Beauty products are all about multi-tasking these days. Lipstick with SPF. Eye cream with attached undereye concealer. The next big thing that may be hitting your cosmetics counter? Candy that turns into perfume. An American ingredients company and a Bulgarian candy company got together to make candy that will make you smell like roses. It’s a different mechanism than what happens when you eat a Reese’s peanut butter cup and everyone knows you just ate it. This candy, called Deo Perfume Candy, contains geraniol, the source of the scent. It works just like garlic; you eat it and there’s a chemical there that can’t be digested, so it leaks out through your pores. Geraniol is an ingredient found naturally in a lot of essential oils, like rose oil, citronella, and lemon. It has a rosy scent and is commonly used in perfumes. Oh, and it has been shown to repel mosquitos (bonus!) and potentially attract honey bees (eek!). Unfortunately, the candy will not taste like chocolate and make you smell like Chanel No.5.

• By Cheryl Wischhover
  May 12, 2011

Just in time for the season of planes, trains and automobiles, we tracked down the most convenient, multi-tasking and -- more importantly, easily portable -- beauty products.

• By Cheryl Wischhover
  Nov 25, 2013

We’ve managed to amass quite a pile of beauty awesomeness on our desks over the last few weeks, so we sorted through it all and picked out the best of the bunch to share with you. These products have absolutely nothing in common other than: 1) they’re new 2) they’re fabulous. From the top of your head, to the tips of your fingers, there are lots of new things to try this month. Click through to see the treasures we found.

• By Cheryl Wischhover
  Jun 29, 2011

Whether you think the beauty industry is full of artifice and false hope, or believe it provides legitimate services and products, there is definitely a psychological component. While trying to maintain a firm sense of objectivity and logic, I still sort of fall into the latter camp. I think mascara is a miracle product that makes you look instantly awake and younger. And retinoids work. But there’s a lot of gray area, and this is where beauty ads come in. Their sole purpose is to convince you that you NEED something, that your looks could be improved. This Sunday the New York Times style section reviewed a new study from The Journal of Consumer Research wherein the authors observed the reactions of young women after they looked at a series of images and advertisements. There were a few surprises. The women looked at advertising and plain images of products, without any human models--just pictures of bottles and tubes with ad copy. The products were divided into two categories: beauty enhancing (like perfume) and problem solving (such as acne cream).

• By Cheryl Wischhover
  Dec 13, 2010