Spanx A Lot!

At our friend’s wedding last spring, a friend called us into the bathroom and lifted her dress to show us she was wearing Spanx. We were more shocked to find out that even the skinniest girl at the wedding had them on! Well, while we can certainly use the help, they can be a bit restrictive and they definitely aren’t sexy, even if they were Gwyneth’s choice post-childbirth.
We’re sure there a lot of Spanx fans out there so we’ll go easy on ‘em and share our fave Spanx product: their reversible tights. They’re a godsend for all those shorter than short dresses we keep praying will go out of fashion and reversible which means not only can you wear them on the brown side but also the black side, they’re extra warm, won't take up a lot of room in your suitcase and because they’re Spanx, they still make your legs look slim and trim. Move over, Heidi Klum!

Buy them here.

Update: Even Jessica Alba says she wears Spanx in February’s In Style. Wonder if that was prepregnancy?

The Most Ridiculously Happy Playlist Ever!

In an effort to keep at least one of our resolutions, here's a brand new playlist for '08.

Maybe you over did it the night before and need a little something to get the girls all revved up or maybe you’ve got a touch of jet lag after a long flight.

Whatever the reason, the songs on this playlist will have you and your girls back in the groove in no time. (It’s also not bad if you’re going for a run.)

La Vie en Rose - Belinda Carlisle
Who knew our fave GoGo could speak French? She does a heck of a job singing en francais on this remake of the Edith Piaf classic. (BTW—if you haven’t rented the recent movie of the same name about Edith’s tragic life, put it on your Netflix list NOW)
Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
An oldie but a goodie. It’s hard to argue with.
Candyman - Christina Aguilera
Pending motherhood must have changed our favorite Drrty Girl. This ditty will have you tapping your toes. Catch the video if you can where Christina sings as a blonde with a brunette and redhead version of herself (that’s some guy out there fantasy come true).
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song - The Flaming Lips
We loved it before it was in Little Miss Sunshine, but the fact that it was is reason enough to add it to the list.
The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
We owe Drew Barrymore for this pick. We first heard it on her celeb playlist on iTunes—a fab place to hear new music and connect with your favorite star.
For Once in My Life - Stevie Wonder
The song that made Ari Gold happy on Entourage when he was fired at the end of season 2. If it could make cranky Ari dance at his low point, it can make us happy anytime.
Upside Down (remix) - Jack Johnson
A seriously uplifting song off the all-Jack Johnson Curious George soundtrack. We won’t say which one of us, but one member of the JSG team had a stuffed Curious George growing up (and still does).
New Shoes - Paolo Nutini
A 20-year old adorable Scottish boy singing about how his new shoes “Make everything all right”? Good Lord, we think we’re in love!
Love Generation - Bob Sinclair
A killer beat and lyrics about peace, love and rainbows makes us want to be part of the Love Generation, too. If only we could whistle.
Tonight I Have to Leave It - Shout Out Louds
We fell in love with this song at the Carolina Herrera Spring ’08 fashion show. WARNING: It will stick in your head!

A New Hangover Cure?

We read in W a few months back about EBoost, a Vitamin powder, that was rumored to be an excellent hangover cure. You know that caught our attention! It took us a while, but we finally saw it in a store--two to be exact in the same day. (We smell a trend.) We bought the stuff at one of our favorite travel accessories stores, Flight 001. We only got more excited when we saw their tagline was "Jet Set Without Jet Lag"!

Eboost comes packaged like Emergen-C. You pour it in a glass and add water. After girl's night on Saturday, we had a couple of good candidates (We're not naming names, but we'll just say, we're happy it wasn't us who booted this year.) However, our initial impressions left us a little dubious. While it has 4,667% of our daily needs of B12 to Emergen-C's 417%, the stuff smells and tastes truly terrible. It's much thicker than Emergen-C and comes off as medicinal, kinda like cough syrup light. To be fair, it calls for 8 oz. of water, which we didn't measure out. Halfway through we added more water to dilute it. It was still undrinkable with a disgusting aftertaste. In fact, the more we drank it, the less we liked it. We couldn't finish the glass and we really tried. Maybe with ice?

Still, the W Hotels sell it in their minibar and you know they have lots of hungover guests. Verdict: We're sticking with our proven remedies.

Update: We read the Eboost packet wrong: It actually has 41,667% of the RDA for B12!

On Our Radar: Our Annual Girls’ Get Together!

Every year, the weekend after New Year’s, we get together with our four best friends for our annual girls’ get together. This weekend is great because the holiday craziness is over and it's pretty quiet. We met pre-training bra, grew up together in Virginia, and use D.C. as our meeting spot. (That's our picture in the Hotel Rouge last year.) It started out four years ago as a brunch then morphed into an overnight stay at a hotel. The dynamics change depending on who is preggers and who has young kids, whether the Redskins are in the playoffs (they are again this year—WooHoo!) and if we hit the bars late night or stay in. We visit, exchange racy presents, drink copious amounts of wine (watch out, girls, we're bringing margaritas this year!), make fun of each other, eat dinner, and finally pass out from all that revelry. But of course, somethings never change at all—like how much fun we have when the 6 of us are all in one room. Shannon put it well when she said, "I really just love getting to see how the women I've known longest and best have grown, changed, and yet remained the same friends I've loved since childhood."
This year, we’re headed to the Hotel Palomar, another of the fabulous Kimpton hotels.

