New Gadgets from The Housewares Show

This weekend, I spent 19 hours in Chicago. Why? To attend The International Home + Housewares Show, which is the world’s premier housewares fair. Hoover(@HooverClean) invited me and a few other bloggers to come out and meet their team at their booth. I had never been to this conference before and was amazed at how HUGE it was--south hall, north hall, east, west. It was like the biggest Bed Bath and Beyond store ever with lots and lots of gadgets and products that had me oohing and ahhing.

At the Hoover booth, I wasn't sure what I'd see or hear, and I definitely didn't expect to want to purchase two of their products. We actually own a Hoover vacuum already, since my husband prefers the brand because they have a factory in El Paso, where he is from. However, he purchased the first one he saw, which happened to be bright yellow and not bagless *slaps forehead* definitely nothing as cool as the new ones that I saw. A new machine coming out, The Hoover FloorMate ($149.99) hard floor cleaner, is a 3-in-1 vacuum that dries and sucks up spills, washes floors and vacuums too. I really liked that it's multipurpose, has a simple selection dial to switch to the different modes and a power cord with quick release.

However, another model that turned my head, was the LiNX Stick Vacuum ($179.99), which I dubbed the iPod of vacuums, because of it's sleek design. It also only weighs 7 pounds and is cordless. This one would definitely work in my sized home, especially since it's just the two of us and it would fit right along side our broom and dust pan.

Strolling around the many different halls and booths, I spotted some other cool inventions like the Babycakes cupcake maker ($30) from Select Brands that bakes 8 mini cupcakes in just 5-8 minutes! You simply fill the molds with regular cupcake mix, without cupcake liners and bake. It's like a grown up Easy Bake Oven and it even comes in pink and yellow pastel colors.

Speaking of cupcakes, I also saw a cupcake frosting decorator from NordicWare that eliminates the need for those messy icing bags, that I can never control, rinse or use properly. This hand held press (like a cookie press) makes it definitely more point and shoot, thus perfect for decorating those fast baking cupcakes.

I couldn't help but notice that many booths and brands were promoting new fashionable humidifiers including a travel one from Air-O-Swiss, modernized models coming soon from HoMedics and even bright colored ones from Crane. Some even came with aromatherapy solutions to mix into the water. Katie Sotor, a salesperson at Crane, which makes fun kid-friendly looking humidifiers (below) including a Hello Kitty and Sponge Bob Sqarepants ones, says that due to the outbreak of swine flu more pediatricians are recommending cool mist humidifiers again because they are a more natural remedy for colds than overusing medicines. Although I grew up with one, it does seems they went out of fashion for awhile, so I'm glad to see that they are coming back and with sleeker designs. Personally, I have my eye on Crane's Pink Ribbon tear drop shaped one for my bedroom.

I also spent some time at the Epilady booth as I've been hearing a lot about epilators lately. I currently use an electric shaver, but this acts like an electric tweezer and grabs the hairs at the root, thus eliminating the need to shave as often. However, I hear it hurts, at least the first time, but I'm hoping to try one of their models soon, so more to come on that.

While walking around the booths, I also stumbled upon Chef Gordon Ramsay again. He was at the at Sensio Inc booth to promote his small kitchen appliance line with the company that is set to hit US retail stores fall 2010.

Oh, and I just had to take a photo of all these colorful Kitchen Aid mixers lined up on display (I have a red one!):


In conjunction with this blog post, I attended the International Home & Housewares show and met with the Hoover brand team and their public relations firm Current. They covered my transportation costs, hotel room, and pass to the show. I also received a pair of black BearPaw slippers.

An Alice in Wonderland tea party

On Friday evening, I rushed to the amazing W Hollywood so that I wouldn’t be late for a very important date—an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party hosted by the hotel and my new employer, Disney Consumer Products.

The cocktail party was in honor of the theatrical release of the film, which was also on that same day, as well as to showcase the amazing Alice inspired jewelry, fashion, and accessories in a pop-up gallery on display in the hotel's lobby. The gallery displayed some jaw dropping Sue Wong dresses available at Bloomingdale's, Tom Binn's jewelery and Charlotte Tarantola's feminine cardigans.

