The day after her first Mother’s Day, Jessica Simpson officially launched a new maternity line with publicly-traded Destination Maternity (DEST) and the Camuto Group. The Camuto Group owns the Vince Camuto brand and is the master licensee for the Jessica Simpson Collection. The company also creates and manages exclusive brands for Dillard’s, licenses footwear from BCBGeneration, and Lucky Brand, and is involved in sourcing footwear for Tory Burch.

Launching this fall, Simpson will release a full maternity clothing line in a deal between Camuto Group licensing for Jessica Simpson Collection, and Destination Maternity. According to a press release, the “collection has a vintage 70s feel,” and will feature a denim collection including various washes and leggings. The line will also include print tops, maxi and jersey knit dresses, and  jackets, blazers and chunky sweaters.

Available this fall in Motherhood Maternity stores, Destination Maternity stores, and Macy’s, prices will start at $36.

Image courtesy of Honest.com

Now this brings us to Citrus Lane. This site almost makes me want to buy baby presents and I’ve purchased a lot of them. A lot. CL has all these amazing boxes that can be given as gifts. Or, parents can choose a subscription model and get a surprise each month. A box might contain shower gel, a baby book, and some puree and kid snacks. Plus, for expecting moms there are two boxes to choose from, with beauty products and other goodies.

According to Techcrunch, CL has raised a total of $6.5 million in VC funding to date. What’s great is that this is run by two women with plenty of business experience in major tech companies. For the regular subscriptions parents would choose and pay for, it’s $25/month.

You shouldn’t be surprised by these startups but if you are, let me break it down for you. Women are still the ones primarily controlling household spending, regardless of family type (single mom, hetero, or same-sex couple). Take inspiration from sites like Birchbox (beauty and grooming junkies) and Blissmo (health nuts), plus crazy market data and you have a budding business sector. All of this comes in the backdrop of the e-tailing sector, which is reportedly at its infancy. This is promising. Plus, I don’t know about you, but if I can support a business that is not owned by Amazon (semi-monopoly?), I’m happy to.

500 Partners Partner Christine Tsai penned this great article for Techcrunch on the parenting sector and how much the tech-parenting sector is growing.

• According to various sources available in the original article, there are about 69 million women with kids (anyone under 18) in the U.S. and spending by U.S. moms reached a reported $2.1 trillion.
• The market has seen a five-fold boost in the use of social media by moms in the last four years and more parents are buying tablets and paying for apps.
• Finally, the global baby food market was $27 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach a whopping $35 billion by 2016. North America accounts for about 37% of that, which means by 2016, moms in North America could be spending a collective $13 billion on baby food. Taking it seriously now?

So what’s next? Do I really have to give you everything? OK, my guess is Tween subscription services are next up. Birchbox should be working on this for the pipeline after the men’s service is out of Beta.

Let’s start with the important link. Lucky Magazine reports that New York state’s most popular outlet center, Woodbury Common, is getting a Tom Ford outlet. It’s looking like summer 2012 for this addition. Looks like the creative brain behind Coach, Reed Krakoff, is also expanding his footprint with a locale at Woodbury. Spend carefully ladies.

BirchBox Men in Beta might be right on time. The WSJ did a feature on Walgreens-owned Duane Reade added a “men’s grooming” section. The change in purchasing is that it has gone from women buying for the men in their lives to men buying for themselves.

A Beauty Census

InStyle teamed up with Foursquare do survey the nation’s beauty junkies. I’ve heard things about Fresno but it being a mecca for beauty crazies wasn’t one of them. I stand corrected. Not shocked that Boston didn’t make the top 10.

Cosmetic Design has a piece on the debate surrounding potential danger associated with UV lights used to dry nail polish. The introduction of gel nail polishes has increased the usage of UV lights but for all the studies that liken UV lights to tanning beds, there are more studies to liken UV lights to sunlight.

Are Iced Coffee pods a sign an at-home iced coffee machine is in the works? This would change the street’s view that we should be shorting Green Mountain stock. Never underestimate female demand for iced coffee. NEVER. It’s not hard to make us smile. Here’s the recipe: gym + nails + iced coffee + occasional orgasm. Really, that’s it. Oh and an occasional thank you for putting up with all of you XYs.

