I couldn’t help but laugh to myself, knowing I have a “hidden,” and rarely-used wedding board on my Pinterest — I also have a board of teas I’ll never drink and flower arrangements I’ll never use, so assume what you will. This on-air chat came only hours after watching the “Just Say Yes” episode of “Sex and the City,” during which Carrie discovers Aiden’s first, and quite plain, attempt at an engagement ring, and chatting with one of my besties about my ugly-engagement-ring contingency plan (hi, mom!).

All this wedding talk got my wheels turning. Am I one of those annoying girls who plans her wedding before even finding “the one”? Is it completely irrational to plan your wedding without being engaged? How far is too far?

And, my answers to those questions are: probably not (I have a good idea who I’d like to marry), maybe (however, I plan for a living, and it soothes me) and reserving a venue before you’re engaged is way too far!

After a bit of research on my train ride home, I found that most girls are just like me. They pin wedding dresses, engagement rings and wedding photography they would possibly copy. My secret pinboard has a few dresses (I’m quite decisive on the dress front so I don’t need a plethora of inspiration) pictures of cakes, and invitation ideas. Those three things tell you everything you need to know about me — clothes make the (wo)man, cake helps you fill out those clothes, and invitations are the closest thing to branding in a wedding, therein it is right up my PR alley.

Here are some of my favorite Wedding Pinterest profiles:

• Style Me Pretty: The quintessential wedding blog meets picture sharing — hello!
• Chic Vintage Brides: Where you’ll find all things flowy, patina’d and diaphanous
• The Perfect Palette: Pick a color, then pan your wedding
• BHLDN: Anthropologie’s wedding solution for its devout customers, the website and Pinterest account are perfect for event-inspiration of all sorts
• Almie’s Bakery: Cake, cake, cake!

What’s on your Wedding pinboard, and how soon is too soon to start planning?

The news was announced today in WWD, and then RiRi instagrammed an image of the range; the PR girl in me loves when celebs take their product launches social. This collaboration is a first for MAC because everyone’s favorite self-proclimed “bad gal” is collaborating on not one, but four collections — one this spring, another in the summer, a third in the fall and her last for holiday.

Rihanna’s debut collection, dubbed RiRi Woo, after her favorite blood red MAC lipstick, Ruby Woo, focuses on a similar shade of lippie. I love a good red lip, but when the rouge turns crimson in its truest form — purplish-brown like dried blood — I tend to steer clear. I’m fully aware that dark lipIsrael a trend that Rihanna wears often, but what normal, as in non-celebrity-and-very-middle-of-American, woman goes that dark? Raise your hands ladies!

Lips that are so deep they’re almost black aren’t practical, appropriate for work or attractive. There’s the argument that you darken your lips for a night on the town, but I can only imagine how it would wear off through the night, leaving a ring on my lip line after a night of drinking — no, it’s not a fungus, just my leftover lipstick.

Despite my objections to the lip color she chose, I applaud MAC for building a long-lasting creative relationship with a giant celeb, and I’m sure the collection will sell.

Will you spor RiRi Woo on your lips come May?

1. I don’t read directions

I live my life with a stereotypically male perspective on directions — they only get read if I find the proverbial extra screw after the bookshelf is put together. So, when I tried to paint my nails with Essie’s Lil Boa Peep nail polish, I decided to march to my drumbeat beat, and it didn’t work…oops!

Apparently, you aren’t supposed to polish all nails then try to magnetize.

You have to 1) paint a first coat with the polish, 2) paint each nail individually and 3) magnetize for 5 seconds before going on to the next. I only learned this after my nails were dry enough for me to peel the directions off the bottle.

2. I’m impatient

Do you ever paint your nails, then accidentally mess one up because you thought they were dry? I do that ever single time I paint my nails, and even when I get the painted professionally and they have fancy drying machines. Every. Single. Time.

Nail art would just be a futile attempt for me because I’d screw it up before the design was even finished, and waiting 5 seconds for a magnet to work? Puhhh-lease!

