Lisa Borgnes Giramonti, the gimlet-eyed blogger behind A Bloomsbury Life is back for a second stint on our Editors' Blog. (See her previous blogs here.) This time around, she's sharing her resolutions for 2010—and the elegant accoutrements she's found to help her achieve them. Check back here every Friday for Lisa's weekly installments.

Part Three : I resolve to keep expanding my horizons, whether it be from the comfort of my red armchair or via planes, trains and automobiles.

A peripatetic childhood in Europe means a love of travel runs deep within me. I voyage not just to change the scenery but to become transformed on the inside as well. Admittedly, in today’s economy, it’s not always possible to set sail for distant shores, so the following list includes a multitude of ways to broaden your orbit, including a few that don’t require venturing past the front door.

I’m not ashamed to say it: When I travel these days, I like to rest my weary head on a pillow with a high thread count. Discovering Splendia.com has been a real godsend. Their website offers a dizzying list of luxury and character hotels for practically every destination and budget, 24/7 customer service and zero booking fee. I’ve used them for hotels in New York, Paris and Marrakech and have slept like a baby on three continents. Splendia.com

Marrakech is full of great hotels; one of the chicest and most under-the-radar is without a doubt La Sultana. Authentically Moroccan, it has welcomed a steady flow of discerning travelers who aren’t altogether thrilled with the renovation of La Mamounia. Composed of five historic riads linked together, La Sultana is a luxury oasis inside the ancient walled medina, just minutes from the souk. We stayed in the “crocodile” room, seen above. lasultanamarrakech.com

Ooh, the eternal search for the perfect wash bag. This one is crying out to accompany you on your next journey, whether it’s around the globe or just across town for a sexy sleepover. Fashioned like a vintage parcel and complete with details like ornamental string, stamps and a hand-written reminder of your nightly ablutions, it makes remembering to take off your eye makeup a no-brainer. bloomsburystore.com

These traditional French syrups are all the rage among children and have been for centuries. In Europe over Christmas, my son couldn’t get enough of the mint syrup diluted with sparkling water and I no doubt owe his good behavior to his predilection for this particular drink. Personally, I’m more partial to the grenadine—not only is it tinted a divine Vreeland red, but a splash adds a note of wickedness to any cocktail. simplygourmand.com

I was given this cookbook over Christmas and, after three weeks in my kitchen, it’s now on my nightstand because it’s so delicious to dip into. Part travelogue, part recipe book, it’s filled with historical anecdotes and stories that reflect the diversity of London’s butchers, bakers and syllabub makers. Leek tarts, rose fairy cakes, ale and beef stew, it’s all in here. If you love food and you love London, this book will have you eating like a local. amazon.co.uk

Argan oil has been touted for centuries for its anti-aging properties, so after visiting a women’s collective in Morocco and being face-to-face with acres of dewy skin, I instantly grabbed a bottle. Unfortunately, it smells like a goat’s bottom (no surprise since goats eat the argan fruit and then excrete out the miracle-rich nut.) But I have to admit my skin is glowing. My next bottle will be Josie Maran’s organic version —her company supports UNESCO women’s organizations and I’m sure she’s worked the kinks (and stinks) out. sephora.com

I am a complete sucker for personalized woven labels. To me, they evoke the fabled worlds of Enid Blyton and Evelyn Waugh, in which posh finishing schools require them and grand hotels can instantly tell whether you’re an aristocrat or an arriviste by your choice of color and fabric. Of course, that’s not my universe, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to emblazon every stitch of clothing I own. (Black background, white lettering.) Who knows? I just may. itsmineusa.com

If you find yourself in Chicago before March 14th, you absolutely must get yourself to the Bloomsbury exhibit at Northwestern’s Block Museum. Even after all these years, the eponymously named group is still endlessly fascinating (I’m not immune to their charms—I named my blog after them.) No matter what you think of their eccentricities, it’s impossible to disregard their passionate devotion to art, friendship, domesticity and the pursuit of love in its many and varied forms. blockmuseum.northwestern.edu

Fancy a reprieve from the bleakness of midwinter without the expense of a ticket to warmer climes? Stella McCartney’s Nude perfume is like traipsing through a rose garden in Gloucestershire. Redolent with fresh Moroccan rose, peony blossom, grey amber and vanilla, it’s both seductive and subtle and not grandmotherly in the slightest (the way some rose scents can be.) Put it on and you’ll swear it’s not snowing outside. sephora.com