Besides the gallery, the cocktails and food being served were all Alice inspired. Plus, amazing Alice garden installations were seen throughout the lobby and the staff wore wacky Mad Hatter hats, while Bliss Spa manicurists were applying OPI Alice in Wonderland nail polishes for eager guests. Also, seen throughout the crowd was an Alice, White Rabbit and a Red Queen mingling with guests.

You know how I love themes, so I willingly fell down the rabbit hole and donned a Mad Hatter tee from Bloomingdale's plus some Cheshire Cat ears from Hot Topic.
Luckily I also got to spend some time hanging with my blogger friends Esther, Lindsay and Maya.

To complete the night of Wonderland, Raphael and I then headed to the midnight showing of the film at the El Capitan Theater and movie palace, which had a little pre-show of their own and other cool effects not found at a typical movie theater. I'm definitely going to try and see other shows there in the future as it combined the fun of going to the movies with going to see a show.

The Oscars in 3D

Tonight, I was among the first group to ever watch the Academy Awards red carpet arrivals in 3D. At the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills as guests dressed in ball gowns and tuxes were heading to the actual ceremony, I joined another well dressed group to watch the Oscars on Samsung's 3D TV's, which debuted during CES in January.

The Samsung 3D Oscars event was hosted by John Henson of ABC’s Wipe Out and formerly of Talk Soup. Also at the party was my NY blogger friend Aly Walanksy and LA bud Shop Eat Sleep.

My favorite part of the event was seeing George Clooney in 3D (sigh!). At one point he pointed to someone behind the cameraman and waved and thanks to the 3D glasses that I was wearing it looked like he was waving right at me. At times the cameramen in the front row would turn with their massive equipment and it looked like they were popping out of the TV. Also, when the women would turn in their dresses it looked very real. Meanwhile, Melanie Griffith's boobs looked even larger in 3D, lol. Due to the open bar though it felt like I was watching the arrivals in 4D ;)

I wonder if one day it will be run-of-the-mill to watch the Oscars in 3D, I guess we'll have to wait and see. The Samsung 3D LCD TV's will officially be launching on Tuesday.

PS: Boo to the Oscars for not having Bea Arthur in the memorial montage. Besides being on TV she was in the popular musical Mame.

The Global Green Pre-Oscar Party

On Wednesday night, I covered the 7th Annual Global Green USA Pre-Oscar Party.

Unfortunately, because of the unexpected rain a lot of the slated celebrities like Orlando Bloom and Salma Hayek did not show or simply hussled inside where it was nice and dry and did not stop for interviews like Jessica Alba and Mia Maestro did. Sharon Lawrence and Nia Vardalos though kindly stopped to talk to me when I called out their names as well as a few others.

Below are some of the photos I took, but for more details and quotes, do read my Huffington Post article, A Green Pre-Oscar Party.

Giveaway: Dove Visibly Smooth deodorant

Yesterday, I blogged about my Dove night out, but now you can get in on the action as I'm giving away 5 sticks of Dove Visibly Smooth, Wild Rose. This new offering within the Dove Ultimate antiperspirant/deodorant category, helps minimize the look and feel of underarm hair over time. The unique formula helps women feel stubble-free for longer while delivering all the benefits of Dove antiperspirant/deodorant, including 24-hour odor and wetness protection, along with Dove 1/4 Translucent Moisturizers™ that care for delicate underarm skin, and alleviate white marks. Their website also has a $2 off coupon.

Sounds good, right? To enter, first go to www.dove.us/visiblysmooth and comment back here about something you learned there. Please don't forget to leave your email address in the body of your comment or link back to a blogger profile or website that actually has your email address on it. For extra entries follow @Dove on twitter and tweet this giveaway. Ends Friday, March. 12th. Good luck!

Update: Congrats to Suki, Tracy, Joline, JChady and Mara!