Now you can smell like Nicki. What would it be? Cotton candy + wild flowers + cosmos? Gwen Stefani + Kimora Lee Simmons + Katy Perry? Really I don’t think I want to smell like Nicki Minaj but I love her spunk so who knows.

I used to go crazy for OTC face peels so I had to include a link to the release on the new Murad Vitamin C peel. The new Intensive-C Radiance Peel blends Glycolic Acid, Vitamin C (source please!), Indian Fig and Myrtle Extract, the latter of which is supposed to help with collage. Burn baby burn.

The coffee wars are in full effect. McDonald’s is undercutting everyone with the $1 promo and Starbucks revealed last month plans for its own single cup brewer. What’s interesting here is 1) that Starbucks is competing with Green Mountain, which owns Keurig and has a deal with Starbucks for coffee pod distribution, and 2) the Starbucks machine will make coffee and espresso. One stop shopping?

According to their release, publicly traded Starbucks Coffee Company (SBUX) will put its first at-home single cup machine on the market in time for the 2012 holiday shopping season. Dubbed the Verismo, the machine will make espresso drinks and regular drip coffee. The machine was made thanks to a partnership with Germany-based Krueger GmbH & Co. KG. Like Tassimo, Starbucks will sell both coffee and milk pods, come fall 2012.

“The premium single-cup segment is the fastest-growing business within the global coffee industry,” said Starbucks Chairman, President and CEO Howard Schultz. ”We have long believed that the biggest prize within the segment is a high-pressure system that would give us the opportunity to deliver Starbucks-quality espresso beverages at home and at work for customers who desire the Starbucks espresso experience outside of our stores.”

In addition to Tassimo and Keurig, Starbucks will also be competing Nestle‘s Nespresso. It’s not surprising then Starbucks came out with a new milk steaming pitcher for baristas last month. According to a release, the new pitcher has a dome-shaped bottom that allows for better steaming and better bubbles for froth. By year’s end, all Starbucks locations will be using the new pitcher.

Time will tell who will win the coffee wars, now that we are looking at five major players, four of which are now publicly traded companies: Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Green Mountain Coffee and Nestle (Nespresso).

Beauty sample subscription biz Birchbox launched it’s men’s service. Still in Beta, the men’s boxes are $20/month and will include small electronics too. I might’ve questioned this move had I not witnessed a straight male classmate surfing Pinterest and J. Crew last week. Check out the Forbes article.

Formerly in Bushwick, Beauty Bar reopened in Brooklyn, this time in suburbia Park Slope. Pop the top for the NYTimes review.

The Daily Mail reports that a chocolate 3D printer is about to hit the Internet. Retailers are expected to go crazy for this one. Too bad it wasn’t ready in time for Easter.

New York Magazine has a fun interview on writer Delia Ephron. She doesn’t give a shit about The Donald and likes pink drinks. Always a winner in my mind.

Finally, Google is on a mission to help clean up our buildings. The Mountain View, CA-based search giant argues that we should question the toxicity of our building materials, furniture and cleaning agents just as we do other consumables. Click here for the Google blog post.

I’ve decided that coffee will always be my security blanket. I’ve decided Amazon is my true love. I’ve decided there’s a positive correlation between online dating and online shopping, because of course online dating does not necessarily result in more sex, though men would like that. It does however lead to more manic behavior for women, hence the shopping, hence me ending up on the many Amazon subsidiaries: Soap.com, Zappos.com, 6pm.com, and the list goes on.

Anyway the list of links this week is pretty juicy – from Harvard Business School alumni founded-fashion startups to updates from Dunkin’ Donuts and a gym that offers a workout followed by a female-only happy hour. Oh and more on the mommy that made her daughter eat kid appropriate meals. The horror! Because that’d be better than the bullying she’d weather over being the fat girl in Manhattan school.

