New Amsterdam Vodka Presents "It's Your Town": Event Recap

On June 23rd, New Amsterdam Vodka held its "It's Your Town" party at LAB Art Los Angeles on La Brea and teamed up with local LA street artist, Moncho1929 to showcase his art and celebrate with none other than New Amsterdam Vodka! 

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

I was so excited to attend this event, and brought my brother Steven who is very into the art scene along with me. I have a huge respect for street artists and was so excited to learn more about Moncho1929. His work has actually appeared in the French Consulate, Soho House, Times Square and even on NBC'S "The Voice." New Amsterdam Vodka and Moncho1929 came together to celebrate the vibrant culture and people of Los Angeles.

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

First thing's first: the New Amsterdam Vodka featured cocktail: the Dam Good Mule. New Amsterdam Vodka's twist on the Moscow Mule! Warning: this drink is insanely good.. and hard to put down! It is so refreshing and really enjoyable to sip on. It is just the right amount of sweet (and a little bubbly, too), but still had that punch from the vodka to balance out the flavors. I am usually a tequila person, but I became so obsessed with the Dam Good Mule - which says a lot! What I love the most about it is that it's so simple to make and it can be made at home to enjoy whenever. Yay!

Here's how to make it: 

Dam Good Mule Recipe:

5 liters New Amsterdam

3 liters Top Hat Mule Concentrate

10 liters of COLD/Purified Water

(ingredients above make one 5 gallon korney keg)

Garnish with a Lime Wheel & Fresh Mint

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

Moncho1929's work was placed throughout the entire space amongst other artists. I personally loved all of his pieces that actually featured New Amsterdam Vodka! He incorporated the bottle in his artwork in such creative ways. My favorite was a piece he did that was a very colorful portrait of a lifeguard stand with a surfboard leaning up against it. The surfboard design had an illustration of New Amsterdam Vodka on it which I thought was so cool and unexpected. Another one that really stood out to me was an image of a big gun that had microphones attached to the top of it, mimicking a camera. I would assume that it's referencing the power that the media has over people, and it's very clever how he depicted that.

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

I also loved the awesome graffiti screen that allowed guests to actually create their own art for the entire party to see. Seriously, when each person had their own chance to get up there in front of the screen, everyone surrounded you and anxiously awaited the message or drawing you'd be putting up there! I wrote "The Gilded Bellini <3 New Amsterdam Vodka" (Of course). Then, my design was transferred on to a t-shirt so I could save it forever. 

I really was blown away at how well New Amsterdam Vodka and Moncho1929 teamed up and created such a truly unique event. Since New Amsterdam Vodka was actually incorporated into his work, it really set the event apart from traditional gallery and cocktail parties. I walked away with even more of an appreciation for street art, a newfound love for New Amsterdam Vodka, and an obsession with the Dam Good Mule. It was just too dam good to be true. ;)

Photo by: New Amsterdam Vodka

5 Ways to Celebrate National Rosé Day This Weekend in LA & NYC

Every second Saturday in June, one of the most important holidays of the year comes back entitling every person to go about their day wearing rose-colored glasses. It's none other than National Rosé Day! This year, it falls on Saturday, June 11th.

As a bicoastal gal, I wanted to share with you some fun ways to properly celebrate the day. This weekend, it's all about drinking pink. Luckily, both LA and NYC take this holiday VERY seriously. From festive events, to restaurants decked in roses and even some rosé-infused cocktails, my two favorite cities have got you covered to quench your thirst for rosé.

1. What to Do

LA: Rosé Summer Soirée at Magnolia, Hollywood - On Thursday, June 9th, this soirée is encouraging you to stop and smell the rosé! Enjoy live music, fabulous mingling and delicious Magnolia favorite rosés from Italy, France, South America and California.

NYC: The Fat Jewish & Live Performance by ROZES at Hudson Terrace - Ring in rosé season on Thursday, June 9th with the one and only The Fat Jewish who will guarantee a rooftop party that will be anything but basic. 

