In honor of Labor Day, and all the hard work you do, we offer a few items that will save your energy for important tasks. Enough with all this pesky touching of things: The touchless trash can ($105) allows you to waggle a finger and it opens, while a $70 touchless dispenser will produce paper towels with a wave of the hand. That exhausting faucet and soap dispenser (pictured), too, can be made effortless ($60 each.) Sit down to dinner with automatic salt and pepper mills: no more grinding! Brush your teeth with the amazing Oral B Triumph with Smart Guide: a wireless screen that will tell you when you brush poorly, for $140. Then take your seat upon the TOTO Neorest 600 toilet, which will automatically flush, rinse you, blow your bottom dry, warm your rear if it’s chilly and deodorize all on its own, for $3,600. Elsewhere in the house, the latest state-of-the-art Roomba vacuum will clean without you ($430), and the Logitec Harmony 1000 advanced universal remote with touchscreen will operate all of your audio/visual equipment for $430. No more fumbling for keys at the front door with your fingerprint door lock, and with a wave of the handheld zapper ($23), irritating bugs that dare come near you will fry. For the car, use a keyless entry ($100), and a multi-function remote starter ($180). Does the cat want attention? Entertain it with a remote-controlled mouse ($20). And, to make the remaining tasks you must endure a bit easier, put the “to-do tattoo” on your palm and write away: No more wearisome lists on paper. You look more relaxed already.

The problem with lipstick is that it doesn’t really stick. All it takes is a cup of coffee and that beautiful burgundy you carefully applied is erased. Lip stains have been around for a while, but they’re enjoying a resurgance in some of the most popular make-up lines, primarily because lips (and cheeks) really do absorb the stain, and the tint lasts longer. It eventually wears away, but not as quickly as lipstick. One of the early popular stains is Benetint by Benefit ($28). The rose-colored liquid in a bottle is a sheer tint for lips and cheeks. Benefit also has a lip balm stain ($20) that’s thicker, and a convenient Benetint Pocket Pal ($20, pictured) that has a double-wand approach with lip stain on one end and a thick clear gloss on the other. Laura Mercier has a stain that comes in six shades that is also a little thicker in texture (like a gloss), for $20. Stila has two types of stain, both in a pen-like form: the cherry crush or the lip rouge, which looks and feels like a magic marker ($20). Then there are lots of other stain-makers: DuWop (which also is a lip plumper), Tarte (also a plumper), TheBalm’s Stainiac in three shades, Laura Geller, DKNY, Vincent Longo, Nars and more. A word of warning: be careful with the stains that are in liquid form. They, well, stain - more than just your lips.

Perhaps you’re a little too shy to don the season’s big chunky necklaces and oversized arm bangles. Are those giant hoops still a bit more than you can handle? If your fashion statements are small but still significant (or just plain silly) we’ve found nine pairs of earrings for you: 1. Are you a foodie? Then you’ll love the tiny fork and spoon earrings made by artist Victoria Mason at the Australian Web site Oyemodern. They’re $45 (yes, that’s in U.S. dollars). 2. If you’re a slow mover until you have your Starbucks double ex? Then the little bitty coffee cups by the same artist are yours for $45. 3. Just in time for Halloween (or any time if you’re into this kind of thing) two tiny skulls with rubies for eyes by Me & Ro are waiting for you, but they’re not cheap: on sale for $209. 4. We’re not really sure what tiny meany pirate ducks mean, but if that’s the look you want, then get them at Dawanda. 5. Still looking for more foodie earrings? Try these sterling silver whisks from Uncommon Goods for $65. 6. If you’re a handyman, or woman, then you’ll get a giggle out of these wee levels that really work. Look snappy in them, and then use them to hang a painting, for $65. 7. If dance is more your cup of tea, then you’ll want to snap up the hand-painted tiny dancer earrings from Etsy for $15. 8. Still holding onto that collection of LPs in the off chance that the turntable revolution will return? Then don the small replicas of LPs, also from Etsy, for a very reasonable $4. And, last but, well, maybe they’re least . . . 9. How can you resist a pair of very small grilled cheese sandwich earrings? We’re hungry just looking at them. They’re also from Etsy, for $17.

The football games are coming, and it’s time to start thinking about beer. Not just the beer you’re going to drink, but what you’re going to serve it in. Toss the plastic cups. It’s time to upgrade. You could go with some basic but classy glasses, like the assortment at PubGlasses.com, where you can pick from a variety that can be personalized for $15 a glass (or get the special football game glass for $10 each). CocktailVibe has the Oslo beer glass ($32 for a set of 4); Pottery Barn has a solid-looking set of six British pint glasses for $28; and at Williams-Sonoma you can find a set of four glasses and have them monogrammed with your initials for $59. If you want to have a bit more fun, consider a pilsner glass with a color-changing LED base or a set with a witty saying (”Half Empty? Half Full?”) in Italian from Sur la Table for $39.50 (pictured, set of four). Uncommon Goods always has amusing and interesting items, like their artful set of glasses that make the beer look suspended in mid-air, or the set of four glasses with your “house rules” for football game parties. Or go all-out for your team with a crystal freezer mug complete with team logo (3 for $12.99). Want to really get fancy? A pair of Lalique Louvre beer glasses will cost you $142, or a handsome set of four Waterford crystal beer glasses will run $250. But aren’t your friends worth it? Now that we’ve got you thinking about beer glasses, why don’t you just go all the way and buy real German beer steins? At BeerSodaSports.com, there are all kinds of steins such as a Bavarian beer ceramic stein with a metal lid, for $38. Or go straight to BeerGlasshopper, where the selection is as wide as your new HDTV: from a real ox-horn with a pewter lid and base ($285), a 3/4-yard glass (with stand) that holds 68 oz. for $80, a 40-oz. Hofbrauhaus Octoberfest dimpled glass mug (pictured), a Swiss hand-carved colorful stein complete with fancy lid for $130 or - and yes, they really do drink from these glasses - an 80-oz. Hofbrauhaus glass drinking boot for $70. And, when your friends have had a boot or two, and shatter your precious purchase on the floor, just remember: That’s what friends are for.