New York reported that Marc Jacobs is planning a makeup line with Sephora. Shocked? You shouldn’t be because 1) he already has many successful fragrances and 2) Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey owns Sephora, Louis Vuitton, and Marc Jacobs.

A new female-owned fitness locale in NYC (Chelsea/Flatiron to be exact) called Uplift was featured in the NYPost because one of their options is a group fitness class followed by a ladies-only happy hour.

New York Magazine has links to the NYTimes articles on the book publisher of the Vogue-featured mom that put her child on a diet after she learned her daughter was obese. I’ll add to this a Boston.com article on a scientific report on obesity and a Children’s Hospital Boston researcher who argues that if we are so worried about obesity and diabetes, isn’t it also neglect to not take action when kids are severely obese? Here’s a more recent article citing Dr. David Ludwig, where he is cited noting that diets might not be the answer for young kids but parents might have to teach kids about the difference between biological and eating because they’re bored. OK, well when adults figure that out, we’ll work on the kids. Until then, Weight Watchers will be profitable.

Apparently there’s such a thing as artisan bagels and Dunkin’ Donuts is selling them, alongside Coca Cola products, so reports Boston Herald.

QSR Magazine has a piece on Shake Shack and its expansion, which includes a new downtown Manhattan location and impending openings in Grand Central Station and Philly. Reported rumors about a Boston spot continue to be unconfirmed. Click onward for more on the magic behind burgers and frozen custard.

Xconomy has an article on the various tech-based beauty, fashion and accessories startups started by Harvard Business School alumni, mostly women.

Boston-based female CEOs meet regularly to share experiences and ideas within a group dubbed ShEOs, according to the Boston Herald. One of the founders of the group is Robin Chase, who co-founded a little company called Zipcar…

Everyone is up in arms about the Vogue article by a Manhattan mom that put her daughter on a diet after their pediatrician diagnosed her daughter as obese. I know growing up my mom was very careful talking about food because she didn’t want to do anything that might result in an eating disorder. That said, we live in a society with ever increasing supply of processed food where Adobe Photoshop is king. How many women reading this don’t obsess over their weight at least a few times a month? Do you count calories? Have you ever thought – this stomach bug sucks but maybe I’ll lose a pound over it? Then why crucify a mom for trying to help her kid possibly avoid diabetes when we’re all obsessed into our 30s and 40s anyway? I read the article but apparently missed the horror. Here’s a link to a related New York Magazine article.

Unfortunately, some people out there were using Pinterest to post pictures that promote eating disorders. Apparently this is dubbed thinsperation. In any case, the rising social media star company has banned such boards.

Gwynnie denies a row with Kate (Moss of course). London’s trashiest rag reported that during a run-in on the beach, Kate told Gwyneth, reportedly taking a jog at the time, to eat some carbs. From the mouth of babes waifs. I’m not ashamed to say this, but I’ll only say it once — I read GOOP and I like it. Hell my idea of a hangover helper is a glass of apple juice with a frozen organic wheatgrass cube in it. Are you shocked?

The Good Men Project has a hilarious, candid piece on manscaping. To groom or not to groom, that is the question.

Lifestyles not stylish enough for you? Opt for a faux Louis Vuitton condom. The knockoff rubber, or as baby boomers prefer, safe, was reportedly designed by a European architect not Mr. Jacobs, according to London’s Telegraph. Fret not, apparently Isaac Mizrazhi has come up with condom packaging that’s a bit more Stepford friendly and apparently for real condoms for PP

Knockoff condom. Image Courtesy of The Telegraph of London.

Scientific American reports that a former Goldman Sachs trader is entering the condom business, the custom condom business. Is sex better with a condom that truly fits one’s member? Time will tell..

NY Mag’s Grub Street blog deconstructs the iced coffee economy and why the cold stuff costs more. But actually, it doesn’t. The cheapest place to get iced coffee is either Au Bon Pain or Panera, the latter of which is prepping a new location in Harvard Square.

Molson Coors has one-upped the rest when it comes to drinks for 18-year-old ladies and PWT, with the introduction of Iced-Tea beer in Canada, a caffeine-free 4% alcohol beverage. But, according to the Wall Street Journal , next month us Americans have Anheuser-Busch to thank for a gift we are about to receive: Michelob Ultra 19th Hole Light Tea and Lemonade.

