From Publishers Weekly
Model Emme (True Beauty), the host of a cable TV show and designer of a clothing line, delivers a lightweight, bouncy self-help guide with the assistance of journalist pal Stoynoff. Drawing on a variety of experts such as yoga teacher Mauri Ploppo, fashion stylist Jennifer Crawford and financial consultant Gregory Prato, the authors offer an "on-the-go-girl's guide to solving pesky problems in a fun and female-friendly way." The minor emergencies, which are described through examples and personal anecdotes, range from how to give an impromptu party to ways of avoiding max-out credit cards, and from what music to play to get in the mood to how to solve fashion dilemmas by paying strict attention to body size. Although Emme feels strongly that women should accept their own shape, and is opposed to dieting in pursuit of thinness, she does encourage healthy eating and regular exercise. The book vacillates from the frivolous, exemplified by a strong admonition never to wear silver and gold jewelry together, to the more serious, such as a discussion of the importance of spiritual nourishment. Each chapter is designed like an article in a women's magazine and is classic beach or airline reading.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Take off your shoes, curl up on the sofa, grab your favorite drink, let down your hair, and get ready for some straight-from-the-heart girl talk from Emme!
In this frank, practical, and hilarious guide to getting through life's everyday emergencies, Emme is your navigator. Her insider’s eye and priceless connections will help you solve the dilemmas that come your way—no matter what! Whether it’s what to wear on that all-important first date (or totally crucial first interview), or how to throw an unforgettable party, or what to take with you on that impromptu getaway with the perfect guy, Emme comes to the rescue! And she calls on some of the smartest women around for “been there, done that” advice—women like Naomi Wolf, Aida Turturro, Trisha Yearwood, and Camryn Manheim. Each section is jam-packed with useful tips and strategies to help you get through things that might otherwise throw you for a loop.
To solve your Beauty Emergencies, you will learn:
- Secrets from make-up artist Bobbi Brown
- The best body products you've never heard of
Knock out your Fashion Emergencies with tips on
- How to camouflage any figure flaw
- What to wear to make a knockout first impression
Find solutions to Romance Emergencies with
- Breakthrough methods for handling tough holidays from expert psychologists
- How to keep your friends close and circle the wagons
And avoid Lifestyle Emergencies with
- Party secrets from celebrity chefs and party planners
- How to create the perfect living environment
And much, much more!
Life's Little Emergencies is the perfect companion for any woman driving along life’s bumpy roads.
In this frank, practical, and hilarious guide to getting through life's everyday emergencies, Emme is your navigator. Her insider’s eye and priceless connections will help you solve the dilemmas that come your way—no matter what! Whether it’s what to wear on that all-important first date (or totally crucial first interview), or how to throw an unforgettable party, or what to take with you on that impromptu getaway with the perfect guy, Emme comes to the rescue! And she calls on some of the smartest women around for “been there, done that” advice—women like Naomi Wolf, Aida Turturro, Trisha Yearwood, and Camryn Manheim. Each section is jam-packed with useful tips and strategies to help you get through things that might otherwise throw you for a loop.
To solve your Beauty Emergencies, you will learn:
- Secrets from make-up artist Bobbi Brown
- The best body products you've never heard of
Knock out your Fashion Emergencies with tips on
- How to camouflage any figure flaw
- What to wear to make a knockout first impression
Find solutions to Romance Emergencies with
- Breakthrough methods for handling tough holidays from expert psychologists
- How to keep your friends close and circle the wagons
And avoid Lifestyle Emergencies with
- Party secrets from celebrity chefs and party planners
- How to create the perfect living environment
And much, much more!
Life's Little Emergencies is the perfect companion for any woman driving along life’s bumpy roads.
About the Author
Emme, an entrepreneur, is the host of "Fashion Emergency," a clothing designer, a supermodel, a vocal women’s advocate, and a mom. She lives with her family in New Jersey.
Natasha Stoynoff is New York correspondent for People Magazine. She lives in Manhattan and is currently at work on her third book.