My biggest bugbear about airplane travel isn’t so much the flight delays or the spotty service—I’m resigned to that—but not knowing where the seat I’m sitting in has been. So when my immensely practical friend Hope told me about Plane Sheets, I nearly fell to my knees. Available in coach and first class sizes, Plane Sheets transform a grotty, overused airline seat into a hygienic private sanctuary in seconds. Even better, they’re available in elegant black toile. Charlotte Moss, are you listening? planesheets.com

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These days, every dermatologist and their secretary has their name on a skincare line. Most  of these products are perfectly fine, but hardly deserving of adulation. Enter Dr. Harold Lancer, a Beverly Hills derm with a star-studded patient base (Victoria Beckham, Beyonce,  Ellen DeGeneres, Renee Zellweger and Kim Kardashian among them) whose line, LANCERx, is actually worth writing home about.



For one thing, Lancer has completely changed my mind about the order of operations for a daily skincare regimen. Instead of cleansing first and then exfoliating, he suggests doing the reverse. As he puts it, exfoliating is like breaking up a block of concrete (in this case, dead skin cells and dirt), and cleansing is akin to washing away the remaining debris.


 
His medium-harsh Natural Sea Mineral Polish balances pH levels and warms skin upon application, a delightful feature that has elicited much love at my home. And since this reporter is too chicken to try the lash-growing drug Latisse (The fear is a darkening of the eyelid, a harmless but aesthetically unattractive side effect that has been reported in some users), I've been using his eyelash enhancer, Lancer Lash, and seeing real improvement, with no nasty side effects.



LANCERx Dermatology, products from $30 to $125, lancerdermatology.com

When Jodie Patterson and Kiara Ellozy opened Georgia, their cozy Nolita boutique a year and a half ago, their mandate was simple: Sell what they believed were the best hair products. Georgia carries every line from Tresemme to Neil George and there's even a solo salon chair discreetly off to the side in the back.

I visited one recent evening and, while I was pleased to see that many of Jodie's and Kiara's favorites are the same as mine, what stopped me in my tracks was one of their private label skin care products. Georgia by G & Company's Gold Luxury Skin Cream has the consistency of whipped butter, so it's great for cold weather (I will pack it for the slopes, if I ever make it there). But being that I am admittedly more of a scent-obsessed than skin-obsessed beauty editor, what really made me swoon was its fragrance. I'm usually not a lemon-scent lover (the category reminds me dishwashing liquid and furniture polish), but this is lemongrass punched up with the greenery of eucalyptus, resulting in a scent so fresh and invigorating, I can't get enough.  $30 for 8 oz, Georgiany.com

Fancy deodorant seems an oxymoron and a totally frivolous purchase, like Prada dominoes or Tom Ford tanning goggles. Deodorant should be something you pick up with your toothbrush and Q-tips at the drug store, right? Wrong. At least in the case of Donna Karan Cashmere Mist Deodorant/Antiperspirant. The first sign that this was not just solid perfume for your armpits came two years ago, when the head of Nordstrom's beauty department told me the store was putting together a specially priced pack of three so addicts could stock up at a discount. I gave one to my best friend to try and she came back raving, then I started swiping and was immediately sold. For one thing, it works all day. It doesn't leave any residue on clothing and it smells nice. I recommend stocking up immediately. $12 at Nordstrom.com

Previously: The six best beauty looks at the Golden Globes according to Jane & Jamie

Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the lack of a clear sartorial trend, but we were not bowled over by the fashion at the Globes this year. When it comes to beauty looks, however, we've got plenty to say. Here are our six favorites, as well as some suggestions for next time.

1. Reese Witherspoon: Has she had a year's worth of beauty sleep? This is a text book "no-makeup" makeup look—it's all about the clear skin, the piercing eyes, the just-dressy-enough blowout.

2. Sofia Vergara: Another celeb that looks lit from within. We're used to seeing her in heavy makeup on Modern Family—this was the perfect reminder that she doesn't need much. Sheer, pink cheeks, barely any eye makeup and a dress we can get behind.

3. Emily Blunt: Here's to brown hair that is far from boring. Tousled, rich, chocolate waves were perfectly balanced by soft pastel makeup. All hail the Queen!

4. Mo'Nique: The woman of the hour did not disappoint. The golden girl look worked so well here—really classic hair, bronzed makeup, and eyes that sparkled. We're going to ignore the leg hair situation.