Time is a bitch. Enter your 30s and suddenly you’ve agreed to trade collagen in your face for skin on your waist. That’s not a fair trade. A trip down memory lane has me wondering – how did I eat carbs and corn syrup and fit in my first pair of designer jeans, my lycra-free Diesel slim fits? My metabolism was faster, I had more hope, and well, I had to exercise less to maintain the same physique. This is why marketers should realize the beauty and accessories businesses are foolproof until someone discovers a surefire way to combat time and gravity without causing liver damage or a heart attack. Until that miracle presents itself, us ladies will buy carryalls and lip gloss abound. Because while many say we should love our bodies as is, we know that’s not realistic. Vanity is a real thing. We are vain, narcissistic beings but we are also hopeful, caring and generous. We just want to be able to feel good about how we look in a bathing suit while helping people and eat the occasional bagel. While we’re on the uphill climb, we’ll settle for a diversion. Divert attention to the face, this time with the help of lip stains and glosses.

Years ago I predicted the rise of the faux-luxe beauty products that would retail at drugstores. I started to see even eight years ago a push by cosmetics makers to sell “prestige” lines at mass retailers because everyone – poor or rich – shops at the likes of Target, Duane Reade, and CVS. Now, in the midst of a recovery from the 2008 recession, more economists are coming out in support of the Hourglass Theory, a term coined by Citi that implies America’s middle class is shrinking. In the hourglass, the rich are at the top, the poor at the bottom, and the middle class, are, yes, in the tiny midsection. Various books by famous economists have come out in support of the theory that this may be America’s last hurrah – that the balance of power is shifting, to quote Niall Ferguson loosely, from the west to the rest. If all of the above is true, it will mean most Americans will either shop at CVS, Walmart and Target, or the three Bs – Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, and Henri Bendel’s. Add to that Bloomingdales, the occasional visit to Neiman Marcus, and of course, the shoe department at Nordstrom and that leaves an unsettling picture for The Gaps of the world.

In any case, this will mean a shopping divide and from the Northwestern Business Review to the Wall Street Journal, economists and journalists alike have this topic on their minds, as a consumer goods giant P&G leads the way to focus on opposite ends of the consumer spectrum. Here at Trendcetera, I’m focusing on quality goods that most Americans can afford. Here, please find our roundup of lip stains. First, let’s have a moment to appreciate Tarte and its sole female founder, who arguably created the stain sector. OK, now on to the goods.

The first lip stain I tried last year amid the renaissance of this sector was the Josie Moran Magic Market in Mambo. While the color was that enviable matte earthly brick red, it feels too difficult to get real color on your lips and at $19 it’s a bit much for something that doesn’t seem to have enough pigment. So I moved on to Avon‘s mark and the drugstore brands, which retail for around $8. Mark’s Kissink “tintmarker seems to have been phased out and based on the competition, it wasn’t so bad. Though the pigment was deep and opaque, it wasn’t impossible to correct, but definitely required a tinted gloss over it to balance out the deep matte color.

CoverGirl Outlast was a scary experiment. I tried a deep plum-cum-raisin hue. Using this lipstain in that hue made me look like I’d just had a few bottles of wine and never noticed I had purple lips. It dried quickly, which is good and bad, but I felt it was too hard to correct and one shade was enough.

The Milani Lip Flash colors are fun and seems to fuse the textures and hues of the lip pencils and gel chubbies, and the true matte lip marker stains. The colors are deep and have a hint of glitter. They feel more like a real crayon than a marker. I tried three colors — an orange coral, 03 Flash Light, a sparkling red, 05 Hot Flash, and a deep purple plum, 02 News Flash. All were fun to play with but for those with pale, blue-red skin tones like myself, the coral was the only option available for everyday use. That said, I think the red and plum would be great on women of color, from warm caramel skin tones to beautiful deep ebony complexions. For those with pale skin though, these might not be the best option for work.