3. I need to feel it to know it’s working

My biggest pet peeve with the magnet nail polishes is I’m 99% sure the magnet isn’t powerful enough. I want to feel like it is practically pulling the little metallic flecks off my nails, and I felt absolutely nothing.

I come from the old-fashioned school of “if you can feel it, then it’s working,” so I like my face washes to leave my skin feeling clean, and I love the sensation of when masks, gels or even nail polishes dry.

Obviously, I failed at my first attempt a nail art/magnetic nail polish, but at least the color looks great on me!

Today’s perfect NYFW RTW pair come from my favorite category: career chic dresses.

Marissa Webb

Marissa Webb’s fashion week debut was a bit tea time with your daughter/niece and a little “my boyfriend drives a motorcycle and my dad hates it,” and this little white dress with feminine gray lace and knee-high black boots is the perfect example of the woman I strive to be — feminine and feisty.

View Marissa Webb’s Fall 2013 RTW collection on Style.com.

Rebecca Taylor

Rebecca Taylor went a little more rocker chic for Fall 2013, yet she managed to remain true to her core customer, who is a little girly and a little rock & roll, providing her with a flirty full skirt and a pair of badass leather sleeves to help her take charge of the office.

View Rebecca Taylor’s Fall 2013 RTW collection on Style.com.

When this happens I generally do four things…

1. Vent to someone I trust (tears will be held back…generally)
2. Have an alcoholic beverage, wittingly or unwittingly — sometimes the aforementioned someone decides you need a drink and makes you one without your knowledge (most tears will be held back)
3. Take a long shower (tears stream, and sobbing commences)
4. Grab the closest Vetiver-scented product I can find, and breathe deep (all crying gives way to peace)

Oddly enough, I’ve found that Vetiver isn’t that common of a scent. Unless you’re a serious essential oil nut or obsessed with men’s fragrances, you probably haven’t even heard of it.

Here’s a quick botany lesson: Vetiver is a grass, native to India, and the essential oil, know as the ‘Oil of Tranquility,’ is distilled from the plant’s root. It sort of smells smoky and earthy, and it has this odd ability to completely envelope you in warmth.

If you have mild panic attacks like I do, then I highly suggest you pick-up your very own Vetiver-infused product whether its C.O. Bigelow’s Vetiver Essential Oil ($15), a Voluspa Oil Diffuser in Chestnut & Vetiver ($34) or Tom Ford’s Grey Vetiver EDP ($90-$120).

Alexis Bittar is having a 50% off sale of its Fall/Winter 2012 jewelry. Everything is amazing, just close your eyes, spin your mouse in a circle and click, I promise whatever you purchase will be perfection!

Anyone who knows me has figured out that I am fairly brand loyal to JewelMint.com, but sometimes a tiger must change or stripes (momentarily) — an arm party is one such situation.

Honestly, I don’t particularly like crowds in real life; they make me anxious and panicky. Therefore, it goes without saying that tens of tiny bangles on my wrist would make me feel claustrophobic.

Am I the only one with accessory claustrophobia? I’m not, right? It’s just when I wear jewelry for too long, it starts to bother me because it feels constrictive, so I take it off; hence, the pocket of necklaces, earrings and bracelets in my purse.

I digress. There are these bejeweled bangles at HouseofGemmes.com, called the Kir Royale Bangle, that can easily be worn alone and make a simple statement, or be joined for an intimate party of three on my wrist, making the same impact as 864 tiny gold bangles. The best part is: I won’t jingle like a cat when I walk. Hooray!

The Kir Royale Bangles are less than $20 each on HouseofGemmes.com, and come in Red/Purple ($14.99), Pink and Green ($16.00) and Olive ($16.00).

Of all of the contemporary American brands, Calvin Klein finds itself in the top echelon competing for my love. The clean, simplistic and chic designs work well with my daily career attire, and I wouldn’t mind wearing them  during the weekend when going to a party or a date.