Hillary Clinton gave a stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention last night in one of her signature pantsuits, this one a very bright orange. Much has been made of Clinton’s pantsuits during the campaign, the sameness of their cut, their bright colors, their shapelessness. Designers have decried them. Try as we might we could not find a name of the designer of Clinton’s pantsuits, but in searching we did come across some pretty pantsuits to share. Macy’s has a striking black suit with a pleated jacket by Calvin Klein, on sale for $145. Sutton Studio has a basic suit with Hillary-esque longer jacket on sale for $190 at Bloomingdales. The Le Suit line of pantsuits from J.C. Penney are not high style, but they’re safe and solid, such as one with a long houndstooth coat and black pants, or a brown one (on sale for $100) with similar styling to Clinton’s suits (albeit a little more tailored around the waist). Moving up the price scale, the high-end designer Web site Yoox seems to have the market in expensive suits cornered: there’s a Costume National simple suit for $410, a similar but bright red suit for $478, a loosely cut pale pink one from Jil Sander for $314 (marked down from $1,250!) and a gorgeous black Armani with cropped jacket (Hillary’s are never with cropped jackets, which are more stylish and common currently) for $1,178. Nordstrom has plenty of mix and match jackets and pants, such as a $398 Elie Tahari or a black Kenneth Cole with a cropped jacket cinched at the waist with a stylish skinny belt. You can see all of Nordstrom’s suit offerings on this page. The creator of the women’s pantsuit, the late Yves St. Laurent, was proud that Hillary Clinton wore pantsuits (albeit not any of his). At Style.com, you can review a gallery of St. Laurent’s pantsuits over the years (the one pictured is from his fall 2001 couture collection) to see how many ways he interpreted the style.

It’s like Craigslist, except there’s a panel of judges waiting to disqualify the bad impersonation of a Mies van der Rohe chair you once found cool enough to buy and are now hoping desperately to sell. We’re talking about Feel More Human’s Modern Flea Market, the classified advertising section of a site devoted to modern design goods. Here you can buy and sell (with no fee to list items) previously owned gems such as a trio of Nuevo white and chrome Opener barstools, which are said to be “like new,” for just $125 (plus $85 shipping). To give you some context, we found a pair of the same barstools, new, for $340 (shipping free). That makes them $170 each new. Now that’s a flea market! The judges must be very picky, though, or else the items are flying off the site. We only found five things for sale on our most recent visit. (That’s a very small flea market.) There were two pieces by the Canadian design firm, Hot House: a modern coffee table ($150, plus $65 shipping) and a modern side table (same price), with the set going for a mere $225 ( plus $70 shipping). Buying an item is as simple as e-mailing the seller. The idea is a good one, we think, providing more sellers discover the site, but it’s the brand-spanking-new section of the eco-friendly store that gets most of the action. We were impressed by the solar LED house numbers ($20 each), which take around one hour to charge on sunny days (2-3 hours otherwise), and by the Rekindle coffee table ($360, pictured), which uses just three pieces of environmentally friendly SmartWood.

Is there anything more fun than trying to wake up a teenager at the beginning of the school year? A teenager who has spent the last three months sleeping until noon? The only thing that is likely more fun is watching what happens when Clocky the alarm clock goes off. Clocky is cute and has big wheels (pictured), and after your teen hits the snooze button once, Clocky rolls off the bedside table and rolls around the room, continuing to buzz loudly: under the bed, against the door, in the bathroom, until said teen has to get out of bed to find him. Beautiful! He’s $50 at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Another fun one is the flying alarm clock. It has a cute little propeller on its top, and when it goes off, the propeller spins and flies away, carrying the key that makes the alarm clock stop its incredibly loud screeching. Fabulous, and $11.48 at Amazon. It would probably be entertaining to watch (more…)

When is a book a head scarf? When is a dish towel a souvenir? Not often, granted — but these cute textiles fit all the descriptions above and more. They’re humble but lovely cloths made in Japan, where you might find them worn in street festivals or hanging on the wall. In case their multi-functionality confuses Western shoppers, importers have folded them up and stitched them so the make a kind of book of fabric, each “page” highlighting a different part of the larger illustration. (To use them as originally intended, just snip the two threads that keep the sheet folded up.) While the fabric’s maker, Hamamonyo, offers a huge selection of patterns in Japan (see them at this foreign-language site), the American company Compact Impact is testing the market with only three styles, which it sells in this bundle for $15.50. More varieties featuring illustrations of pets are on their way in October, the retailer says.