2. Where to Eat

LA: Rose Café in Venice Beach - Let's be real here. Guests may book a res for the food, but they're really coming to take pictures in front of the gorgeous rose mural on the outside of the restaurant. Mini photoshoots and tons of Insta-worthy pictures happen right outside the door... Rose Café's door that is.

NYC: Palma - One of my all-time favorite restaurants in the city, nestled on the quaint Cornelia Street in the West Village. The space is known for its beautiful garden with ivy covered walls and plentiful fresh flowers. It's the perfect setting to enjoy a pretty brunch and a summery glass of rosé.

3. Drink the Best Rosé-Infused Cocktails

LA: Rosé All Day from Rose Café in Venice Beach - So nice I had to mention this spot twice. This pink concoction made out of Rosé, Moscatel Pisco, Lime, Grapefruit, and Orange Bitters. It's the perfect drink to ring in National Rosé Day. It's all in the name.

(Photo By: Mackenzie Anne Smith)

NYC: Frozémonade from Extra Fancy in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - It's the ultimate Summer cocktail! The frothy drink is a staple at this BK restaurant. It's made out of dry rosé, Lemon Juice, Simple Syrup, Aperol and Ice. No better way to cool down in the NYC summer heat than with a Frozémonade in hand! 

4. Florals for National Rosé Day... Groundbreaking. 

No, but really. They're necessary! Regardless of your respective coast, we all love a beautiful bouquet of petals for that perfect arrangement. Whether you have a rosé celebration at your home or not, it's always nice to wake up and smell the roses... or peonies or hydrangeas. Or just rosés. Here's where to go:

LA: Check out the Original LA Flower Market in DTLA.

NYC: The Jungles of the 28th Street Flower District. Need I say more?

5. Pregame on a Budget in Proper Rosé Fashion

LA: Rosé by the Pool Pregame - Gather up your closest friends and take advantage of any sun that breaks through the clouds during this June Gloom. BYO favorite rosé and chill by your apartment complex's pool if it's during the daytime. If it's closer to night, dress up and turn it into a pregame! 

NYC: Rosé on the Rooftop Pregame - It's rooftop season. And, I know you all have one. Nothing is better than a rooftop pregame! Hit up the liquor store that's 4 inches from your apartment building's door, round up your favorite rosés and drink the pink. We'll be waiting for your festive rosé amongst skyline Instagram photos.

Have a happy National Rosé Day!

How to Get the Perfect Brunch Beauty Look; Expert Tips from Beauty Guru Kimberly Arnold

If you’re an avid bruncher, you know that the act of going to brunch is more than just a special occasion – it’s a lifestyle, and it’s a time to make a statement with how you look from head to toe. Most weekend brunches are the necessary post-going out ritual that just somehow cures your hangover with magical brunch feels. But, that doesn’t mean that you can just roll out of bed with smudged makeup on from the night before and expect to look ready to take on the day!

Brunch beauty is just as important to keep in mind as it is with your outfit. However, don’t be fooled that you have to put on as much makeup as you did the night before. I personally love the fresh-faced, minimal makeup look because it’s simple, quick and pretty without looking overdone.

Kimberly Arnold, founder of the blog Bitches Who Blend is a beauty industry veteran of over seven years of experience, and a guru of all things makeup and skincare.  She’s worked with global brands like Bobbi Brown, Estée Lauder, NARS and more. With over three years of experience as a beauty writer as well, she lives and breathes the beauty world.

I knew I needed to ask her about the ideal brunch beauty look, and just what products the rest of us brunchers definitely need to achieve a natural and effortless-looking appearance.

 “The key to a beautiful summer brunch beauty look is really about creating an effortless-looking, sun-kissed glow. It’s important that your makeup gives you the hydration and sun protection you need, especially if you’ll be brunching outdoors.  Don’t overthink it and get heavy-handed with your brunch beauty look, because you really want your natural beauty to shine through."

