Misc. : Beauty and Fashion Tech

Scenes From September: It is Still Summer and I’m Not Going to New York Fashion Week

Welcome to September, the time of year when it is suddenly OK to wear fall colors and not so OK to be sporting those neon pink summer nails. It is the month where the season has not officially changed, but posts abound about fall trends. To confuse the matter, it is also a month of coverage about what spring will bring, thanks to the presence of fashion week in New York City beginning this week and in other cities later this month.

So with that in mind, what do I plan to cover this week and next? Well, I have a few pink summer nail features planned, a reader giveaway, and some miscellaneous product reviews. Yes, I will cover the fall trends sometime this month, and yes, I will keep a bit of an eye on fashion week news, but mostly I am avoiding both until I reach the end of my denial that summer is officially over in the fashion world. So instead of writing about new trends, I am avoiding the fall trend set by the multitude of websites and blogs that will be covering nothing else for the next few weeks. I’m sure that they will do it quite well and I see no real need to duplicate to the process. Instead, I will read the blogs of my friends who are covering the spectacle that is New York fashion week and perhaps point out a few of the best posts. Meanwhile, I will enjoy my period of extended summer in September.

You see, I am not going to New York Fashion Week, and I am OK with that, perhaps even rather glad of it. Earlier this year, I made conflicting travel plans for something much more amazing to me–a vacation. Initially I regretted that I would miss the opportunity to go to New York, but as time went on, I was able to ponder just what it was that I was missing. There would be no expensive plane fare and no bunking up with several strangers to save a few bucks on an outrageously priced hotel room. I would not get the pleasure of waiting for invitations to shows that might never come, or juggling the ones that came scheduled at the same time. There would be no agony over what to wear or how to behave, and I would not be faced with being treated as a second class citizen because I am a blogger. The more I considered it, the less I cared that I was not going to be there. I don’t even cover fashion extensively–I write about makeup, and it is mostly product reviews at that. Thus, on the whole, the expense of New York fashion week is a bit difficult to defend as a business expense. I might visit the nearby Milwaukee fashion week in October instead.

For those of you dying for some fashion week coverage, the Beauty Blog Network Website is running a widget with a feed of its member’s fashion week headlines. I have also included the widget on Beauty and Fashion Tech.

For a few different angles on fashion week, the following are also particularly good reads:

* From the New York Observer: oh Lowly Blogger? Your Seat’s in the Back. Feel gossipy? Take a look at Jossip’s different take on the matter: Fashion Week vs. The Blogs: Kelly Cutrone Plays Hardball. Yes, Fashion Week definitely has its drama.

* From Slate comes the answers to your burning questions that you were afraid to ask. Check out The Fashion Week FAQ and The Fashion Week FAQ Part II. Slate is full of interesting Fashion Week commentary. For more, simply run a search of the term there.

Finally, lest I appear overly cynical about New York fashion week, I must say that I will truly miss the opportunity to meet some wonderful people who I have connected with online through networks such as Splendicity, The Beauty Blog Network, Total Beauty, and Glam Media–all of whom will be providing online coverage of the events quicker and generally more in depth than the print sources–even if the writers get sent to the back row. I also will miss seeing colleagues whom I have met before, but in the end I am happy knowing that I will enjoy reading their coverage of the events while I search out oysters in Boston and lobster in Maine a week later. Keep an eye out for me, I’ll be the one still wearing summer pink nails.

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Beauty and Fashion Tech in the August Issue of the Beauty Ideal

If you haven’t had a chance yet to check it out, look at the August edition of The Beauty Ideal, the magazine of the Beauty Blog Network. I have a short feature in there: Don’t Let Your Makeup Age You!

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Daily Beauty Bytes: The Gillette Venus Razor Embrace

I have previously reviewed the Venus Embrace Razor myself (read review). Here is another opinion on it.

Guest Review: Gillette Venus Embrace

Rated a 9 by TotalBeauty.com Editor Kristen Oldham Giordani

If you are a fan of the original Venus razor, you’re going to want to upgrade to Venus Embrace. It boasts five blades instead of three, which seems to offer a closer, smoother shave. …More

What are Daily Beauty Bytes?

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Broken Feeds, Hopefully All Is Working Now!

If you subscribe to Beauty and Fashion Tech, you may have not received your feed the past few days. I apologize for the inconvenience. It seems that some formatting of third party content broke things, but it now appears to be fixed. Please check the site to see what you missed!

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Free Cosmetics Part of Class Action Settlement

You know how the department stores always seemed to coordinate cosmetic free gift times and prices were always the same on cosmetics? Well apparently that has led to a class action settlement under which various stores will be required to make free products available to class members, presumably these will be distributed on a first come first serve basis beginning in January 2009.

To see if you are eligible and to sign up to receive notice of when the freebies are available, visit the settlement website.

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Christian Siriano Collection Now on Bluefly.com

For all of you Project Runway and Christian Siriano Fans, Christian’s line is now up on Bluefly.

I’m not overly inspired by the $96 T-shirts, but I do really like the pictured black cotton dress.

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Comment Policy Reminder

Unfortunately, I have seen a big rise in the amount of spam comments and need to post this reminder.

Beauty and Fashion Tech and Girl Gloss appreciate comments and love to see reader interaction. But spam comments that are made for the primary purpose of promoting a commercial site are not tolerated.

Here is a relevant section of the Comment Policy on the matter:

Spam Comments: Spam will not be tolerated and will be deleted. This includes comments that have the appearance of spam.

Signs of spam that may lead to deletion of your comment:

*Using a product name as your user name, especially if your url is to a commercial site.

*Using your site name as your user name if your site is highly commercial and not a fellow beauty, style, or women’s interest site with genuine original content.

*Your url leads to a link farm, splog, ad page, income parked site, or similar type of website.

We realize that many blog owners use their hobby or site name as a user name. But sites that are unrelated to beauty, fashion, style, or women’s interests that do so and include a related url will be suspect. Have a legitimate comment and don’t want to get deleted? Use your name, or leave out your url, and make a clearly valuable comment.

Links in Comments: You are more than welcome to include your site url in the line of the comment field for it so that readers can find your own blog or website. But links to your site in the body of your comment will be deleted unless it is highly relevant to the post.

Links to stores and other commercial sites will be deleted.

Those of you with commercial sites and blogs, please keep this in mind when commenting. Thanks!

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