24 Hours as an Uptown Girl: Princess Primping by the Pros

I feel like most people like to imagine riches in their future from time to time. I find it a relatively harmless daydream as long as you always work hard towards your goals. One of my life goals is to be able to waltz up 5th Avenue in my beloved New York City and be able to enjoy it like the upper crust does, with piles of shopping bags.

For now, window shopping will have to do, but thankfully being a beauty writer has its perks, among them being offered blowouts and makeup applications. It’s but a mere taste of what it must be like to not worry about cash flow: superfluous beauty services and a fancypants workout regimen.Last week, I timed these perks to complement a Barre workout challenge I’ve been testing at Physique 57. I usually go to the SoHo studio, but I figured it would be smart to try their uptown studio, located on the same luxurious strip as the other services I’d be experiencing.

What would I do if I was an uptown girl with unlimited funds? I would work out, take a shower at the gym, then head to the nearest salon for a fix me up before going back to my Gossip Girl activities, like going to puppy parties with my fellow beauty peeps.

Lucky for me Blushington and L’Appartement Privé are seconds away from Physique 57’s studio, so I was able to go from activewear scrub to princess puss-in-boots in no time at all!

My experience at L’Appartement was to celebrate the launch of upper-echelon hair brand Oribe’s newest and most fabulous hair product yet. I got a blowout with the salon’s owner Tiffany and we used only the Imperial Blowout Transformative Styling Cream root to tip so I could see its true potential without their glorious Royal Blowout Spray influencing the results.

Let’s just say it was flipping fabulous! I even walked through a drizzle and not a thing budged from that blowout! Imperial Blowout gave me smoothness, volume, texture, and memory all in one single product. This product has some serious wow factor!

It’s pricey to almost excess, but that’s due to it’s skincare-quality ingredients. We’re talking exotic oils, antioxidants, and a powerful blend of high performance volumizers and memory. When you first pump out the cream and warm it in your hands, it transforms into an oil as you distribute it into your hair it changes again into a powder. This texture allows you to get smooth and big at the same time, which usually requires a small army of products.

I went from schlepping my way uptown to hit the Barre (I’m ALWAYS running late) with my FACE Stockholm Reeboks and some workout pants to strutting into the Le Parker Meridien Hotel to get my makeup expertly detailed in the beauty basement, where you can also find a DryBar (but I was good on blowouts thanks to the day before at L’Appartement Privé).

After getting my butt kicked in class, sitting in the chair at Blushington for some makeup fun was a freaking dream. They use some of the nicest makeup around, like Kevyn Aucoin’s Sensual Skin Enhancer, Jouer tinted moisturizers, Becca highlighters—basically nothing but the best! I always enjoy getting my makeup done, and my beauty pro, Neah, made me look like a Disney princess down to the perfect bright red pout.

The whole process takes 20 minutes and costs only $20. A full face is $45, and the best part is available memberships that you pre-purchase. You can get 10 applications for under $35 each for the big package. They are good at what they do, use high-quality cosmetics, and are fast!

Going from post-workout greaseball to fancy party guest to dinner and all with professional primpers to help you is such a luxury. I don’t think I have looked so polished in one day since I worked in a salon where we used to do each other’s hair and makeup when we were bored. There’s something so special about being cared for by pros; it makes me infinitely jealous of the people who rarely touch their own faces. (Maybe someday I will be one of them, with my rough punky edges intact, of course.)