Neiman Marcus Shopping Spree!

I won a $500 beauty shopping spree at Neiman Marcus thanks to Charleston Girl at Best Things in Beauty and of course NM!  I was breathless for hours after I found out.  NM gave readers of Charlestongirl's blog, Best Things in Beauty, the cute gift below, and entered us in the shopping spree drawing.  The keyring's adorable, and I will use my notebook to catagorize lipsticks and glosses a la Twisted Knitter.

I had so much fun this afternoon! I picked out a Tom Ford lipstick first, then headed straight for Le Metier de Beaute as soon as Lisa, the Le Metier representative, was free. She gave me one best makeovers ever. She's a doll! She used LM's Peau de Vierge Anti-Aging Complexe, followed by foundation and blush, then one of their new lipglosses. I was little doubtful about the Anti-Aging Complexe, but I loved the glow it gave me, so I bought everything as you can see below. I think Annalisa, from NM Public Relations and who escorted me throughout the department, may go back for a few LM items herself - and we will find the perfect red for you!

From left to right: Le Metier foundation, Peau de Vierge Anti-Aging Complexe in the tall silver cylinder, LM lipgloss "La Belle," LM Face Kaleidoscope, LM foundation brush, YSL Faux Cil Noir Radical mascara, Chanel eyeshadow in "Khaki Vert," Tom Ford lipstick in "Warm Sable," Chanel Rouge Allure Extrait de Gloss "Impertinence" a mauvy pink, and in the back, the ultimate extravagance, Chanel Le Coton.

I will begin blogging these items with swatches soon.

Thanks again to Charlestongirl, NM, Lisa, and AnnaLisa who with great patience sweetly helped me gather my gifts this afternoon.  I had blast!

I Forgot My Slacks, or Shopping in Moscow

I tried them on, folded them up and laid them on my bed instead of packing them. When I was dressing for our Monday morning meetings, I realized that I only had a black skirt and the black jeans I traveled in. My trip was only a week but still. I needed slacks since it was getting chilly. My friends Natasha and Valeriy were taking me to dinner that evening so also kindly took me to buy slacks at Evropeiskiy Mall.

Natasha and me outside Evropeiskiy Mall

photo by Valeriy aka "SnowHo!"

Wow! Evropeiskiy Mall is across the street from Kievsky Voksal, near the Radisson Hotel, for those of you who know Moscow. I had heard about the shopping possibilities that had cropped up since my visit in 2000, but if you remember like I do the Brezhnev era in the '70s when people risked entanglement with the police just to buy your blue jeans, this was really something to see. In ultra-modern Moscow today, you can get anything you want if you have the money. I bought my slacks at the British-owned Marks and Spencer, quite an out of body experience.

This fully-stocked grocery store, Cedmoi Kontinent (Seventh Continent) was a treat too. There are many of these grocery stores in Moscow and other major Russian cities. I visited the one at Smolenskaya Metro station across the street from my hotel. I like cruising grocery stores. We all have our idiocyncrasies! I spend hours at my Whole Foods looking at the new products. I got as many pix as I could before one of the managers kindly told me to stop.

Love the inclined moving sidewalk from the basement to the first floor. And the Christian Lacroix Evian water. I didn't get pix of the huge cheese, butcher, and liquor, or water sections, the coffee bar or the sushi bar. (There were sushi bars all over town too.)

Smolenskaya Station