Disclaimer & Rules: As a host for the Dove Visibly Smooth VIP program, I was provided with five (5) Dove product vouchers to give away on my blog. No purchase necessary. A purchase will not improve your chance of winning. Open only to legal residents of the 50 United States or D.C. who are 21 years of age or older and who are a registered guest for one of the three Dove Visibly Smooth VIP events and who are given an invitation to participate in the sweepstakes. Void where prohibited. Begins 2/1/10 at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time (“ET”) and ends 5/31/10 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Subject to official rules available with your host or at dvs@edelman.com. Sponsor: Conopco, Inc., d/b/a Unilever, 800 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07631.

A Dove Visibly Smooth Girls Night Out!

Dove, who's cucumber & green tea deodorant I use daily, allowed 10 of my girlfriends and I to go on a fabulous night out in L.A., which included the use of a limo to take us wherever.

We started off at my place where we tried out Dove's Wild Rose Visibly Smooth deodorant, which helps minimizes the look and feel of underarm hair over time.

We then carpooled to Alibi Room for their famous Kogi Korean BBQ. Their short rib tacos and sliders were amazing and actually pretty affordable.

It's not unusual to see a limousine outside of this small hipster bar, in fact, it's unusual if you do NOT see one, however, this time it wasn't there waiting for some bachelor or millionaire, but for my fabulous group of gals. What up!

The stretch limousine transported us to the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, home of the famous Bazaar restaurant, where we imbibed in $16 cocktails at Bar Centro. The bartender, Robert, kindly mixed up a slew of drinks for us including a refreshing Bellini with fresh peach juice, sparkling wine and a tiny Japanese peach at the bottom. I also sipped my friend's frothy Passion Fruit Martini, which was like a dessert.

Prior to returning to the Alibi Room before our chariot turned into a pumpkin, we briefly stopped at Rush Street in Culver City. Our group of women luckily had no problem getting in upstairs to their nightclub.

When all was said and done I learned two things last night: carrying around deodorant at bars is a fun attention-getter, and I'm not rebounding as quick as I used to--this ole mare ain't what she used to be.

I tried taking video throughout the night, but most of the places were too dark to film, but here are the clips that came out okay:

DISCLOSURE: To participate in the Dove Visibly Smooth VIP program, I was provided with eleven (11) product samples for my guests and I, car service and compensation for dinner out with my friends. Dove provided me with these items so I could organize the event myself and without any influence from Dove.

The 3rd annual LA Cupcake Challenge

On Saturday night, for the third time I was delighted to be a "celebrity judge" in the annual cupcake challenge put together by Drink Eat Play at The Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. Although I visit and eat at cupcakeries regularly for my LA Cupcakes MeetUp Group and have tried almost all of them, this baking challenge features a lot of the lesser known cupcake delivery stores in the area, which we don't often get to try out. However, some of the competitors also have actual physical stores like BabyCakes Baking Company in Torrance and Polkatots in Pasadena, which my group has visited before and Big Man Bakes, which is on our to do list.

At this year's challenge I especially enjoyed the originality of the cupcake flavors that were submitted like BabyCakes Baking Company's Banana Foster, Tavern Restaurant's Salted Caramel, Polkatot's Lucky Charm, and a maple and bacon cupcake with a strip of bacon on top from the Renaissance hotel, which had a great balance of sweet and salty.

Another popular trend this year seemed to be adding colorful French macaroons on top of the cupcakes:

My favorite overall though was the pumpkin white chocolate from Fairy Cakes in Orange County and for best traditional cupcake I voted for Hansen Cakes vanilla wedding cupcake. However, I also liked the Chocolate Covered Strawberry from Two Parts Sugar and well, all of them!

