“Lindsay Lohan wears lip gloss a little outside her lips, and I thought it was gross, like you ate fried chicken, but her lips always look cute.” - Chloë Sevigny, in the latest Allure magazine.

Some other interesting tidbits from the mag …

Botox may not just wipe that frown from your face – it could actually make you happy in a more than skin-deep way. Allure reports that doctors have noticed that “patients who are less able to frown or scowl often report an improvement in their mood.”

Who would have thought the term love apple is not really as lovely as it sounds? In Elizabethan times, a woman used to pop an apple under each armpit, wait until they got saturated in sweat, then give them to her lover as love apples – or a token of her affection. Sweet, in a very revolting way.

Coffee is the latest it ingredient. There’s talk that caffeine-laced creams could help calm rosacea; while CoffeeBerry (the berry from the coffee plant that is usually discarded in the coffee bean picking process) is being raved about as the best antioxidant yet.

And, speaking of coffee, covergirl Sarah Jessica Parker sips hers through a straw. Which would be one way of keeping those pearly whites of hers so pearly (the other, of course, is every celebrity’s friend: Photoshop). Not to mention a way to keep your new fried-chicken lips in place.

When Holly Golightly had the mean reds, she went to Tiffany & Co (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, rent Breakfast at Tiffany’s at once). Me, I go to a Macro Wholefoods, my local organic supermarket. It’s not like I’m terribly herbal or anything. Okay, maybe just a little. But it’s simply the one store that makes me feel that everything is okay in the world.

What I’ve come to learn lately is that, next to your family of course, there’s nothing more important than your health. I pledged to eat only organic about a year ago. I was a bit worried at first that 1) it would send me broke and 2) it would actually make me eat more – the no-guilt factor meaning that I would somehow justify bigger servings and more snacks. And yes, I definitely do eat more these days than I used to. Dark chocolate especially. But nicely-surprisingly, I haven’t put on any extra weight this whole time. As for the cost issue, yes organic can be expensive, but I can honestly say that it’s worth it. I’ve never felt healthier, and my skin has never had to wear as little makeup as it now does. I kind of also bundle up my organic food costs with my charity costs. I believe in the industry and the good it’s doing for the environment, so I don’t mind paying a little more to support it.

I bring this all up, because I was wandering around Macro this morning, after hearing some particularly devastating news, looking for some comfort food. And what I found, I need to share. I came across this Bumble Bar, a 45g slab of sesame seeds, flax seeds, nuts and other healthy stuff. It’s totally organic, dairy- and gluten-free, and full of essential fatty acids, calcium, iron, copper, to name a few. And, even better, there are only 844 kilojoules for all that goodness. Oh, and it’s delicious. And if that doesn’t get you, I’ve also read that it’s one of supermodel Karolina Kurkova’s favourite pre-catwalk snacks.

It has often been said that in tough economic times, hemlines go down (although, as Marina Rust points out in the latest US Vogue, this is strange, seeing as you’d think more fabric would equal higher cost) but lipstick sales say solid. And then there’s another minor economic theory that goes even further. It’s called the Lipstick Index and it claims that lippie sales actually go up when the economy hits rock-bottom. It certainly held true for the 1930s, when glamorous red lipstick completely ignored the fact that there was, oh, a stockmarket disaster going on and a world war about to happen.

But these days, I’m not so sure. Despite all the ‘Lipstick is Back!’ claims and coverlines, nobody really wears that much of the stuff anymore – whether times are good or bad. Maybe it should be the Juicy Tubes Index – that little number seems to just keep selling no matter what sub-prime-this or interest-rates-that are happening.

But after reading recently that the average Sydney woman spends $125,000 on her hair in a lifetime, I’m now more of the mind that it’s actually haircare that is now recession-proof.

Yes, let me just repeat: $125,000. I. Know. Oh. My. Goodness. I can’t help but feel partly responsible, peddling all the hair products and advice that I do. Although surely some of those salons are to blame, with their ridiculous $300+ haircut prices.

In America at least, the original land of the $300 hairdo (and the same again in tips to every single person working at the salon), there may be a backlash underway. Because - back to Marina Rust’s article, ‘The Dark Side’ - while the current brunette catwalk trend is about looking luxurious, for some clients it’s for financial reasons – i.e, going back to brunette, or at least looking less blonde, means you can extend your time between salon visits.

Which I can vouch for. At my last salon colour session, I had lowlights put in, part of my transition towards the dark side (I am the first one to admit that I get completely sucked in to that beauty cliché about brunettes being more luxe and sophisticated and glossy). And my regrowth is looking far less obvious than it usually does at this stage in the colour cycle, so I can probably push back my next colour session a good few weeks. It may not quite be the difference between my beat up old Corolla and a convertible Porsche, but it could just be all the ammo I need to justify that Prius that I have my eye on.

Get those lips ready for their close up…

Find the Balm for You: There are a million lip balm mixes on the market, and finding the one that’s right for you requires a little trial and error. Many balms and ointments are based on petrolatum, a slightly controversial ingredient. Proponents say it enhances it works as a protective shield, preventing moisture loss. Others insist that, because the lips don’t have their own moisture system, balms are better off containing ingredients that infuse moisture in – say, lanolin, butters, waxes and oils. (more…)

Not sure if you’re ready to return to matte lipstick? An easy way to try out the trend is to simply dust a little translucent powder over your regular lipstick. It will take down shine a few notches, without creating that cakey or drying feeling that so many matte-finish lippies leave you with.