Revlon‘s Just Bitten is a fun option, almost the only happy medium here if one were looking for a marker stain. You apply the stain to dry lips and then wait a good minute and apply the balm on top of the stain. I tried a deep yet wearable coral. I probably would not rock this at work but it’d be great for Sunday brunch and summers at the beach, topped with a clear SPF gloss.

Finally, for a great natural everyday gloss, especially for spring, mark Gloss Gorgeous. The shade dubbed Pop is a neutral rose pink and though it’s not clear, it works on top of almost any stain or pencil, and likely on a any skin tone. At $11, it’s a price point most can afford and it’s meant to last longer than most lip glosses.

After you’ve abused your lips trying all these lip items, I recommend using a balm at night. This should be part of the nightly beauty regimen. One of my all-time favorite Liz Earle products is the superbalm. I’m the first to admit $29 for a 1 oz jar is not cheap but it will take you a long time to use that ounce and this is a combo exfoliant-lip balm. The 0.1 oz jar is about the size of a pot of lip gloss. I’ve been using it every night since January 2012, possibly earlier, and I’m about 2/3 way through. The balm, which can also be used on flyaways and cuticles, is packed with beeswax, a blend of essential oils, and West African shea, which is likely what provides the exfoliating property as shea apparently melts at skin temperature. Either way it’s a gentle yet potent balm that keeps lips smooth.

If none seem appealing, you probably already have about five to ten lipstick and lip gloss shades like I do that will suit you just fine. But another gloss never hurt anyone, right?

This actually makes me want to buy another baby present. European company Withings has come up with a number of products that enable DIY health monitoring, from scales that track your weight and BMI online, to home blood pressure monitors. But, the one I love is the small square device that alongside an app will turn your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad into a baby monitor.

I know many moms that have cried during various work days while missing their babies when returning to their day job. I also know what it’s like to tiptoe into a room with a sleeping baby to change the monitor volume or the lighting or music while praying the child doesn’t stir. Fear not, I think those days are over thanks to Withings.

The Withings Smart Baby Monitor is a petite box that works with iOS devices and boasts features including night vision, a wide-angle lens, and a 3 megapixel camera. The monitor connects via Ethernet, WiFi, or Bluetooth and offers pretty much any feature a new parent would want, from the nightlight option to humidity and temperature readings.

Really, though we know you all probably ditch monitors with kids #2 and onward but for the first one, this device and its accompanying application can provide peace of mind in a chic little box that may even double as a sound machine thanks to features that include lullabies and verbal communication.

But really the icing on the cake is the ability to stalk your nanny. Since the app allows you to connect wirelessly to images and readings from the monitor, you can keep access while you’re away. At $299, this may seem pricey but the ability to see your kid while you’re supposed to be on date night is priceless. No more second guessing grandma. She doesn’t even have to know you’re watching her…

Click here for Withings’ online store. 

I don’t have kids but I’m amazed by those that do. Especially those that work inside and outside of the home, and cook, attend higher ed programs, and even manage to exercise. But that’s not the focus of this post.

I remember when my niece was born about four years ago. I sent all my aunts, uncles, and cousins an email with her name, the vitals and I reiterated that in fact her surname was hyphenated and that was no typo. I told my sister if she hyphenated I would too if I’m lucky enough to be a mom one day.

Image courtesy of www.mayimbialik.net

To this day I’m surprised at how much moms judge each other. There is no handbook for parenting though society might claim there are many. There are far too many genetic and environmental variables in life to pinpoint random parenting choices as a cause of some undesirable characteristic in one’s child. Yes, I sometimes judge people because they complain about the same parenting issues over and over again,  but they probably bitch about me complaining about the plight of the single life. And so we agree to listen to each other.

I am most surprised, though, at how crazy people seem to think family bed and long-term breastfeeding are. And so I was happy to see this video about a new book from actor Mayim Bialik, who also has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. We all make choices and we all have to own those decisions and live with them, but no one gets the right to tell another person that breastfeeding a 2-year-old or sharing their bed with their own baby is wrong.

 

Click here for more info on Mayim’s new book, Beyond the Sling