NYC Summer Trip Report:

Patti(Cavewoman) and I made our back to NYC for a quick shopping visit. We started the day at Barneys. A stunning steel gray Balenciaga bag stopped me in my tracks. It was a slouchy hobo style. It retailed for $995.00. I passed but I can not get it out of my head. It was the coolest Balenciaga bag I had ever seen. It was snagged when I left by someone with lolly and good taste. It is now the "bag that got away".
We met the rest of our party on the ground floor at Barneys in the fragrance department. Tyler was charming and generous as always. He unwrapped a Susanne Lang tester of Black Orchid for me to sniff. I have been curious about this scent based on the raves on Makeupalley. It was worth the hype. It is a very tropical floral along the lines of CSP Vanille Frangipane, Monyette Paris and Chantecaille Frangipane. It is currently sold out at Barneys and the tester is being shipped to the Beverly Hills Barney's store.

I finally caved on a CDG incense fragrance. I have been stalking this line for the last year. Once again I struggled at this counter. All the scents are worthy and it is difficult to just choose one. I finally made the decision. It was Jaisalmer.

I had an eye makeover at Shu Uemura with a SA named Frank. He did a smoky bronze eye. I loved it and caved once again. The bronze color is called Me Gold. It is a shimmery bronze-ish brown. The blush is called P orange. It is like a brighter Nars Orgasm without the shimmer. I was scared by the color in the pan but it was very natural. It adds a wonderful flush on the cheek. My favorite beauty find of the day was Shu's mascara called Fiber Tension. It is the Holy Grail mascara. It lengthens, curls, separates and leaves no clumps or mess. Sounds to good to be true? I can vouch for its greatness. Its magic amazes me every morning.
I also got suck up in the hype of the Shu curler. It works.

We left Barneys and went to the Caron store. This is like a little gem. So ladylike and elegant. I drooled over powder puffs and the makeup powders. Chattykathy and I split a huge bottle of Coup de Fouet. We toyed with the idea of decanting the bottle at the store but decided that we would hide in the TAK bathroom to do our dirty work. It was wonderful discovering the Caron fragrances with the ladies. Risa,Patti and I loved French Can Can. I fell very hard for En Avion. This is just stunning. We all went nuts over Montaigne. There is a wait list for that one. Like a Chloe Paddington bag wait list!

We popped in at Bond,Bergdorfs(their bag selection sucked!) and Bendels. I scored a makeup case with the Bendels brown stripes for half price. It is very cute but it can only hold my eye shadows and MAC pigments.

Our next stop was lunch at TAK. This was the best lunch I have ever had in NYC.
All of our dishes were mouthwatering. The dessert bento boxes were out of this world. Risa(Lupa) had the best dessert at the table. It was layers of mousse including one layer called green tea mousse. It was beyond fabulous. During lunch I discovered a new lemming called Grapefruit Bellini. It is by Risa. This scent is amazing and 1000 times better than YSL In Love Again. Great lasting power too.

John Henry was charming and wonderful as always. He truly gives the most amazing hugs. He did a lovely and transforming makeover on patti's dear friend Tania. John Henry also let Chattykathy and I decant Coup de Fouet at one of the TAK tables. Danielle(another TAK SA) whipped her wrist under the pipette for a test. She proclaimed Coup to be very naughty. Kathy discovered a great layering combo by accident. She mixed Coup with Mathias Figue. This combo was so good-I instantly caved on a bottle. All the Mathias fragrances are currently on sale. My 3.4 bottle was around $30.00. There were several bottles of the line left in stock.

We visited SAKS and met Mr Elson. He works at the SUL counter. He had the Black Orchid in stock so I gave him my credit card. It is a trio set. The other fragrances are Red Ginger and Vanilla Sugar. They layer well together. Elson also gave me an extra roll on bottle(like a decant size) of Exotic Tea. This is part of a SUL SAKS promotion. If you buy the set of three roll on bottles($80-$85-ish) or three spray bottles($120-$125-ish) you get an extra roll on size fragrance for free. Elson will soon be a great MUA favorite. He is generous, knows fragrances and is charming. We were all smitten.

Last big stop was the Times Square Sephora. A mess of a store.
It never used to be such a pig pen. It was like you needed a TB shot to shop there. Whole rows of cosmetic testers were gone. It was a shame because I remember when it was brand new and innocent. It has been violated by the masses in Times Square. I did get to see some Pout and Paul & Joe. Makeupforever only had a handful of cosmetic testers left. I did get to see the dust left from their containers. There was one shadow whose crumbs looked like MAC's parrot. Hopefully we will get to hit a good Sephora the next time we visit.

I had a lovely time with everyone and can not wait to come back! I will start saving my pennies now!