Well, That’s One Way to Get Happy: Bottle It
A Well-Adjusted Fragrance: Happy feels like a sweatshirt still warm from the dryer.
Happy looks like a shiny red convertible.
But what does Happy smell like?
“Beer,” said one single man in his 30s when we posed the question recently.
“Outboard engine exhaust,” his friend added.
In fact, Happy, Clinique’s new cologne for men, smells like neither. But it does smell fresh, clean and citrusy.
Happy for Men costs $26.50 for 1.7 ounces of cologne spray and $40 for 3.4 ounces. It is available at most department stores.
*
Slip Into These Clunkers: The big clunky shoe thing has been done. Now get ready for big clunky slippers. Or rather, big clunky shoes that look like slippers.
Skecher’s Starlit shoes look like something one might wear with a pair of flannel pajamas and a chenille robe. Made of fluffy faux fur and fitted with a lug sole, the shoes come in cotton candy pink and baby blue, as well as leopard and camouflage prints. They cost $29.95 at Nordstrom.
For a more traditional slipper that’s still funky, check out Steve Madden’s leopard scuffs, also available at Nordstrom, for $29.95.
*
Changes in the Jean Pool: It’s official--your parents’ jeans are no longer cool. A recent survey by the New York City-based trends research company the Zandl Group found that according to teens, Levi’s are hardly the jeans of choice anymore. Here is what’s hot now, according to the survey of 2,000 13- to 24-year-olds:
* Designer and status brands like Calvin Klein for women and Polo, Abercrombie & Fitch and FUBU for men. Up-and-coming status brands include Banana Republic, Todd Oldham and Lucky.
* “Youth only” jeans featuring low-rise styles and ads targeted at the under-16 set. Examples: Old Navy, the Gap and MUDD.
Jeans with authentic workwear roots are gaining in popularity among young men--Dickies, Wrangler, Route 66 and Lee.
*
Body Art With Henna: In Niger, Tuareg men celebrate their love for their betrothed by having henna applied to their hands and feet as a symbol of purity and fertility.
In Pakistan, it is good luck to have a henna design drawn upon the belly of a woman in labor.
Henna body art has been practiced for thousands of years around the world. A new book and kit, “The Art of Henna” by makeup artist Pamela Nichols, allows anyone to bring home some of these traditions. The set, which costs $29.95, includes hypoallergenic stencils, a premixed tube of henna paste and henna powder, plus a book with color photographs, the history of henna and designs.
*
Published by Healthy Planet, it is available at Nature Company and Discovery Channel stores and at https://www.mothernature.com.
*
Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service.
