Beauty Products

For many Southern Californians, summer is the season for beaches, chaise longues and the quest for the perfect tan. Not for Margaret Qiu. She and thousands of other Asian American women are going to great lengths to avoid the sun -- fighting to preserve or enhance their pale complexions with expensive creams, masks, gloves, professional face scrubs and medical procedures.

This post has been corrected. See note below for details. Renée Taylor is a very funny lady known for such comedic roles as Eva Braun in Mel Brooks' 1968 classic "The Producers," Fran Drescher's ultimate Jewish mother on "The Nanny" and Brian Benben's ultimate Jewish mother on HBO's "Dream On. " But her career didn't start out that way. FOR THE RECORD: Renee Taylor: A profile of actress Renee Taylor in the March 27...

Fred Segal Essentials in Santa Monica stocks 75 brands of luxury soap from around the world, including Annick Goutal of Paris and Italy's Midani Erbe. But it's a funky, fragrant soap made by tiny Primal Elements Inc. in Garden Grove that leaves much of the competition in suds.

Question: My husband and I will be traveling abroad for several weeks. We plan to pack lightly so that we do not have to check luggage. However, we will need more toiletries than we can carry on our planes so we are thinking about shipping them ahead. Can you give us any advice? Patricia Koch Long Beach Answer: Because of the cost of luggage services, I would ordinarily recommend sending toiletries (which Koch said couldn't be bought at the destination) by a known entity, such as the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, FedEx and DHL. Jami Counter, senior director of TripAdvisor Flights, agrees.

It's never been easier to feel like a natural woman. The 1960s mantra about getting ourselves back to the garden now applies to an increasing number of beauty products, with some small companies literally going to the garden and farm to bring customers fresh, natural, pure and organic ingredients in their hair- and skin-care items. These products provide an alternative to more mainstream offerings, which over the last half-century have become increasingly laden with synthetics that some would rather avoid.

Question: My husband and I will be traveling abroad for several weeks. We plan to pack lightly so that we do not have to check luggage. However, we will need more toiletries than we can carry on our planes so we are thinking about shipping them ahead. Can you give us any advice? Patricia Koch Long Beach Answer: Because of the cost of luggage services, I would ordinarily recommend sending toiletries (which Koch said couldn't be bought at the destination) by a known entity, such as the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, FedEx and DHL. Jami Counter, senior director of TripAdvisor Flights, agrees.

Vera Brown, a skin care specialist with a star-studded clientele who sponsored beauty clinics for thousands of blind teens, delinquent girls, homeless women and cancer patients in Los Angeles, died Sept. 24 at her Westwood home. She was 90 and had been in poor health for the last year, said her daughter, Angela. For more than 25 years, Brown operated two luxurious spas ? Vera's Retreat in Tarzana and Vera's Retreat in the Glen in Bel-Air ? with a client list that included such celebrities as Chris Evert, Whitney Houston, Nicole Kidman and Jane Seymour.

Thanks to the Internet, you no longer need to trek to the far corners of the world to find the latest beauty balms. However, even in today's global market, some products are hard to get online. If you're planning a trip to any of these five cities, bring home the following beauty must-haves. Just keep the products in their original containers and remember to declare them at customs. Beirut Beesline: This affordable collection of skin, hair and body products is sold in pharmacies.

Beauty lovers, there's a whole world out there of websites brimming with pretty little pots, palettes, creams and bottles of fragrant concoctions. Sure, the mega-beauty websites – Sephora.com, Beauty.com, Ulta.com — have a wealth of products to choose from. But sometimes you're in a mood for something more akin to a boutique than a mega mall. Passionate about hard to find fragrances? Check out Luckyscent.com. Inconsolable because your favorite lipstick color was discontinued?

All new beauty products are not created equal, so the Cosmetic Executive Women's organization sifted through the latest offerings to select the year's best and most innovative products for the group's annual Beauty Awards. Products honored include: * Neutrogena's Fresh Body Herbal Body Wash, best new bath or body treatment product. * Jane Cosmetics' MegaBites FlavorFull Lipstick, best new cosmetic product. * Avon's Anew Luminosity Brightening Complex, best new facial skin care product.

It's a notion ingrained early: September, the start of the traditional school year, is a time to start over. For the nonstudent, that may mean cleaning out your closets, enrolling in an exercise class or recommitting to New Year's resolutions. It's also a good time to review your beauty routines. You should always get rid of products that are past their expiration dates, of course. And we checked with some experts about what else to toss, keep and add this season. Makeup Tim Quinn , national director of creative artistry, Giorgio Armani Beauty Toss Heavy powder and heavy oil-based foundations: "With most of the new foundations and new technology, you don't even need a powder … this whole idea of setting your makeup is almost obsolete.

