• Fran Drescher is launching a skincare line — called FranBrand — this fall on HSN. The products are organic and paraben-free, because, as Drescher puts it, "Women are schmearing stuff on their décolleté, wondering why we're all getting breast cancer..."

• "...Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it's hard to go back to sleep. So I'm sounding the alarm." Drescher, a survivor of uterine cancer, founded the organization Cancer Schmancer. (And she also taught us to love Loehmann's.) [The Cut]
• As we learned yesterday, London Fog confirmed Gisele Bundchen's pregnancy by the roundabout way of announcing it had airbrushed her 5-6 month belly out of its latest campaign "to protect her privacy." But the outerwear brand also released a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot, which includes footage of the raw, unretouched shots as they appear on the computer monitor. A side-by-side comparison reveals exactly what London Fog thought wouldn't move units this fall. [SassyBella]
• Bar Refaeli is allegedly seeing Israeli multi-millionaire Teddy Sagi. Sagi owns a company that makes software for Internet gambling sites, and the nicest thing the Daily Mail can say about him is that he "has a lovely smile." The supermodel's relationship with Leonardo Di Caprio ended earlier this year. [Daily Mail]
• Liya Kebede addressed the UN Secretary-General's Forum on the topic of maternal health. Writes the supermodel, "In times of economic crisis, it is tempting to turn inward, to ignore or postpone the problems of the outside world and focus on ourselves. But, if we hope to thrive once again, we must realize that there are no outside problems in today's interwoven, globalized world. Each mother who dies leaves behind a devastated family and weakened community that will eventually, somehow, affect each of us. Each mother who dies deepens the financial and social strain on our world and puts economic recovery further away. Mothers are our best stimulus package because they invest in their families and in our collective future." [HuffPo]
• SassyBella unearthed footage of Karen Mulder hosting an E! special in 1999. The Dutch model encounters a new girl, who, when she introduces herself, turns out to be an 18-year-old Adriana Lima. [SassyBella]
• The first pictures of Rad by Rad Hourani, the Canadian designer's diffusion line, are looking pretty good, at least for those who were already fans of Hourani's unisex, pared-down rocker aesthetic. "This is exactly the same thing," as his main line, Hourani confirmed. Only instead of costing thousands of dollars it costs hundreds. We need more of this. [WWD]
• The writer of the sometimes entertaining, sometimes savage, always fascinating fashion blog The Emperor's Old Clothes has revealed himself — as New York designer Eric Gaskins. Gaskins, after 22 years in business, was this week forced to close his doors because of the economy. [NYTimes]
• And in September, Daphne Guinness is releasing a signature scent with Comme des Garçons. Only unlike most celebrity perfumes lines, this is actually the distinctive fragrance Guinness has, herself, been mixing for years. "I'll be in airports or in a taxi and the driver will say, ‘What are you wearing?'" reports the heiress. [WWD]
• Designer Hussein Chalayan is "weirded out" by models with clothing lines, like Kate Moss, Amber Valetta, Erin Wasson, and Elle MacPherson: "If you have a really strong sense of style and people want to aspire to being like you, I can understand that. But if you really are doing it just because you think of yourself as a brand and you haven't had the training and you know nothing about clothes, it kind of demeans all the training that designers have had." Chalayan thought Kate Moss's line for Topshop was a poor effort. "I don't think it represented her, and I didn't think she worked hard enough. I even told her to her face." How did la Moss respond? "She said, ‘Oh, I'm just trying to do a light thing; I'm not trying to do anything serious.' But I said, ‘That's not the point.'" [WWD]
