User:Aimeestyle/sandbox

Fashion week, or rather, month, can prove more than a little challenging to one’s beauty routine: Editors are out every day, and generally, every night, with little time for sleep, let alone a trip to the salon. Looking, and in turn feeling, one’s best requires strategic planning and meticulous organization—precision-timed trims, pre-booked blow-outs, massage hotel-calls, no-chip nail plans, and the foresight to schedule an evening reflexology appointment, or two. We call it the Beauty Pre-Game. Here, we reveal our tricks of the trade: the luxuries small and large that keep us all going, plus the legions of talented experts whose magic we count on most during the hectic month to come.

—“A visit with the always smiling Oscar Blandi is good for my soul, and my hair. I am constantly amazed at just how much better I look when my hair is freshly trimmed–clean, precise, polished. Ditto (deceivingly natural) highlights with Kyle White. My hair goes from 0 to 60 in one-and-a-half hours flat (and that’s including a blow-out with fabulous Arthur).”

—“Slipping away for a nail appointment is a luxury I rarely grant myself, so, over the years I have become quite speedy and adept at self-service. (In fact, the luxury for me is how much time I save, and all I can get done during the process—like watching Michelle Obama deliver her incredible speech at the DNC Tuesday night while my toes dried, propped up on a pillow.) The secret to making a manicure/pedicure last is the bulletproof sandwich I create around the polish with my trusty Kensington Caviar Basecoat and Topcoat from Nails Inc. Mid-week, I’ll slap on a fresh layer of the top-coat to rev up the shine, and to make sure the color couldn’t chip if it tried. Cuticle oil (Essie makes a good one) before bed also really makes a difference to hands and feet, regardless of mani-pedi state. Dry skin and scraggly bits immediately disappear.”

—“I have invisible blonde eyebrows which, left untended, appear as a blur hovering fuzzily, shapelessly, above my eyes. Once Maral Balian at Warren Tricomi’s salon at The Plaza gets her hands on me, though—tinting, plucking, waxing, fussing—my face comes into sharp focus. My eyes look greener; I suddenly feel like a grown-up. The subtle dark blonde (vegetable dye) tint is really the key, and since it lasts exactly four weeks, timing is everything.”

—“I only see my favorite facialist, Tammy Fender, when she is in town from Palm Beach, which is practically never. This Fashion Week, I am going to channel her by firing up my new Breville juicer, and cooking up Tammy’s signature elixir of gorgeousness each morning: a refreshing green juice of kale, spinach, ginger, lemon, and apple.”jksdhiuweh