The Style Insider could stand to gain from a few fashion resolutions. Despite our sage advice for you, we’re as bad as everyone about adding new wardrobe items, getting rid of things we’ll never wear, ‘fessing up to what fits and what doesn’t, what looks good and what doesn’t.  

Thus, our collective brain trust has come up with 10 resolutions for 2009. Perhaps some apply to you: 

1. Act as if we are French. The French have it nailed when it comes to wardrobe and style (see the lovely French woman above?). A

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We’re all about January, with all the fresh starts and resolutions, the shiny-clean feeling this time of year brings. Let’s take a spin through a few fresh beauty blogs and see who’s glowing (and what they’re exfoliating with):

We loooooove Beauty Snob, because they just don’t stop with the attitude. They pick a Casio EX-Z3000 digital camera based on how great it makes your skin look ($278 at Amazon), and their Snob Trends for 2008 obsess over Clarisonic skin care systems, ($195, above) rotating mascara wands and Thymes diffusers ($60).

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New Year’s Eve is all about friends, fun, the past and the future. But we know what’s really on your mind: Who are you going to be kissing when the Times Square ball drops?

We’ve found some lipsticks that will leave any man begging for more.

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You’ve switched out the short-sleeves for the sweaters, the furnace is fueled and outdoors, colors and light have mellowed and deepened. Summer’s floral scents are so over, but save us from the nutmeg and spice, at least for a few more weeks. 

What aroma are you yearning for? Vanilla.

Warm, intimate vanilla: it’s cream-colored linens and candlelight dinners, and a drop on the nape of your neck, innocent and seductive.

Start with candles, and everything else will fall into place. Illuminations offers up vanilla poundcake scented candles in almost every shape and size you can imagine ($6 to $24, top), and then adds a bit of mint if you’re a bit of a different drummer ($10-$24).

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Basic black took on a new meaning in Yves Saint Laurent’s fall 2008 runway show (above, left, from New York Magazine) with models pouting their gothic black lips under severely chopped bowl-cut hair. Rachel McAdams (above, right) carried off the noir look beautifully in her New York Times T magazine spread. Now, we’re all smacking our lips over the two hottest products of the season: YSL Gloss Pur Black and Lancôme’s Color Fever Gloss in Piha Black and Piha Red (below right).

YSL Gloss Pur Black ($28, left) is a limited-edition preview of a new formula of six vibrant high-shine colors set to launch in spring 2009. A glance at the YSL Web site tells us it’s all sold out for now, so you can only admire the picture. Apparently, part of the beauty of the black gloss is that the shade varies depending on how it’s applied.

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When is a bottle of water not a bottle of water? When it’s a glittering, lacy, limited-edition Christian Lacroix Prêt-à-Porter Evian bottle of water.

Yes, the economy may be taking a nose-dive, but that likely meant little at New York’s recent Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, where excess will always spell success.

Evian, long the “official bottled water” for the Bryant Park runway shows, came out with the Lacroix collectible, part of their new line of designer-developed bottles. Decorated with glittering snowy crystals in a coppiced lace pattern, the bottle reminds us of the French Alps, the source of Evian springwater since 1826.

The Lacroix bottle will take its final bow this fall to make way for more high-end designer bottles. But you can still snag one for $14 or buy a case of 12 for $118.

Now that you’re drinking from that trendy bottle, how dare you freshen your face and set your makeup with that same old Evian Brumisateur (that’s French for “facial (more…)

No one can accuse would-be First Lady Cindy McCain of having a dull, predictable hairstyle. Over the course of the campaign, she has been photographed wearing her flaxen, shoulder-length hair up in a tight bun, up in a tight ponytail, up in a high bun, up in a soft-sided semi-ponytail (a bit like Sarah Palin), in a loose bun, down with waves, down without waves, down with a flip, with bangs and without.

Most of us couldn’t pull off that many looks in a lifetime, much less in the course of a campaign. She is always elegantly dressed, and we find ourselves wondering which hairstyle she’ll have in the next photo-op.

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