• In which case, add Jessica Stam to the list of models who've raised Chalayan's ire. The Canadian just announced a collaboration with Rag & Bone. [Style.com]
• Vogue's Lauren Santo Domingo, on being told her boss Anna Wintour had worn flats to a party in the Hamptons: "I wonder if that means we can wear flats to the office now?" [The Cut]
• Fashion blind item: "Which fantastical designer has a new man? She's ditched her long term fiance for an artist with prime real estate." We're with the commenters on this: signs point to Erin Fetherston, who hasn't been photographed in public with her longtime fiancé, Hedi Ferjani, since late April. [Fashionista]
• Ali Wise, the Dolce & Gabbana publicist who was arrested for hacking into the voicemail of a woman who was dating Wise's ex boyfriend, is no longer a Dolce & Gabbana employee. Which must seem like the least of her problems: Wise is facing felony charges of computer trespass and eavesdropping. [WWD]
• A well-written parsing of W magazine's cover story on model Lara Stone: "The fashion industry — and, in turn, the fashion media — have such a warped concept of slimness that a model like Lara Stone is so much larger than her contemporaries that they feel the need to explain her presence. If Stone's body is such an outlier, what does that say about the rest of us? Worse, the magazine saw fit to issue the disclaimer that Stone 'is, it should be noted, a very lithe five foot ten.' Why, yes, do note that! As if there's the slightest chance someone is going to look at these photos and think Stone needs to, like, slow down on the Cheetos." [GlossedOver]
• Lagardère, the French publishing company that owns Hachette Filipacchi Media, which owns the U.S. edition of Elle magazine, has denied that it is in talks to sell the title to rival Hearst, as had been reported in yesterday's New York Post. [WWD]
• Scott Nylund, Beyoncé's design director, comes from Owatonna, Minnesota. Which is where you can see an exhibit that spans his earliest childhood sketches of women in dresses, to his college fashion collection, to his creations for Beyoncé. [StarTrib]
• Freja Beha Erichsen says Karl Lagerfeld's house in Vermont — which recently served as the setting for the fall Chanel campaign she starred in with Heidi Mount — is a serious farm. With horses and chickens and — spitting llamas. Erichsen also praised Chanel for providing food backstage at its runway shows, which a lot of brands don't manage to do. [W]
• Fashion Meets Finance, the terrible event for douchebags and gold-diggers, is back. It's happening August 6th in — where else? — Murray Hill. [FMF]
• Will Ferrell has a Nike sneaker coming out in Japan. It's inspired by Anchorman's Ron Burgundy, that lovable asshole we met, uh, five years ago. [HighSnobiety]
• Timberland lost $19.2 million in the last quarter, a worse-than-expected result that came off the back of a 14% drop in sales, to $179.7 million. [WWD]
• Shiseido was even worse off — its profits declined 57.8%. [WWD]
• Likewise Hugo Boss, which lost $21.17 million in the last quarter. [WWD]
• Bare Escentuals profits also slid 20% in the same period. [WWD]
• Competitor Avon's profits fell 64.3% on revenues that shrank by 9.7%. Revlon's sales fell 12.2%, and its total profits declined to just $200,000, from $19.9 million one year earlier. [WWD]
• Bucking this downward trend is Tod's — the Italian leather brand reported a 3.4% increase in sales for this first six months of this year. [WWD]
• Ann Taylor wants to cut $30 to $40 million in costs by "right-sizing" its organization. No word yet on the number of people who will be laid off. [WWD]
• Three members of a multi-million-dollar New York counterfeiting ring received prison sentences, and a fourth was sentenced to probation by a federal judge. Michael Chu, the group's leader, was in 2005 ordered to pay $7 million in damages stemming from an unrelated counterfeiting case involving North Face jackets. This time, Chu, who imported fake Nike, Chanel and Burberry products, was sentenced to prison for just over 8 years. [WWD]