Mindy Kaling and about half the cast of NBC's "The Office"  - where she gained fame playing Kelly Kapoor - stepped out to celebrate her new show, "The Mindy Project," Saturday night at Skybar. Guests including Ellie Kemper, B.J. Novak, Angela Kinsey, Hilary Duff and John Mayer were spotted mingling and toasting with bright pink-and-yellow Vitaminwater cocktails. The new series, which premieres Sept. 25 on Fox, follows the adventures of Dr. Mindy Lahiri (played by Kaling), a romcom-obsessed OB/GYN searching for love.

It's never been easier to feel like a natural woman. The 1960s mantra about getting ourselves back to the garden now applies to an increasing number of beauty products, with some small companies literally going to the garden and farm to bring customers fresh, natural, pure and organic ingredients in their hair- and skin-care items. These products provide an alternative to more mainstream offerings, which over the last half-century have become increasingly laden with synthetics that some would rather avoid.

There'll be no lipstick-sharing -- yet -- between Rimmel owner Coty Inc. and Avon Products Inc. after Avon rejected Coty's $10-billion cash bid Monday. Coty's attempt to buy Avon at $23.25 a share (a 20% premium over the Friday closing price) was both public and unsolicited. In a snippy note on its website , Avon said the offer "is opportunistic and not in the best interest of Avon's shareholders. " Coty had made another, private overture less than two weeks earlier "that was substantially the same," according to the note.

There'll be no lipstick-sharing - yet - between Rimmel owner Coty Inc. and Avon Products Inc. after Avon rejected Coty's $10 billion cash bid Monday. Coty's attempt to buy Avon at $23.25 a share (a 20% premium over the Friday closing price) was both public and unsolicited. In a snippy note on its website, Avon said the offer “is opportunistic and not in the best interest of Avon's shareholders.” Coty had also made another, private overture less than two weeks earlier “that was substantially the same,” according to the note.

--2012 is the year of the color orange. Or to be more precise, it's the year of "Tangerine Tango," which the Pantone Color Institute dubbed the dominant hue of 2012. The institute, a research arm of color-matching firm Pantone Inc., forecasts the most popular color each year by pondering factors such as news events, pop culture, designer shows and consumer trends, according to the Associated Press. This year, apparently, Tangerine Tango will reign. "There's the element of encouragement with orange, it's building on the ideas of courage and action, that we want to move on to better things," Leatrice Eiseman, the institute's executive director, told the AP. "I think it would be a disservice to go with a relaxed, soothing color now. " --Glamour magazine is testing a barcode-enabled shopping wall to empower smartphone owners to buy beauty products on the go. The wall, set up in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, features photos of items from Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Clearasil and other brands.

Tupperware Corp. said it will acquire BeautiControl Inc., a direct seller of beauty and nutritional products, marking the company's first venture beyond its core business of food-storage containers and kitchen wares. Tupperware agreed to pay $60 million in cash, or $7 a share, for Carrollton, Texas-based BeautiControl. Shares of BeautiControl were halted at $3.75 on Nasdaq. Tupperware made the announcement after markets closed. Its shares closed off 19 cents at $19.94 on the NYSE.

Bernice Lavin, 81, who co-founded the beauty products business Alberto-Culver Co. with her husband, died Monday at her home in Glencoe, Ill., after a long illness, company officials said. In 1955, Lavin and her husband, Leonard, a salesman, purchased a Los Angeles beauty supply company, discontinuing most of its products to focus on the Alberto VO5 Conditioning Hairdressing line.

Elmer Goris spent a year working in an Amazon.com warehouse, where books, CDs and other products are packed and shipped to customers who order from the world's largest online retailer. The 34-year-old said he quit in July because he was frustrated with the heat and demands that he work mandatory overtime. Working conditions at the warehouse near Allentown, Pa., got worse earlier this year, especially during summer heat waves when temperatures in the warehouse soared above 100 degrees, he said.

Much has been made this year about the behemoth baby boom generation reaching retirement age. But another significant milestone is slipping past a bit more quietly yet with noticeable impact. The first wave of Gen-Xers has rounded 40, and they are changing the face of what it means to be middle-aged. Women of this generation - think Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie - are pushing waifish teens off magazine covers, starring in movies, inspiring cosmetics and fragrances, wearing bikinis at the beach and minis to the mall.