The newest thing in makeup? The vibrating mascara. A tiny battery inside the wand powers the motion, which is meant to coat lashes more fully and in fewer strokes.  Estée Lauder's TurboLash All Effects Motion Mascara ($30) is designed to separate lashes with its pulsating brush. Lancôme's Oscillation ($34) which comes out later this fall, aims to lengthen.

Holding a wand that shakes like a terrified Chihuahua and subtly hums like a phone on vibrate is strange enough. Maneuvering it gingerly from lash root to tip takes some practice. Do lashes look long and full after using them? Sure. More than they would had a battery not been involved? I'm not so sure. Still, something about the vibration makes the whole enterprise feel more thorough.

The Oscillation's official release isn't till November, but the company is offering a one-day preview sale at select Lancôme counters on July 31.

Above: Lancôme's Oscillation

In addition to an excellent private elementary school with tuition that's half the going rate in Manhattan, my newly adopted hood—the Newport section of Jersey City—has yet another point in its favor: a Target Greatland. Though I've no clue how a Greatland stacks up against a standard-issue Tar Jay (bigger, one assumes), I don't lose a lot of sleep over it. I just happily skip on over when the mood strikes and raid the super-fab kids department.

Last weekend, however, I went shopping for myself. My mission? To check out the new shipment of Botkier bags that landed the third week of July. These limited-edition runs, like the recent Loeffler Randall promotion and the upcoming Sigerson Morrison and Anya Hindmarch lines (both on sale October 12), tend to go quickly. So I was pushing my luck by showing up a few days into it. And indeed, a few styles were sold out. But after weighing the merits of one bag over the other, I nabbed a gray python satchel and a white python hobo ($39.99 each). Trust that no slithering snakes actually died for these purses; they're 100 percent PVC. Cute too, albeit a little shiny.

Emboldened by my score, I took a lap around. After taking a pass on the Subversive by Justin Giunta plastic baubles (too 20-something), I stumbled on a who-knew resource for adorable cotton frocks: Mossimo. An embroidered shift I bought ($22.99) garnered several unsolicited compliments around the office. Let's see if my new smocked sundress (also $22.99) is an equally big hit.

We were so taken by the absurdity of last week’s “Sacco-Richman” event at SoHo House (see our earlier post “Sacco A Ping-Pong No Show”) that we figured we should ask Sacco herself what she thought of it. (Society blog guestofaguest.com, for one, was duped by the tournie’s gag title.)

As it turns out, Bungalow 8’s founding babe was not at all pleased to hear about the table tennis tournament she supposedly co-hosted with personal injury lawyer Eric Richman. “I have no idea who he is and I wasn’t even invited, I don’t know what he’s up to—what’s the joke? I don’t get the joke,” she said when we reached her in London. “It’s just weird for someone to throw your name in for no reason, who really doesn’t know me. He’s not in my phone book.”

Richman’s shenanigans, however, might have given Sacco a few ideas. “If I was going to have a tournament, it would be air hockey,” she quipped. “If Virgin Airways or American wants to sponsor my air hockey tournaments—I’m a champion air hockey player.”

Photo montage: Sasha Filimonov
Photos: Table Tennis player: Ryuhei Shindo/Corbis; Sacco: Shawn Ehlers/wireimage

Heather Thomas, an actress who starred in 1980s TV hit The Fall Guy and is now married to Hollywood super-lawyer Skip Brittenham, set out to paint the world of the Bel Air wife in her frothy novel Trophies. Thomas has said that many of the stories in her book, which revels in the backbiting and social-climbing of the L.A. charity and political fundraising scene, were true but refused to name names. Now that the book has been published she's created this video, which reenacts a chapter of the book with dolls. With voices by Thomas (she plays one of the main characters, Pepper) and her friends, the video also features a cameo by Phyllis Diller and perhaps most puzzling, narration from Gore Vidal.

So, how did she get the esteemed political essayist to narrate a promotional YouTube video that shows plastic dolls having sex and comparing vaginal weights? Thomas told me that it came naturally; while she was attending a party for The Nation that Vidal was hosting at his L.A. home, she simply asked him. "He's Gore Vidal, but he's also a funster," Thomas says.

"It'll sell some books," she adds hopefully. "And sell a movie!"

The artsy-fashiony members of SoHo House aren't known for their athletic prowess, but on Monday night the club's fifth floor library was quite the sportif scene, as a crowd of about 70 members and friends took up paddles at the monthly "Sacco-Richman" table tennis tournament. Model and heiress Lydia Hearst took a turn clad in a gold Phillip Lim dress—she won one game and lost the next. "It was 11 to 9—kind of close," she said of her defeat, which perhaps had something to do with her footwear. "I want to play in style. Unless I'm at the gym, I'm in heels." The event even drew an actual competitive table tennis player: Franck Raharinosy, a filmmaker and 2012 table tennis Olympic hopeful.  "She's good," said Raharinosy of Hearst. "Next month she could win, if I give her a couple of lessons."

But where was Amy Sacco? Turns out the tournie's namedrop is a gag. "She never remembers me, so it's an ongoing joke I have with myself," says tournament organizer and Hearst family friend Eric Richman, a personal injury lawyer in Manhattan, who says he has reintroduced himself to the nightlife diva multiple times.


Photo montage: Sasha Filimonov
Photos: Hearst: Scott Wintrow/Getty Images; Raharinosky: Ban Gabbe/Patrick McMullan; Table Tennis: Ryuhei Shindo/Corbis