After tallying up the judges results and the picks from all the attendees, the following are this year's winners:

Best Traditional
1st Place: Big Man Bakes “Red Velvet”
2nd Place: Blue Cupcake “Sweet and Salty Vanilla”
3rd Place: Southern Girl Desserts “Red Velvet”

Best Original
1st Place: My Delight Cupcakery “Breakfast Cake”
2nd Place: Jus Minis “Caramel Banana”
3rd Place: Two Parts Sugar “Chocolate Covered Strawberry”

Best Overall
1st Place: Jus Minis “Caramel Banana”
2nd Place: My Delight Cupcakery “Breakfast Cake”
3rd Place: Two Parts Sugar “Chocolate Covered Strawberry”

A cupcake overdose of photos ahead:

A Soolip Wedding event

Although it's been almost two years since I was a bride, I still enjoy attending wedding events and seeing all the pretty new trends and themes, which is why I was delighted to attend the Soolip Wedding event again this year. Held at Vibiana, the lush private event space in downtown, pretty was in abundance as wedding planners, bridal magazines, caterers, hotels, rentals, etc. welcomed brides and grooms-to-be and showed off their services.

I was captured by the beautiful tents and drapes around each booth so I went a little photo happy as I could just imagine them at a beautiful wedding. The first one below is designed by luxury tenting from RajTents.com and the other is from A Private Affair.

I then moved on to the table settings itself and particularly liked the elegance of La Tavola's fine linen rentals and the simplicity of Classic Party Rentals.





















Moving on to food, I sampled an exquisite beet salad from Wolfgang Puck Catering and I don't even like beets, but this was amazing. Imagine saying your wedding was catered by Wolfgang Puck? Wow.

Speaking of food I recently learned that brides should avoid the following foods a few days before the wedding: broccoli, cauliflower, beans, onions, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, lettuce, high fiber cereals, chewing gum, soup, salt, peas and soda.

Also, on hand was Soolip paperie & press doing calligraphy live and displaying their beautiful invitations from all sorts of fabrics and featuring an array of pressed flowers and materials. They also specialize in vintage stamps to complement your invites, so if you're getting married on a ranch, they'll find old fashioned stamps with horses, etc.

Ch-ch-changes

I made an announcement on Twitter last week, but then I realized I forgot to update ya'll properly here on my blog. The big news is that I just changed jobs. I am now a PR Manager at The Walt Disney Company in their Disney Consumer Products division. After five years of working at public relations agencies, I'm looking forward to the change and challenge of being in-house.

Although I won't be working on the Disney studio lot, I did get to tour the studio during my initial orientation, which included seeing the sound stages for Brothers and Sisters and going into the Disney archives, where I got to hold one of Walt's 32 Oscars:

You know how during the Academy Award acceptance speeches the actors always comment "wow, it's so heavy"? Well, that's because it really is. I reached out for the statue with one hand and quickly had to catch it with my other hand.

I also couldn't help but snap a photo of the Team Disney building where the seven dwarfs act as columns, love it!


My latest Huffington Post byline: Exploring the Los Angeles Times Travel & Adventure Show

Naples, Florida

For the last few days I've been staying in the city of Naples on the South West Coast of Florida to visit my mother, who is officially a "snow bird" and is now spending the winters in Naples and the summers back in Connecticut. She is loving it and why shouldn't she as it seems like one big playground for adults. The weather is tropical, the beaches consist of smooth white sands and every bar has a happy hour. She is also quite popular here since she's younger than most of the residents here as the median age for the town is 61 years. Where I on the other hand, keep getting questioned if I'm still in school, lol.

While the two of us were on a Segway tour of the city, I learned some more facts about Naples, like that there are more millionaires registered here than any other city (Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Judge Judy, Bob Seger). Holla! There are also 80 PGA golf courses in the 14 square miles area, and that's not counting the regular golf courses like the one near my mother's place. The name "Naples" caught on in the 1880s when people described the bay, mild climate and abundant fish and game to the sunny Italian peninsula. Coincidentally, Naples, Italy is where my father was born :)

Look how colorful the downtown area of the city is:

It was also my first time riding on the motorized Segway, which was a lot of fun. It kind of reminded me of skiing, because you direct and move the vehicle by applying pressure on the heels and balls of your feet. Unfortunately, a really elderly man from Germany was in our group holding us back, but at one point we went up to 11 MPH.