“Embellished and dramatic makeup just feels right at this moment,” said Rachel Goodwin, a celebrity makeup artist for Chanel. “It’s like a science fiction movie, a Stanley Kubrick thing.”

Or maybe it’s dreams of snow encouraging us to embrace our inner Ziggy Stardusts and experiment with gluing on crystalline rhinestones, crystals and sequins or thickly swiping glittery eye shadow. Read more.

Maybe not, but cleansing, which once attracted only anorexics and wheatgrass zealots, is the new national dietary obsession. According to the research firm Mintel International, the number of food and drink products that claim to detoxify the body has grown nearly fourfold since 2003. Most cleanses are liquid fasts (liquids of choice vary from cashew milk to pressed vegetables to the Master Cleanse’s mix of maple syrup, lemon, and cayenne pepper) and typically run from three to five days. Read more.

“They said: ‘What is this thing? It’s not a perfume. It’s a flavor. It’s awful,’ ” said Pierre Aulas, now the olfactive artistic director of Thierry Mugler, who worked for another company at the time but was in the room. “They were all saying, ‘Oh, I’m sure it will be on the market six months.’ ”

Today, Angel, a heavy dose of patchouli with a candy center that conjures an image of Janis Joplin holding a lollipop, is the fifth best-selling scent in the United States, according to the NPD Group, the market research company. Read more.

Cole, a spinning instructor, wasn’t insulted by the comparison. Her long, dark locks had been styled, with a giant curling iron that Rossi called “the big boy,” into loose curls that resmbled Gisele’s. It was a combination of the “Cosmopolitan” and the “Mai Tai,” two of the six looks offered by the salon.

Drybar offers only one service: having someone else wash and dry your hair. Its slogan is “No cuts. No color. Just blowouts.” Read more.

To women who obsess over and excessively pluck their brows, tough talk is sometimes necessary. Ms. Madron, 39, who charges $85 for a shaping done with tweezers — perhaps setting a new threshold for the service, as Sally Hershberger did before her with haircuts — acts as a coach through the gantlet of overplucking and waxing. When asked if she ever lets clients tweeze on their own between visits, Ms. Madron said, “If they can be trusted, I tell them ‘O.K., but don’t do the top or anywhere near the line.’ ”

“For most people,” she said, “self-shaping is a bad idea.” Read more.

She later dropped by Tumblr’s Gramercy Park offices in New York, where Mr. Tong introduced her to Jamie Beck, a fashion photographer with her own Tumblr blog, fromme-toyou.tumblr.com. The two set up a photo shoot. Mr. Tong asked Oscar de la Renta, one of the first luxury fashion brands to have a Tumblr, OscarPRGirl.tumblr.com, to provide the gowns.

The resulting photographs, animated images that Ms. Beck calls “cinemagraphs,” featured an elegant Ms. Rocha in her New York apartment flicking her kohl-lined eyes or letting a balcony breeze tousle her hair. They were posted on Ms. Rocha’s blog, oh-so-coco.tumblr.com, reblogged or “liked” about 40,000 times, and viewed countless times by fashion fans around the world. Read more.

CNET reported that what was possibly a model of Apple’s newest phone, the iPhone 5, was left at Cava 22 by an Apple employee in late July, sending Apple security rushing to recover it. Cava 22 owner Jose Valle recalled a man calling several times during that period inquiring about a lost iPhone.

“This is definitely the kind of bar where someone would get drunk and forget their s*** at,” said Peter Thompson, 25, who works in retail and was drinking Tecate at Cava 22 Wednesday night. “It happens all of the time. That’s what you come to the Mission for.” Read more.

Bobbi Parker, 49, the wife of then-prison warden Randy Parker, is standing trial for helping one of her husband’s inmates escape. While the prosecution alleges the two were lovers, the defense is arguing Parker was kidnapped by Randolph Dial, portrayed in court as a manipulative sociopath.

The two were found in April 2005 living under the names Richard and Samantha Deahl in a mobile home in Campti, Texas, more than a decade after they went missing from the Oklahoma State Reformatory in 1994. In what prosecutors allege was a love nest, investigators found condoms and love letters between Parker and Dial. Read more.

Baker hesitated, worrying that he might offend residents of this blue-collar town. But he soon found out how wrong he was.

“When I said ‘Yes,’ they said, ‘Congratulations. It’s about time,’ ” Baker said. “People here are more worried about filling the gas tank and the refrigerator than if two people of the same sex can get married. We will come back, for sure.”

Baker and Greenleaf and 45 other same-sex couples married yesterday in a group ceremony on Goat Island, which lies between the U.S. and Canadian falls. Sunday was the first day same-sex couples could marry in the state of New York, following passage of legislation a month earlier. Read more.

Wall Streeters have famous appetites for wealth and influence — and now some are turning mealtime into a power sport, too. The trend is new and only spottily documented, but high-stakes eating contests are catching on among traders and other employees at hedge funds, banks and investment firms in New York City and beyond.

Participants might try, for example, to choke down 100 Dunkin’ Donut Munchkins, 6 feet of Subway sandwiches or 85 Wendy’s chicken nuggets, for sums large enough to pay their rent.

The finance world calls these feats of stomach Food Eating Challenges, and with the slow pace of financial dealings during the summer months — and plenty of interns around to cajole into the action — FECs are as common as cufflinks. Read more.