5. Jeanne Tripplehorn: One of a few women on the red carpet who didn't look like she was going to a prom. Jeanne looked chic in the most timeless, sophisticated way. Slightly messy pulled-back hair, slightly smoky eye, and a long-sleeved dress. We know some of you have called it dowdy, but to us it is the epitome of elegance (and harder to pull off than it looks).

6. Chloe Sevigny: This was a runway look gone right. Chloe looked like she was ripped from a Valentino ad—in a good way. Maybe it helps that she's got the confidence and experience to wear something that might've looked ridiculous on someone who relies heavily on their stylist. Part of the reason the dress worked was the dramatic yet clean makeup and a hairstyle that never fails on someone so stunning.

Now for the bad news. We are officially over:
1. Side hair dos: They are juvenile and make you look lopsided. Just say no. And sticking a bejeweled clip in doesn't make it okay.
2. Shiny faces: We know the Marie Antoinette look isn't in style but a little powder goes a long way on an overly shiny face.
3. Too-tight hair: It's tricky to get it just right—if hair is pinned up too loosely, you risk looking like you're showing up for gym class. But frankly, we're a little worried about styles done so tightly they're sure to cause migraines. Even if your movie won.

I'm not much of a primer person. I don't use a skin serum before my moisturizer, nor am I a believer in foundation primers. I don't even bother to use basecoat before I apply nail polish!

But (and I admit, I have a full-fledged lash obsession) those wily labcoats at Lancome have gotten me hooked on their mascara primer, Lancôme Oscillation PowerBooster. I've been a fan of their battery-powered Oscillation mascara since it came out about two years ago, so I already knew the power of the pulse. Used in combo with mascara, the Oscillation PowerBooster is like a shoe lift —nobody knows it's there, but it makes you taller—or, in this case, makes your lashes longer. $39 at Saks.com
 

Harley Pasternak got his entree to Hollywood training actors like Halle Berry and Jim Caviezel on movie sets in his hometown of Toronto. Several years later the 35-year-old fitness and nutrition expert is taking his "5-Factor" concept—five small meals a day, five 25-minute workouts a week—to the masses. He's on QVC with workout DVDs, equipment and snack bars, and has a rapidly-expanding meal delivery service in LA, Toronto and Vancouver. Though he's still training plenty of celebs, Pasternak has recently written The 5-Factor World Diet (Ballantine) with Laura Moser, a book that aims to explain why the rest of the world isn't as fat as us. We talked to him from Honolulu, where he was doing a little "private boot camp" with some musicians whom he politely declined to name.

Can you say who you're with?
Not this time. A lot of musicians come to Hawaii to produce and record—we spend all day hiking and playing basketball and they spend all night in the recording studio. But I can tell you that in the past ten days my team has worked with Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Seth Rogen, Rashida Jones and Common.

We have to ask—does Lady Gaga wear face masks when she exercises?
She wears a normal workout outfit, it's kind of cool actually. She works her ass off, she is one of the hardest workers I've ever worked with.

You were Jessica Simpson's trainer back in her Dukes of Hazzard days. Are you working with her now?
Jess and I are in touch, we work on and off. Right now we're not working together.

On to the book. How did you come up with concept?
I travel a lot—two years ago I was in 30 countries. And I noticed that people are not as overweight around the world as they are in the United States, so I wanted to understand why that is. As opposed to focusing on what we're doing wrong, let's focus on what the rest of the world is doing right.

You make a list of the ten healthiest countries in the world in the book. Some of them we've heard about before—Japan, Italy, Greece—but others were surprising. What's the deal with Sweden?
Sweden is interesting. They use a lot dairy in their diet and there's a real split in the 10 healthiest countries, half of them swear by dairy and half of them never eat dairy. The ones that ever eat dairy don't eat it cause it's unhealthy, they just don't dairy because of the agriculture of their countries, or for religious purposes. Another thing that's interesting is the way they eat their sandwiches. It's an open-face sandwich always in Sweden, so immediately their sandwiches are half the bread as a sandwich here. And the bread is an extremely dark, dense rye bread.

One thing we noticed reading is that nobody in these countries seems to be afraid of carbs!
Right, exactly. If you look at the healthiest countries in the world most of their diet is rice.
 