We encourage all of you to create your own tradition.

Worth Brown-Bagging Lunch for a Month

First off, our apologies if your resolution is to start saving more money. And don’t get us wrong—we love a bargain as much as the next girl. We proudly wear our Go International jackets and Banana Republic jewelry and will brag to anyone who will listen about how much we didn’t spend on them. But there are a few things that we have found that are truly worth the extra dough and sacrifice.We’re starting this column to introduce you to a few of them. (Just don’t go into debt for an item of clothing. That’s plain stupid.)

First up, Jimmy Choos. The other night at dinner, our friend Heidi said she didn’t think they were worth the money (Her husband, one of our most loyal readers, is going to be so pleased as punch when he sees this. Hey, Michael!) We, however, strongly disagreed.
Where to start? Jimmys are undeniably works of art. When you see one in a magazine or a store, they just make you smile. But that alone is not a reason to break out the peanut butter. What is? They are actually comfortable, even the 4” F**K Me Heels, because they’re well made and the leather is supple. That means it moves with your foot—Bye! Bye! Blisters.
The shoes make your feet look sexy and by extension your legs. When trying on a pair, be sure to catch a glimpse of your hot self from the back. The super-skinny heels make your calves look skinny. Take a pair of more stolid heels with you and you’ll see the difference. It’s like you take a 3-mile jog every morning! Even the classic pumps make our feet look sexy in an unbuttoned librarian kinda way. You can see just the right amount of toe cleavage. You just feel smokin’ hot when you wear them, even on a bad hair day.
Not sold yet? On a recent night outside NYC’s obnoxiously hot Beatrice Inn, while others we’re being told there was a private party inside, we shimmied up to the bouncer. He looked us up and down and down again. We both had on our Jimmy’s. Said bouncer welcomed us past the velvet ropes.
Note: It is possible to find Jimmy’s on sale. It’s towards the tale end, so sizes may be limited, but try Bergdorf Goodman and Net-a-Porter. You can thank us for it later.

Don't Get Gamed

We first read The Game a few years ago on the suggestion of our hedge fund manager friend, Bobby. For the uninitiated, it’s a book of pick up techniques for lovelorn- loser- nerdy boys. We’re all for confidence builders, but The Game focused heavily on how to trick girls into bed. It’s also what VH1 based its show, The Pick Up Artist on with Mystery, who always wore crazy hats like this furry, Mad Hatter-inspired one. (Hello! We know you're trying to hide your thinning hair!). Mystery, who features heavily in the book, teaches boys who either a) have really bad skin b) still live with their parents c) play way too much XBox or d) all of the above how to pick up chicks. In the shows defense—it did have a sweet element to it that the book lacked. All the boys inevitably cried when getting kicked off and thanked Mystery for showing them that they could talk to girls, have friends and aren’t destined to live in their parents basement forever.

Regardless, it has been a few years since the book came out and we thought the show would have blown the cover on all of the techniques. But at The Park in D.C. recently, we had a boy try to “game” us. We don’t want this to happen to you. Be on the lookout for flamboyantly- dressed guys who:


1. Ask if your friends are sisters or if you are best friends.

2. Ask you to describe a cube in a field or your ideal house or something similar that ends up revealing “deep psychological issues.”

3. The neg. This is where he’ll say something slightly negative to you, like you blink too much or your friend smiles more than you. This is supposed to mess with your mind and make you want to win him over.

Now, if you like the guy or are bored and just want to play along, by all means, do it. But if you find him overly aggressive or annoying, we find it best to go ahead and blow his cover, by telling him you know he’s “gaming” you. Word of caution: Move on quickly after that. The point of the strategies above is to keep you talking to him for longer, so it’s kind of a boomerang effect if by calling him on his scheming you end up spending more time with him. But we find that if you point it out, the guy will usually turn around with his tail between his legs.

Update: We love this hilarious spoof on The Game with alway adorable Paul Rudd.

Happy New Year!

Who says all resolutions need to be life changing? You're probably not going to keep them past January 15, so why not have a little fun when you set them, too? In that spirit, in 2008, JSG resolves to:

Never be hungover again! Not to mention no more flying drunk or shopping drunk.

Eat more orange food.

Visit more cities that have an A in them.

Always take the stairs.

Wear metallic whenever possible.

Worry a little less if our outfit matches (a la Sienna, NOT Britney).

Meet more bloggers.

Bring back better souvenirs for our friends and families. See ya, magnets!

Learn to be a better flirt.

Make some new playlists so we're not forever listening to the same songs on our iPod.

Experiment with makeup more. We'll look to our friends at Makeupbag.net and All About the Pretty for advice.

Delete e-mails after we read 'em. No more in-boxes that top 718 for us!

Use fewer napkins. We've been good about turning down plastic bags now for years, but still take a handful of napkins whenever we go to Starbucks or Pinkberry. Must save those trees!


Check back in and we'll let you know how we're doing!