices are within H&M’s frameworks,” she said. Organic apple juice is a key ingredient in the range, featuring in the shower gel, body scrub, body lotion and hand cream. Other ingredients include organic almondand apricot seeds, and the lip balm contains jojoba and beeswax.

Louis Vuitton Does It Animal Style

Half a century ago, Gaston Louis Vuitton, founder of Louis Vuitton, dedicated an entire floor of his store to his wife Renee’s interest in toys.

In celebration and in memory of this romantic event, LV is launching their animalia line of coin purses, square scarves, and charms. These cute accessories are available for February 2010, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Consumers may stick with cheaper cosmetics, survey suggests

The trading down to cheaper cosmetic and toiletry products that has characterized the economic downturn may be here to stay, a new survey suggests.

A survey carried out by US-based McKinsey & Company into the consumer habits of Americans shows that cosmetics companies targeting the prestige market may be disappointed if they think consumers will return to them with the end of the recession.

It has been well documented over the past 18 months that the economic downturn has impacted companies marketing more expensive products, but confidence that consumers will switch back to more expensive spending patterns may be short lived.

Historically previous recessions have seen consumers quickly switch back to their previous spending patterns, but, according to the McKinsey survey, satisfaction with lower-priced goods could win consumer loyalty.

Lower-prices have proved a recession winner

The McKinsey survey showed that in all consumer goods categories an average of 18 percent of consumers had switched to buying lower-priced products during the course of the past two years.

More interestingly the survey revealed that 46 per cent of respondents reported that they felt the lower-priced goods they purchased performed better than expected, while a majority reported that the performance was much better than expected.

As a consequence of their experiences with lower-priced goods, 34 per cent of those surveyed said they no longer preferred more expensive goods, while 41 percent said they still preferred the prestige brands but did not think it was worth paying the extra money.

Clear switch to lower-priced cosmetics

Backing up the survey results the personal care market in the US has seen a clear switch to lower-priced products, which has particularly benefited private label players that supply major mass market outlets such as Wal-Mart and CVS.

This trade down has impacted some of the world’s biggest personal care players, including L’Oreal and Procter & Gamble, both of which recorded falling sales during the course of 2009 for the first time in many years.

Both players target the mass prestige category, an area of the market that has most suffered from consumer trading down to products that can be more than half the price of prestige brands, and, as the survey suggests, do the job just as effectively.

Prestige players fight back

To counter the threat from private label and lower-priced brands, L’Oreal focused on marketing smaller-sized versions of its leading brands, while P&G concentrated on discounting, but both of these measures have impacted profits.

Industry experts such as Claudia D’Arpizio, a partner with Milan-based Bain & Company, which monitors global prestige cosmetic and fragrance brands, believe that although the category will continue to struggle in 2010, it should show signs of a recovery by 2011.

However, if the McKinsey survey is anything to go by, the extent of such a recovery is likely to depend on how long consumers remain satisfied with trading down to lower-priced personal care products.

Source: Cosmetics Design

Beer Perfume Aimed at Attracting Opposite Sex

There's finally a way to attract a man and save the planet at the same time. A beer powered perfume is now on tap. When it comes to the male pursuit of women, guys aren't real choosy when it comes to the scent of a woman, but there is one aroma that does pique many a man's interest.

Welcome to Seattle's Blue Marble Energy, where chemists are cooking up a perfume made from the waste products of a local organic brewery. James Stephens of Blue Marble Energy says the product is a viscous sludge - a mixture of about 50,000 different kinds of bacteria. Black sludge, rancid beer grains, green slimey stuff and it's all good for the earth and you.

The grains replacing the petroleum in the process making this perfume completely carbon neutral. The local, handmade perfume by sweet anthem does smell nice, comes in both masculine and feminine versions!

Get 20% Off Stila Cosmetics!

Visit stilacosmetics.com and enter the code JENNBFF at checkout!

What You're in the Mood For

Imagine, if you will, a late night: you've drawn the curtains, turned down the lights, maybe poured a little wine…

Whatever the case, you still need one more thing: mood music. Behind every song there's always an emotion.

We'd like to introduce you to your own personal music director…
Meet Stereomood.com, a site where you type in your mood, and mood music automatically begins to play. Stereomood is the emotional internet radio, providing music that best suits your mood and your activities.

Head to the site, and you'll be confronted with a list of words that do their best to represent your feelings—click on one, and you'll be greeted with a playlist of songs that align with exactly what you need to hear!

Website: http://www.stereomood.com/

The WiiSpray is Pure Genius

Create your own graffiti art, without getting arrested. The WiiSpray allows you to create digital graffiti and even works with pre-bought or your own personal stencils.

The WiiSpray is the work of Martin Lihs, as his Master Thesis at the Bauhaus University in Weimar Germany, it uses a combination of a Wiimote, a spray can, and some custom software and a projector screen to create an awesome digital graffiti program that lets you create digital graffiti on the screen.

Some features:

» Designed for regular use with the Nintendo Wii and for the three Dimensional interaction concept of Wii Spray.

» A real add-on for the Wii, just plug the Wii Remote in the Wii Spray Can and start!

» Buttonless design, easy use for left-and-right-handed persons. Wii Spray uses an input interface similar to the Montana donut system.

» Pressure sensitive valve, up to 128 Values.

» Up to 128 different caps - inexpensive technology (less than 40 cent) and build to resist!

» Interactive color display with the possibillity to show the color level in six steps! just in case…

» USB port for charging the battery and load the latest firmware.

» the Wii Spray 2nd edition controller is able to sense its distance to the wall you are spraying on.

Sad for us, it's not yet for sale!