Do you attribute that to good portion size?
Nobody ever said a carbohydrate makes you fat [Editor's note: We think they have, but let's see what you've got to say about this.] I think it depends what you're eating with that carb. A bowl of white rice on its own is very different from a bowl of rice with bok choy and salmon.
 
What about fitness?
They all walk, for one thing. The truth is to be successful you have to do the exact opposite of what The Biggest Loser is. You don't want fitness to be something that is contrived in an artificial space with specific equipment meant for fitness. Fitness should be something you do from the second you wake up to the second you go to bed.

It was fun to read that in some countries they have a word or concept for knowing when to stop eating.
Yeah, in Sweden they use a word called lagom, which means just enough. In Japan they practice hara hachi bunme, which is when you're 70% full you stop and you wait and you see if you feel full 10 minutes later.
 
I don't think we have a word like that in English.
No we do not. We have a word called buffet.

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Over the holidays, while Charlie Sheen was getting thrown in the slammer and Paris Hilton was puking on a bar's dance floor a few blocks away, I was taking a much more, er, low-key approach to my Aspen vacation: snowshoeing up to lunch in a log cabin, scoring a vintage L.L. Bean jacket at the local thrift shop and snowboarding under a cloudless sky.

My favorite activity, though, was getting the most luxurious facial ever at the Viceroy Snowmass spa. Called the O2 Infusion, the 60-minute treatment began in the spa's "relaxation sanctuary" (replete with a gold-dipped antler chandelier hanging over an infinity pool and waterfall) where my feet were massaged and hand-washed in a copper tub. Then, it was on to the facial room for an arm massage and a heady application of hot towels, lotions and potions. Yet the pièce de résistance was the oxygen infusion with "Intraceuticals hyperbaric technology." Word has it Madonna receives a similar treatment almost every day from her personal aesthetician, Michelle Peck, who introduced the Australian Intraceuticals line to the United States several years ago.

Using a hyperbaric oxygen machine, the facialist spritzed my face with a concoction of hyaluronic acid, green tea, aloe vera and vitamins C and E, kneading it into the skin with cold blasts of oxygen. After more massages (neck, head) and lotions and hot towels, the treatment was topped off with five minutes of oxygen inhalation therapy and a Veuve Clicquot Kir Royale. I'm not sure if the extra dose of oxygen was necessary but hey, we were at 8,100 feet. Back at sea level, I'm still on Cloud 9 from the whole experience.

O2 Infusion facial, $225, The Spa at Viceroy Snowmass

As fascinating as all of TigerGate has been, what's really kept me glued to my TV are those glittering implanted studs in the upper cheeks of his gal pals Jamie Jungers and Jaimee Grubbs. They look sort of like moles, but by Swarovski. So I phoned up J. Colby Smith, a piercer at New York's Adorned boutique, for some insights.



According to Smith, these implanted studs fall under the category of "micro-dermal anchoring," which means that the adornment doesn't go all the way through, like an ear, lip or tongue piercing would. At Adorned, the procedure is called the "Anti-Eyebrow" (due to its location south of the eye).

Here's how it's done: An L-shaped titanium plate is inserted into a tiny pocket in the skin. The plate contains holes to allow skin tissue to adhere to it. The shorter part of the L is what sticks out, looking like a tiny post or stump. The post has a hollow opening, which is where the diamond (or your adornment of choice) is screwed in. In other words, the diamond part is the male part and the post in the skin is the female part.

While the adornments can be changed, the plate itself should only be removed by an experienced professional, and will most likely leave a scar. Finally, I asked Colby whether the Tiger mediafest has prompted a rise in requests for the procedure. "Not really," he said. At least, he added, nothing like "what Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell did for the navel piercing, or what Janet Jackson did for the nipple."

My mother is sort of like a makeup mime. We could be across the room from one another, and she can wordlessly convey the need for a beauty touch-up. For instance, she'll tap her lips twice (translation: "J, you need to put on some gloss!") Or, she'll move her finger back and forth underneath her eye (translation: "Smudged mascara!").

It's true that I am especially prone to the mascara slide, often ending the day with little half moons that are too far down my face to be mistaken for smoky liner. I've endured it for as long as I have because I really did like the plumping or volumizing or blackening effects of a particular wand. But a few months ago, my friend Wendy turned me onto to Estee Lauder Double Wear Zero-Smudge Lengthening Mascara ($19.50). It completely delivers on the promises its name makes, and stays put all day, giving my mom plenty time to focus on my lack of bronzer.