That said, the only reason I continued to watch Calvin Klein’s 10-minute Spring 2013 “Provocations” short film, starring Alexander Skarsgård and model Suvi Koponen,  is because Mr. Skarsgård is a tall drink of Swedish water. I also sort of wish that I could walk around NYC in slow motion like a super hero, but only when I’m angry. It would really make a statement!

Watch the video below, lust over Alexander Skarsgård or those cream sandals in the “Equilibrium” chapter (dying over the carved heel), and tell me what you think!

“Nothing is more memorable than a smell. Still, when we try to describe a smell, words fail us like the fabrications they are. The physiological links between the smell and language centers of the brain are pitifully weak [...] Smell is the mute sense, the one without words. We use words in terms of other things to describe smells (e.g. floral, fruity, smoky). We tend to describe how they make us feel.” —Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

I may not be able to perfectly describe a specific note — though I can list them in many fragrances — but I can recount memories elicited by a culmination of smells, comforting or otherwise. Years ago, Marc by Marc Jacobs Lola used to be my scent of choice; I’d spray it on everything. If I smell the eau de parfum today, a wave of images, starring a distant ex, would crash over me. Needless to say, I don’t whip out that bottle often.

But, I’m not talking about fragrance to discuss exes, lovely Winnie. I’m talking about all of those scents that evoke soothing and happy memories, whether common (cookies, lavender, bergamot, etc.) or completely odd (a mixture of cigarette smoke and liquor?).

Bergamot is a smell I’ve only recently started to love — it’s a traditionally masculine scent, and was a major component of Farina’s original Eau de Cologne. Lately, I’ve become partial to the citrusy fragrance because it reminds me of my guy, who practically secretes American Crew pomade. Trust me on this one…

This olfactive association isn’t strange because of the memory it evokes, but because Crew doesn’t include a lick of bergamot. The pomade’s tangy, masculine essence comes from ginseng extract, sage extract, quilaja saponaria bark extract and citronellol.

How in God’s name my mind links Crew’s hodgepodge of extracts with a curious, lime-looking fruit is beyond me!

Cigarettes and booze, on the other hand, is an…umm, unique…combo, even for me to rationalize. I figure, it reminds me of my grandfather who used to chain smoke in between two-finger glasses of E&J (on the rocks) when I was little — fortunately, he’s given up the chain smoking for health reasons.

Though I may not be able to find eau de alcoholic-smoker at the department store, I like to rest easy with a little bergamot-infused, nightly ritual, courtesy of my client Boots — one part hot shower, one part body wash and on part body butter = a good night’s sleep!

What scents bring you comfort? Any wonky stories about a snowball fight, which led to a dusk clambake on the beach?

That’s right, that is three beauty products crammed into one – a toner, a cleanser and a facial wipe — talk about efficiency!

Here’s the back story:

Boots is one of my clients, and the Tea Tree and Witch Hazel Cleansing & Toning Wipes are an item editors always request, except they aren’t available in the U.S. so we don’t stock them in our beauty closet (sorry editors!).

A couple of weeks ago, two of my colleagues went to England for an event, and the cuties stopped at one of the 36,674,758,643 Boots stores in London and stocked up on  the wipes for the team to try out.

To be completely honest (get ready for a shameless plug), I’ve loved Boots products since they jumped the pond in 2007, and my skincare routine would consist of their products whether they were my client or not. There’s a good reason Brits trust Boots, and if so many people are obsessed with these wipes, I needed to try them.

Long story short, after two weeks of replacing my face wash with the wipes (is that healthy?), my skin is infinitely more moisturized, and I don’t have face ash on my cheeks! What girl wants to look like she laid her face in a pile of blow?

As an extra bonus, I have yet to see one blemish thanks to the Witch Hazel! I don’t normally get zits when using my face wash, but my skin doesn’t react well to facial wipe, and I often end up with Mt. Vesuvius on my cheek after just one use. I have yet to see that problem, and am beyond excited.

The only drawback is I’m almost out of wipes, and have no way of buying more unless one of you U.K. ladies will be my facial wipe mule ever couple of weeks. Here are the top xx brands that I’m going to test based on their claims.