 SKIN

After a late night out the evening before brunch, it’s important to recharge your skin. I always say that you should take care of your skin, first and foremost, before thinking about makeup.

Drinking alcohol, especially in excess, can have many negative effects on your body and skin, such as lack of hydration, bloating, and depletion of nutrients. Therefore, it’s really important to drink water consistently after you get home the night before, and in the morning, when you wake up! Not only will this slowly bring your skin back to its natural state, but it will also hydrate you from within. 

Make sure to cleanse skin of any remnants of last night’s makeup thoroughly, and then follow with a hydrating serum, day cream with SPF, and eye cream. If you’re feeling super ambitious, I recommend using a sheet mask. Sheet masks, which are extremely popular in Korea, are typically utilized as a supplemental skincare treatment. Their purpose is to offer intense hydration, which is what the skin desperately needs after an evening of drinking.

Dr. Jart Water Replenishment Cotton Sheet Mask

 

COMPLEXION

Post morning skincare, it’s best to incorporate a hydrating base for makeup. BB creams, CC creams, and tinted moisturizers are all great options for giving you coverage, while replenishing your skin’s moisture levels. If you feel that you need additional coverage, incorporate a more full coverage concealer to conceal blemishes and imperfections, but I would still recommend using a hydrating base for overall coverage.

NARS Pure Radiant Tinted Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF 30

If you had a late night out, it’s really important to fake the sleep you didn’t get! Incorporating a concealer that is one to two shades lighter than your undereye will not only create a highlighting effect on the face, but it will also make you appear well-rested. If you suffer from naturally dark circles, opt for a peach undertoned corrector before applying your concealer to give you an added brightness. The peach tones in the corrector will cancel out the deep blue undertones that give the look of dark circles.

With summer coming up, who doesn’t want a hint of sun kissed skin? Skip the contouring and use a bronzer simply to add color to your face. Using a matte bronzer, sweep the product with a buffing brush on the temples, cheeks, and under the jawline. This will create an overall warmth to the face and will look really beautiful and effortless.

Bobbi Brown Bronzing Powder

Because you’re using bronzer, you can skin a blush, but I prefer a pop of color on the cheeks. I recommend a cream blush to give you that hydrated, sheer wash of color that will give off that flushed-from-within vibe.

My favorite part of any makeup look is creating a healthy, luminous glow. Apply your favorite highlighter to the peaks of your cheekbones, down the nose, on the forehead and chin. If you have oily skin, you can skip this step altogether, or just highlight your cheekbones. When the sun hits your face, you’ll have that J-Lo glow we all envy. Cream and liquid highlighters are best for normal to dry skin types, while powder highlighters are best suited for normal, combination, and oily skin types.

BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed

As an optional step, you can set your makeup look with a sheer or translucent powder, but I prefer a more dewy look, so I, personally, skip this step.

EYES

There’s no need to go too crazy with heavy eye makeup, unless that’s your everyday go-to look. I recommend a simple, yet brightening wash of color on the eyelids to give the appearance of more awakened eyes. Cream shadows are great for long-wear and, typically, give an extra glow. Opt for champagnes and golds to give a brightened eye look. Fake lashes can also be used for that extra glam, otherwise your favorite mascara will do the job.

Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Cream Shadow

 LIPS

Since you’ll be eating at brunch, you can either go with a tinted balm or sheer lip color, or opt for a lip stain that will last while you’re sipping your Mimosas at brunch.

Tata Harper Volumizing Lip & Cheek Tint

FINISHING TOUCHES

After you’ve finished applying all your makeup, you can opt to set your makeup with a setting spray. Not absolutely necessary, but I definitely recommend it!

Urban Decay All-Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray

Follow @bitcheswhoblend on Instagram for the latest beauty tips, trends and tutorials from Kimberly and other experts & industry professionals.

Ringing in Rosé Season with La Nuit En Rosé: Event Recap

As rosé season emerges, one may ask how to appropriately ring in the precious few months we look forward to all year. The answer is: the annual La Nuit en Rosé Food and Rosé Wine Festival.