Natasha Stoynoff is New York correspondent for People Magazine. She lives in Manhattan and is currently at work on her third book.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Life's Little Emergencies
1
beauty emergency!
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
JOHN KEATSWow. Now that's a mouthful. To hear the poets tell it, beauty is this unreachable, all-consuming, mindboggling panacea to which we all aspire ... but fall woefully short. Me? I ascribe to the simpler, grassroots, Forrest Gump school of philosophy: Beauty is as beauty does.
To me the word beauty covers a vast, colorful spectrum. It can be the smile my daughter gives me when I least expect it. It can be the bare nape of a woman's neck when her hair is twisted up and tiny tendrils fall softly. It can be a pair of men's strong hands in motion--veins popping. It can be a rose blooming. I see beauty everywhere I look and sometimes in the oddest places.
My mom taught me that beauty is simplicity. There was nothing overdone or forced when she "made" herself beautiful every morning before work or at night before a party. She put on a dab of color here, a spritz of scent there, and a lot of charm. She showed me that each person is attractive in her or his own way and praised people's unique physical qualities--a warm speakingvoice; a rosy complexion; a great smile. It wasn't about looking like someone else, I learned, it was about appreciating what you have and who you are.
Even in the modeling world, where "beauty" can be a changeable, unattainable ideal, the models I know understand the ultimate, constant beauty secret that never goes out of style: confidence. And then, for polish, they trade about a zillion makeup, hair, and skin tips for the outside of the package. Because there's nothing wrong with a little plucking and pruning. If putting on a bit of mascara or curling your hair or giving yourself a facial makes you feel good about yourself, why not? If you feel beautiful, you are beautiful.
And why not be proud of it? In the past, when people told me I looked great, I'd feel a little uncomfortable and I'd say, "Oh thanks, I just lost some weight," or "Yeah, I just bought this dress."I'd make excuses or apologies and my appraiser would look deflated like I just shoved a gift back into her face. I don't do that anymore. Now I say,"Thank you!"--and I mean it!
WISE WOMAN
Cheryl Tiegs, supermodel
Beauty Is Growth
To say that beauty comes from within us is a cliché, but it's true. If you keep yourself happy it shows on your face. When I started out in New York as a young model, my agent said to me, "The key to beauty is to always learn and grow and educate yourself and have new experiences." I never forgot that. When you are learning something new or experiencing adventures for the first time it brings excitement to your eyes, to your face, to your whole being. Once when I was going through a troubled time, a therapist told me, "Cheryl, take up a new hobby ... take up needlepoint ... plant a rose garden ... do something you've never done before." You start off wobbly at first but soon you get good at it and it makes you feel so great. Keep exploring. It brings a contentedness to you and helps with self-esteem. And that's what makes you "beautiful."
About Face!
Natasha's cool friend, Rachel, who wears only red and black, is obsessed with finding the perfect red lipstick. She has at least twenty tubes in shades of scarlet, crimson, ruby, burgundy, and cherry in her purse at any one time.
My beauty obsession is of a more architectural nature.
Yes, okay, anybody who knows me already knows this: I have an eyebrow fetish. I admit it. It's almost as bad as my shoe fetish.
Tweezerman tweezers are God!
And it just so happens that Natasha has those bushy, Slavic eyebrows that are tough to tame so we're kind of eyebrow codependent on each other. She hates to pluck. I live to pluck! At my annual summer barbecue last year, I noticed she was overdue for a little pruning. I beckoned her over to the grassy knoll in the backyard, took out my instrument of torture (I never leave home without it, even if I'm only going to the backyard), and pointed to the grass.
"Here?" she asked.
"Here," I answered sternly. My tweezer finger was itchy.
Hiking up my blue-jean skirt, I crouched over Natasha as she lay on her back on the grass and I plucked, plucked, plucked. It was cause for small alarm among my party guests who thought Natasha was having some sort of attack, she was yelping a bit (I would have put on some baby-teething stuff first to numb the area but hadn't had Toby yet to know what a lifesaver Oragel is to numb pain), or that I was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"Okay, okay, show's over, folks," Natasha said finally, as she got up and smoothed her fingers over her newly smooth and tamed brows.
