Hey Manolo lovers and Jimmy Chooholics… need your help and input. If you’ve been around The Luxe Mix since the good old days when I first started this, you should recall a post I did about high heels and how to wear them comfortably. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. So near and dear to me that I actually invented my own shoe pad. Mmmmmm Hmmmm, that’s right ladies. I have the perfect solution to all your toe boo boos and foot owwies. I tried pretty much every shoe pad out there to try to make my life at work on heels a little more bearable. I’ve tried everything at the store and a ton more tricks that I had up my sleeve.. until finally one day I said screw it I’m going to make my own shoe pad.

Thanks to Choxie Snoops, who has stepped in like the ever-energetic and superpowered leading lady that she is, we are bringing these foot pads to life! We are just getting ready to soft-launch our first batch of them in a couple weeks.

You can get your very first sample of our shoe pad by filling out 10 quick responses on our Heel Habits Survey. This offer is limited to fill it our quick! We’ll be giving away pads to the first 100 respondents. Please be patient for your shoe pad sample as we will be sending these out when we soft-launch our first batch.

Launch Survey

Thanks for you help and participation. One day soon we will end foot pain for all.

Everytime I travel to Korea I tend to come back with a whole lota something that never seems to make it out of the closet after returning to the states. Why is that? Well I’ve come to realize that I have a weakness for falling into the traveller’s fashion trap — essentially falling into step with the local fashion and convincing yourself that you can make that work back at home. The truth is, it just doesn’t work. At least not for me. The fashion in Korea is always at least 2-3 degrees more feminine than the US. When I’m there, I always start to feel like what I’m wearing is too rugged and not refined and polished. I’ll go about buying up nice skirts, frilly tops and a lot of sickeningly sweet hair pins and and accessories. By the end of my trip I’m looking quite girlishly Korean. Then of course, after I get home I’m looking at these pieces trying to be creative and integrate them into the rest of my “California” wardrobe… to end up just pushing them far into the depths of my closet. So word of advice when travelling — don’t get brainwashed by the locals style and buy up every trend you’re running into. I’d say get a few unique items to mix into your existing repertoire so it’s a fun reminder of your trip out there and it could add a freshness to your look, but don’t sell out like I do

Anyway, wanted to share a few pics of my  days in Seoul, Korea.

The Westin Chosun

My luxe hotel room at the Westin Chosun. I stayed here once in college with my Mother and fell in love with the design of this bed. We tried to model my bed in my parent’s house after it… didn’t work quite as I’d imagined.

Myung-Dong Shopping District

Myung-Dong — one of Seoul’s most trendy
shopping districts. I was able to take the full day to myself.. roaming
the streets and shops all alone — my happiest state when shopping!

I went into this Starbucks shown above… my very first experience at a Starbucks in Korea. I was mersmerized by the “Iced Doppio Espresso” they made me. Somehow coffee tastes better to me in Korea. I think it’s the richness to the cream used there. I’m craving that same flavor every day…

A cute little “Nail Art Studio”. “Nail Art” is big big time in Korea these days. I almost fell into the trap… I was about to get my nails painted bright pink with glitter. I ran out of time though phew.

Another Nail Art Studio… very cute interior design.

Red Mango Frozen Yogurt

Red Mango = My most favorite treat in all the world. If you are no up to speed on the Yogurt war in in LA.. Red Mango vs Pink Berry — please read up on the issue! Red Mango forever!

"Luxe" defined by Dictionary.com:

luxury; elegance; sumptuousness: accommodations providing luxe at low rates.

After talking with some people about my blog I realized I have never really defined what "Luxe" and the "Luxe Mix" is all about. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t even sure if the word "Luxe" existed in the English language. I’ve seen it used here and there in fashion magazine and such and I pretty drew my own conclusions of the meaning.

My own take on luxe…

"Luxe" — something that is luxury in style and essence. This is not constrained to luxury goods in my mind. I believe something that looks or feels "luxe" can be regarded or perceived to be luxury and does not necessarily mean it has to cost a lot of money.

The "Luxe Mix" –  a strategy I use in my personal styling. I don’t believe an individual has to spend exorbitant amounts of money to look "luxury."  There are some key goods that I firmly believe require quality investment such as handbags, shoes, certain jewelery and some beauty products. But other than that there’s so much great fashion and lifestyle products that come at incredibly affordable prices these days (see Luxe for Less).  You can see a huge shift in the fashion industry towards what’s referred to as "disposable clothing." Thanks to retailers like Forever21 and H&M, everyone can afford to look great.

I must caveat that my take on fashion and lifestyle goods works for me but wouldn’t suit others — especially my friend who I call "iRobot". iRobot shops much less frequently than me but anytime she makes a purchase it’s a life long purchase and she typically only buys the high end designer goods f’sho!! I on the other hand crave new things all the time. I get sick of things pretty quickly so it doesn’t make economical sense to purchase luxury goods at luxury prices.

So stay tuned to the Luxe Mix as I continue my quest for the life of Luxe without going for broke!

The results are in! The top 50 Fashion blogs of today…

http://www.fashionnewssite.com/top-50-fashion-blogs-in-the-us/

One day… Luxemix? hahaaa… we’ll see I did hear something interesting along those lines at a conference I was at last week. They said that every year the top blogs shift as it seems what’s in one year is out the next. I’d attribute that to a couple things.

1). Readers get bored with the same stuff over and over again.

2). The Readers themselves are changing. New readers join the blog audience everyday and what these new readers want is going to be different.

3). The bloggers themselves grow up and as that happens I’m sure their content evolves/morphs for better or for worse.

One day I’ll be blogging about diapers… hopefully fashionable diapers ~!