For the second year in a row, it was held at Skybar at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood and consisted of a three-day endless rosé celebration. My fab friends Kyle of From Hamptons to Hollywood, Mitch of Cavalier-Crew.com and I got the chance to attend, giving us the pleasure of accessing 6o different rosés from around the world along the gorgeous poolside overlooking all of LA.

Mitch and I attended the Rosé Sunset Soiree on Saturday night. It was a great turn out, with many people walking around sampling rosés, lounging by tables and mingling with others. Dim lighting with strung lights across the pool created a very sexy, refined ambiance. Although many attended, the charm of the intimate outdoor terrace created a very luxe, exclusive experience.

Of course one of the ultimate highlights of the event was this amazing video booth.

Rosé vendors were incredibly friendly and enjoyable to talk to. I loved learning about different rosés and discovering what makes them so different, whether they were more floral, fruity, dry, light, or sweet. It’s hard to believe that so many unique blends exist! It was super pretty and very fitting that many of the rosés on display were illuminated with pink lighting.

While nearly all of them were extremely pleasing to the palate, I hands down fell in love with Fantinel, a bubbly rosé from Italy. It was sweet, but not overpoweringly sweet because of its similar consistency and taste to champagne. And if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm totally champs obsessed. Fantinel was one of the select rosés at the event that was bubbly, but that made it really stand out from the others. It was so crisp, tantalizing and an absolutely gorgeous shade of pink. Mitch and I made friends with the Fantinel reps and couldn’t stop coming back over for another refreshing swig! 

The following day was the Rosé Pool Party where Mitch, Kyle and I got to come into the event as a triple threat – determined to discover more amazing rosé and take endless pictures for our future posts. The blog is always on the brain!

The vibe of the pool party was very Hamptons-esque, which was really cool to get a taste of on the West Coast. Lots of people were wearing white (like myself), some springy pops of color, and a handful were donning their best swim suits.

Lots more mingling went on and we connected with a bunch of cool people. It was such a nice day out with the sun shining and the music bumping. With a glass of rosé in hand, you couldn’t help but just genuinely have a great time!

The event (which I wish spanned longer than just a weekend!) was incredibly chic and enjoyable. It was so cool to be able to meet people with similar styles and tastes, and to have the opportunity to open my eyes to so many amazing rosé brands from around the globe. With each sip of a different blend, I truly did feel more cultured! The weekend had the perfect amount of sexiness, sophistication, trendiness and lightheartedness – it was evident after each guests’ (and our's) frequent trips back to their favorite rosé stations that the event was a total success.

I already cannot wait for next year’s event! Huge thank you to La Nuit en Rosé for a very fun and beautiful weekend with friends. Life is waaay more fun through rosè colored glasses. ;)

Interested in attending next year? Be sure to visit nuitrose.com and follow @nuitrose on Instagram for all the deets on future La Nuit en Rosé happenings.

Wear Your Favorite Skyline to Your Next Brunch with City + Sky Jewelry Collection

Since little girls, twin sisters Allison Edwards and Courtney Edwards never lost their love for fashion, accessorizing and dressing the part. With age, a love for travel, the arts and enjoying the city life led them to pursue their creative talents and provide a showcase of things cherishable to them. The ladies created Where Wear in The City, a site giving its readers the perfect fix for all things fashion, lifestyle, and events. Fast forward a few years later, now having a super strong online following, the ladies decided to bring their vision of a unique ready to wear jewelry line and bring it to life. 

Charmed by the demure of cities and all that they entail, their love for the city was evident. They also wanted to represent something from the heart, promoting peace, happiness and a worldly view of the sky above. The Edwards sisters firmly believe where you came from and where you are in life is all about embracing the then and the now. Together with a vivid imagination, the will to infuse and inspire those, City + Sky arrived. 