Well, it was an emergency as I saw it. Natasha's brows were criminally out of control; and it was my job to subdue them!
I can't help myself. After you've sat in the chair of some of the world's most famous makeup artists, you learn a thing or two about the tweezing, contouring, and tinting of the female face and you want to try what you've learned on your girlfriends.
For example, my friend, makeup artist Maria Verel, who has worked on such beautiful faces as Diana Drall, Diane Sawyer, and Nora Ephron, taught me these all-important tweezing "never" tips that have made me mistress of the tweezers in my peer group:
Never tweeze when you're angry or bored.
Never take too much at one time; go for a few hairs at a time and step away from the mirror.
Never oversnip with scissors or hairs will look stubby and harsh.
Never forget symmetry.
Never tweeze from the top.
Never shave your eyebrows.
The thin arch is over so don't go there.
But I didn't learn everything at once. My education in primping was a slow process. Don't forget, I'm a tomboy at heart.
For the longest time, I was guilty of making the number-one mistake a makeup novice is guilty of: TOO MUCH. I used to pile it on, layer after layer, before a modeling shoot. As an athlete who was forever in the water or at the gym, I was so used to being barefaced that when I finally got my fingers into those colored pots and lipsticks and powders, I went a little girl crazy. At my early modeling shoots, I'd arrive with my face already painted to the max.
"There's just too much of it," the makeup artists would tsk, tsk, tsk, over and over again, as they wiped and sponged and powdered it off.
"Where?" I'd ask.
"Um, all over the place."
Time after time, makeup artists would tell me: "If you're wearing a strong lip color, go light on the eye makeup and vice versa. Make one part of the face the focal point."
My friend Maria would drill that one home to me: "When you wear bright red lipstick, it stands out like a fine piece of jewelry. Your lips will shine more brilliantly if they don't have to compete for attention with other intensely made-up features."
So heed these words of wisdom: LESS IS MORE.
Here are some of her emergency tips:
MARIA SAYS ...
To make eyes wider: Always curl your lashes before putting on mascara; it makes your eyes appear bigger and brighter, which automatically narrows your face.
To open your eyes: Curl the lashes, color in between the lash roots with a soft eyeliner pencil, then apply a lot of mascara. Only do this to the top lashes because doing the bottom too will be overkill.
To cover zits: Use allergy eye drops that you can buy from a drugstore to take the redness out of a blemish. Dab a few drops on the spot, or hold a piece of cotton saturated with the drops on the pimple for two minutes, then allow the area to dry. Top with a thin layer of concealer and set with translucent powder.
To keep lipstick off your teeth: Line and fill lips with a lip pencil that matches your lipstick. Next, apply lipstick over the liner but avoid the inner edges of your lips--that's the trouble zone. Then blot lips with a tissue and apply a color sealer to set your lipstick until you wash it off. TryBeneFit She Laq ($24) or Lip Last by English Ideas Cosmetics ($18). If your lips are chapped, however, you might find a sealer drying, so use a lip stain that blots on like ink and top it with a gloss for extra shine. Try Stila Lip Rouge ($26) with Prestige Aromatherapy Lipgloss in clear ($2.95).
To save money on products: Buy from the drugstore! I've been using drugstore makeup forever. They perform equally as well as department-store brands. In fact, many are made in the same factories. Read labels for ingredients, noting those first in the list are the highest concentrations. Sometimes all that differs is the fragrance added (or not added), and/or the packaging.
Open the door again to the Avon Lady! Seriously, their products are great and so are their prices. Take a closer look. Their performance is on par with the leading brands. So when Avon comes calling, answer the door!
Some of Maria's Favorite Drugstore Items:
Wet 'n' Wild #666 lip pencil
L'Oreal Colour Riche lipstick in Tawny and Cornsilk Classic Translucent Powder
Maybelline Illegal Lengths Mascara
TAKE NOTE: Out in the sun a lot? I concocted a great makeup/sunscreen potion that makes you look great and protects you from the rays. My friend, makeup artist Fran Cooper, was testing a variety of makeup bases under the spray of a s...