• Gwen Stefani's soon-to-be-released Harajuku Lovers fragrance collection comes with dolls that look just like her own Harajuku girl back-up dancers. WTF. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• OMG is Britney Spears going to "collaborate" on a clothing line with Ed Hardy? Like whoah. [Star]
  
• The newest Donatella-designed Versace watch retails for $226,800. Says Donatella: "Women don't really need a watch to tell time today — they have their cell phones and BlackBerries." You heard it straight from the horse's mouth: It's expensive shit you don't need. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Why does making your own deodorant actually sound like fun? [BellaSugar]

• More expensive shit: Armani luggage. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And more still: Pictures of Kate Moss's face. [Vogue UK]
• So-called upscale beauty brands Clarins, Kiehl's, Origins, Bare Escentuals and Bumble and Bumble are now selling their wares through so-called not-upscale mass retailer Target. The brands are all nervous about diluting their image. Don't they know? Getting something at Target is the new getting something at Bloomingdale's. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Why do watch brands need "ambassadors"? Um, here is an essay that explains it. [Financial Times]
• Bras: Big business in Britain. [Telegraph]
• Speaking of which, Agent Provocateur has relaunched their website and it is "steamy" and "raunchy" and "seamy." Enjoy! [Telegraph]
• For those of you deeply concerned about where all of Carla Bruni's clothes are coming from, rest assured: her rep says, that she "either borrows or buys. And it's all her personal budget. It's not the state budget. The same goes for her hair and makeup." [WWD, sub req'd]
• The amazing Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) on being a "muse" to Karl Lagerfeld: "I don't think I'm a muse. I'm just like... A regular, maybe. Just a character in Karl's world." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Aw, tear! Hearst is starting a website called DonateMyDress.org where real-life Serena van der Woodsens can donate their old clothes to real-life Jenny Humphreys. No chance in hell the Blair Waldorfs are going to get in on the act. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Kim Stewart is the "face" of Ciate's paint pots, aka nail polish. When you see Kim Stewart, is a manicure is the first thing you think of? [Kiss And Makeup]
• The NYPD had a good time in Queens last night, confiscating $5.5 million in fake Burberry, Chanel, Coach, Fendi, Kate Spade, Gucci and Prada bags. [WWD, sub req'd]
• MAC is opening up something called a Pro Store that isn't just retail, but an "educational center" as well. Hmm, smells like a ruse to get you to spend more time at the counter, and more money on expensive shit. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Christian Louboutin: Now doing resort footwear. [Fashion Week Daily]
• This is what I look like in sunglasses. [Coutorture]

Do lip plumpers work for anything other than keeping you entertained while you're on drugs?

They sort of work. Basically with a lip plumper like Lip Venom or Lip Injection, you're putting an irritant on your lips. Put an irritant anywhere on your skin and that part of you is going to sting, puff up, and get red. The lips are a really delicate, sensitive area, too, so something that might not irritate the rest of you will probably irritate that area. If you are not looking for entertainment while on drugs or in the middle of a photo shoot, I really don't see why you'd subject yourself to this. They don't sting that badly, although sometimes when I show people the Too Faced Lip Injection, they start freaking out and moaning and writhing in pain. These people being ridiculous. If that is what they think pain feels like, I'm glad I'm not their doctor. But the real question to ask yourself when it comes to lip plumpers is, "would I put this on my inner labia?" If the answer is no, it probably shouldn't go on your face lips either. Even so, as far as I know, there are no known cases of anyone not surviving a lip plumper. It's not really doing anything permanent or profound, don't let the nine layers of fancy packaging fool you. It just kind of tingles.

Bare Escentuals: miracle product or a gimmick?

Bare Minerals is Bare Escentual's star product. It's basically a foundation in powder form that claims to be so good for your skin that you can sleep in it. The thing I do like about it is that there are only five totally straightforward ingredients. It's mostly titanium dioxide, which is an ingredient you find in a lot of sunscreens. This is good because it provides some sun coverage, but the bad news is that lots of people are allergic to this ingredient. If you have an allergy, you'll break out in hives either right away or after prolonged use. Titanium dioxide is all well and good as far as I'm concerned, but Bare Minerals also has something called bismuth oxycloride which can trigger serious cystic acne in people who are allergic to it. Not so cool. Also not so cool is the fact that between the bismuth oxychloride and the mica, it is some disco shit. Which is awesome if you are eighteen, but for everyone else, the shimmer will accentuate large pores, wrinkles, acne, dry patches... whatever is wrong with your face, Bare Minerals will somehow manage to highlight. This stuff gets all up in my crow's feet and makes them look worse. Also embarrassing is that this was originally a QVC product. They also have really corny mall stores. I hear it works wonders for some people, but between the infomercials and the mall stores, I have to wonder if the lights in Applebee's are not maybe sort of forgiving. We sell a ton of this at Sephora. The starter kit is a really good deal and everyone usually buys that. You get two different shades of foundation, concealer, mineral veil which is basically powder even though all of it is powder, a priming lotion, and all of the brushes you need. Can you sleep in it? Why would you sleep in it when they make Rare Minerals is ridiculous. I mean, it's sort of awesome in that it is makeup that is also a night treatment. It's supposed to make you pretty while you sleep. I can see this being a lifesaver for girls who haven't gotten laid since the year 2000 because their skin is so bad that they don't want the guy to see them without their makeup on, yet are equally unwilling to go to bed without washing their face. It has decent coverage, too. It's makeup. I don't know if it works, I'm kind of scared of it. Every fiber in my being says that sleeping in makeup is wrong, and that it is even more wrong to put makeup on specifically for sleeping in.

Can Little Rock, Arkansas please have a Sephora store?