Whether you fell in love with a city you visited once, or moved from home and want something unique as a reminder of where you came from, these pendants will certainly hold a special place in your heart. Being bicoastal myself, I absolutely adore these pieces and love how I can take a part of home with me everywhere I go!

See what the ladies of Where Wear in The City/City + Sky have to say about the evolution of their brand, a few of their favorite brunch spots in their own city of Dallas and how to snag one of these gorgeous statement pieces! 

1. Tell us a little bit about you and your site, Where Wear in The City!

Beginning as a blog, Where Wear in the City came to life. Focusing online content about fashion, health, beauty, events, entertainment, culture and anything else we found favorable. With years of both being best known as the “social chairs,” “event planners,” and “fashion go to girls,” we decided it was time to put our experiences into words and share to those who would read it. Soon after, Where Wear in the City became a very popular website and is still going strong.

2.      You’re experts on fashion, lifestyle, beauty, culture and events in numerous cities. I see that you’re based out of Dallas. As a brunch connoisseur and someone who hasn’t been to the South (yet!), I’d love to know where your favorite place to brunch in Dallas is.  

Aww yes brunch is always a good idea! We love Bistro 31, State and Allen, Oddfellows, Parigi and The Standard Pour.

3.     You’ve created a very unique and fabulous line of jewelry called City + Sky, a collection inspired by the gorgeous skylines of our favorite cities. Tell us when you launched and about the inspiration behind the line.

Aww thank you! We launched back in October of 2014, when Dallas was voted the best international skyline! We wanted to create something unique, visible and spin off of our blog-Where Wear in the City! We knew cities and states had been done but there was little to show about city skylines. We definitely think they represent the uniqueness of the city!

4.     How many city skylines are you offering?

We currently have 11 cities: Dallas, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, London, Miami. We are working on Portland, Nashville, Charleston and Boston.

5.     I love how you offer pendants with the Los Angeles and New York City skylines! It’s great how people who’ve lived in multiple cities can wear your jewelry and be reminded of home in such a trendy way. How do you choose what features of each city to use in your pendants?

We definitely research the actual city skyline because we want each skyline to be perfect and worthy of that conversation!  We also try to add something unique about it, like adding palm trees to the Los Angles and Miami skylines and the fleur de lis to our New Orleans one! 

6.     What do you feature on the Los Angeles pendant? The New York City pendant?

For the Los Angeles one we feature the downtown skyline but add that extra touch of palm trees as we mentioned above. After living in LA for a short period, palm trees and the beach cities have always been something we admired about Southern California. You definitely won't find anything of that nature in Texas!! For the NYC one, we have the Empire State Building as a focal point and we added the Statue of Liberty even though its technically not part of their actual city skyline. We loved seeing it when we ran the NYC marathon years ago while riding the ferry to Staten Island, so we knew it had to be included!

7.     We totally want to wear a pendant to our next brunch! Talk about a conversation starter. To all my LA and NYC friends, we know where to find our pendants. What if we go to your site and we don’t see a certain city we want on a necklace?

You can definitely visit our site at: www.wearcitysky.com. If we don’t have a particular skyline or want a custom piece feel free to see our shop custom page on our site or shoot us an email.

8.     What kinds of opportunities have you been able to take on since City + Sky launched? What plans do you have for the future?

We definitely hit the ground running since beginning City+Sky. We were able to participate in Belk’s Southern showcase in Charlotte, were featured on the Today Show in September and we did our first NYFW runway show which paired our looks, jewelry, music around our current cities, was so much fun! We have also done a handful of trunk shows in Dallas, Houston and Austin and are looking to expand into other cities for trunk shows, retail and speciality boutiques. We hope to do a few events in Los Angeles, Dallas and Austin this summer and the Williamsburg Flea in Brooklyn this fall too!

Follow the ladies of Where Wear in The City / City + Sky on Social Media: 

WhereWearInTheCity.com, WearCitySky.com

Instagram: @wherewearinthecity, @wearcitysky

Facebook: Where Wear In The City, City + Sky

Twitter: @WearCitySky, @wherewearincity