It's like they have little signs hanging off them that say "BUY ME."

Urban Decay and OPI--two of my favorite cosmetics companies--have brought out new products to celebrate Tim Burton's new Alice in Wonderland movie.



OPI has four new polishes: Off with her Red! (coral-ly red), Mad as a Hatter (clear with multi-colored glitter,) Absolutely Alice (teal/blue glitter suspended in a clear base,) and Thanks so Muchness (cool red metalic with a bit of red micro-glitter). Retail is $8.50.



Urban Decay's Alice in Wonderland shadow box has 16 shades.



None is new except Mushroom, a soft taupe. The rest of the shades are UD regulars like Polyester Bride, Chopper, and Oil Slick. They've been renamed to go with the movie.

The set contains 16 eyeshadows (left to right, top to bottom):
-Underland (Flash)
-Alice (Painkiller)
-Oraculum (Baked)
-Queen (Last Call)
-Cheshire (Chopper)
-White Rabbit (Polyester Bride)
-Wonderland (Maui Wowie)
-Curiouser (Grifter)
-Muchness (X)
-Mushroom (Mushroom)
-Midnight Tea Party (Midnight Cowboy Rides Again)
-Vorpal (S&M)
-Absolem (Homegrown)
-Drink Me Eat Me (Sin)
-Mad Hatter (Twice Baked)
-Jabberwocky (Oil Slick)

There are also two travel-size 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencils in Zero (black) and Flipside (teal), and a trial-size Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Sin (champagne shimmer). Retail is $52, and they're flying out of the store.

You see my dilemma. I just bought a bottle of Primer Potion in Sin. I also just bought UD's Book of Shadows II. And really, the amount of glittery eye shadow I need or would be likely to wear would fit on the head of a pin.

It's just that ... I love the Alice books. So of course I love this stuff. Last summer I visited the Alice shop in Oxford and pored over everything in the store. I mean, I covet the OPI display, let alone the polishes. And what about that adorable pop-up packaging on the eye shadow box? Is that cute or what?

And you just know that if I don't pounce, they'll sell out and then the collection will only be available on eBay. For $200.

Luckily, I have a 13-year-old daughter, so I can buy these items and pretend I'm doing it for her.



(You'll never guess what her name is.)

Now I know what to wear to the Blissdom pajama party

Poppy print pajamas from Neiman Marcus:



With pajamas like this, who needs business cards?

You know things have gotten weird when the GWP is a ball gag ...

Has anyone else noticed how bondage-y the average store's shoe department is looking? No? Well, check out these images from the Neiman Marcus website.


Bettie

Page

is

alive

and

well

and

shopping

for

shoes

at

Neiman

Marcus.

Or if she isn't, she could be.

It's snowing Christmas tree ornaments

I know a few of you out there put up more than one Christmas tree. You have one for the main living area, and a less glamorous tree for the family room/dining room/kitchen. Some of you even put up trees in your bathrooms.

I'm not here to judge. (Except bathroom trees? ::cough::getalife::cough::) No, I'm here to confess that I'm a lazy lump who can barely manage to get one (admittedly eight-foot) artificial, already-light-bedecked Christmas tree up and decorated every year. I love Christmas trees, but it's become an enormous ordeal.

This year I decided to cut back. I would only use the ornaments I actually liked. As it turns out, I actually only really like about a third of the ornaments I own.

I cut out all the child-oriented ornaments that I used to put all over the place. No Ninja Turtles, no Babar, no Cookie Monsters. I cut out all the commercial stuff: no M&M guys on skis, no Hersey elves, no Disney or Hallmark. No seven-year-old lovingly-produced kindergarten ornaments with missing parts.

This is what was left:

1. Things that are the right color--red, green, white, gold and silver.

2. Things with religious/seasonal significance--angels, stars, Father Christmas/Santa Claus.

3. Things that are natural--snowflakes, icicles, pine cones, acorns, birds, fruit.

I thought I was putting up a minimalist Christmas tree. When you bring up three boxes of ornaments and bring two of them back downstairs, still filled with ornaments, it certainly feels minimalist.

But the tree turned out prettier than ever. In fact, I liked it a lot, and I decided to head further in this direction. I would only buy new ornaments if they fit into those three categories.

Enter an email from the Metropolitan Museum. Ten dollars off a purchase of $50.

Well, their clearance section and sale sections brought me a veritable blizzard of new snowflake ornaments! Some of them are obviously chi-chi-poo-poo collectibles, way out of my price range. But others are way marked down, and with code K697, I saved an extra $10.

The truly pathetic, I'm a lazy lump part of this? My tree is still up. Which means that if the package shows up quickly, I might be hanging January clearance ornaments on the December tree.