Well, way back right after they hired me, there was this big meeting when they asked all of the $11 an hour sales assistants (but not the lowly $9 an hour sales assistants) what we, personally, thought about the terrible conundrum of Little Rock. I tried to fight for you guys, really I did, but eventually the president told us that he felt that Little Rock was "beyond our services" in the beauty department. I had a free panini in one hand and the spigot on a box of Franzia pushed down with two of my other fingers. Who was I to make an issue?

I'm getting married soon and I'm so not a "makeup" chick. What kind of foundation looks the best in pictures taken outside?

Cargo cosmetics carries a product called Blu-Ray High Definition that is specifically meant for people whose pictures are being taken. I think the clever concept behind that name it is that it'll make you look good enough for high definition TV, which obviously magnifies every little imperfection and flaw and can sometimes be less than pretty for that reason. This product is a little kit for $59 that includes powder, blush/highlighter stuff, lip gloss, a mattifying primer, and mascara. Now, how mascara can be considered "high definition" in a sense beyond it separating your eyelashes is beyond me, but yeah, it's in there. The lip gloss is whatever. But the face products make a little more sense to me. They come in one color that supposedly works on everyone. The idea is that you use your own foundation between the primer and powder, and the blush is something that works for everyone. The fact that it's a whole kit is good for non-makeup-people, and also people who are buying makeup for a specific event during which they'll be photographed. As far as foundation goes, if you use this stuff along with your usual foundation, it should be fine. This stuff is pretty heavy-duty.

I'm Black, and I have what I guess is considered "typical" skin for Black people: oily, with blackheads and large pores. What should I use? How often should I wash my skin? Should I use moisturizer?

If you walked into Sephora, I'd try to sell you on the Shu Uemura Skin Purifier High Performance Balancing Cleansing Oil. Five ounces for $28. Basically the idea is that oil repels oil, so if you're oily and wash your face with more oil, it encourages your skin to find a balance. A lot of oily skinned people try to dry their skin out, which kind of makes their face think that it needs to produce more oil to compensate. Using an oil cleanser is one of way of making sure that doesn't happen. This alone could have a really dramatically good effect. Also, cleansing oils are good because they require you to massage it in, something that's really good for your face. Of course, since I'm not on the clock at the moment, I can tell you that you can do the same thing on the cheap with products you can find in the drugstore. Check out this website for the Oil Cleansing Method. The site recommends that you only do it once, at night, and since it involves oils anyway, there's no need for a moisturizer. Bare Minerals actually has an SPF 15, and it's great for oilier skin, so if you wear makeup during the day, that's a good way of killing two birds with one stone.

What other techniques have you thought about trying in your quest to achieve perfect skin?

I'm really interested in high colonics right now. I spent a whole day last week calling places up and asking them questions until they were about to hang up on me. A high colonic is when they pump your ass full of water, or water mixed with other substances, in order to clean your colon out. Apparently sometimes they find things you swallowed as a child, like pennies, rings, buttons, things like that. So what I wanted to know was, if you find a ring, can I keep it? Can I just keep my old poop if I feel like it? Cause you don't have to go digging through it if you don't want to, I'll do that part, but if I swallowed a ring as a child I probably want that back. Also I asked what I should eat first, and they said no meat or dairy for 24 hours beforehand. And I wanted to know if it hurts. Like fifty times, I asked that, and every single place assured me that it didn't. The one place said that all the poopy stuff goes through this tube and you can watch it come out, like poop TV. I asked them if I could do it every week, or if I should wait for something to build up, because, you know, they like to do a series of them. I'm not sure if that's a rip-off tactic or not but that's what all of them tell you. Anyway, it's supposed to be really good for detoxing your skin. If you are suddenly able to digest better, your liver isn't working so hard and your epithelial system isn't bearing the brunt of your bad habits. I can see how that works. Mostly, though, it's just something to do and I want to see what happens. A technician stands there and massages your stomach and whispers sweet nothings in your ear as your colon is irrigated. Do you think they get tipped? If anyone knows a precedent for that, please tell me. I would seriously hate to stiff a colon irrigation technician for a tip. It's poop. If they generally get tipped, I want to tip well.

Earlier: How I Conquered My Cystic Acne In Just 17 Painful Steps
I Work Here To Feed My Sick Fancy Product Addiction, The Least I Can Do Is Help You
Meet Jasmine, Our Undercover Sephora Agent