I realize this might be an odd year to celebrate National Lipstick Day for the first time ever, when all the good and normal people among us are hiding our lips with masks while in public. But I figure there’s no better time to get ready for when our faces can be seen in all their beauty once again. Even though no one outside our homes is catching sight of our lips these days, we have to prepare for the glorious day when this pandemic will be behind us.

Hollywood Blvd from the Glitter line.

So, to have our pouts ready, and because we all need some positivity in our lives right now, INAM is teaming-up with Gerard Cosmetics to celebrate the day by giving away $25. gift cards for my favorite lipsticks in the whole world! The only problem for the winners will be just which of their fabulous products they should choose!

First of all, because we all hate the year 2020 so much, and I am loathe to have that number associated with only bad things, we’re choosing 20 winners, to help that integer now have a happy ring to it for a bit.

Before I tell you more about how the give-away will work, let me first whet your appetite. Gerard Cosmetics features such a variety of lip products! I’ve used many of them over the years, so I can tell you some of my fave choices in each category. (But you have to figure-out what would look best with your own face and coloring.)

I think perhaps their most popular category is their Color Your Smile Lip Gloss. These wands have a little light on them that turns-on when you take it out, and I believe there’s a mirror on the back of the tube, as well, so you’ll always have perfect applications. (Just don’t try to do it in a theatre while the show is still going on!) Lyrica Anderson (from the TV show Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood,) has even curated a collection of these glosses that are perfect for deep skin tones.

The Lyrica Anderson collection from Gerard Cosmetics.

In the MetalMatte Liquid Lipstick collection, my pals and I have fought over Dreamweaver, which seems to us to work just right on all lips. But if it’s super sparkle your lips are craving, go for Gerard’s Glitter Lipstick in Hollywood Blvd! You’ll be the star of your crowd every time.

If all those are too much for you, and you’re just a basic lipstick kind of gal, (or guy—no judgment here,) there’s that category on the site, as well. A bunch of us love French Toast, although just thinking about it is making me hungry! And you cannot ever go wrong with their Lip Pencils, especially in universal Nude.

The Lip Plumper.

If I was allowed to be one of the winners, (which, of course I am not,) I would opt for either their Lip Plumper or Supreme Lip Crème this time. I think those are the only two Gerard Cosmetics products I’ve never tried!

But, as the title of this e-zine states, it’s not about me—it’s all about you guys this time! So have fun and go for it!

By the way—not a fan of lipstick? No worries. The winners can use their gift cards for any of Gerard Cosmetics’ items! They have great teeth whiteners and all kinds of face and eye cosmetics, as well. You can even use part of the gift cards for the shipping, if you like.

Some of the other products on the site.

Okay, so here are the rules:

Go to www.gerardcosmetics.com and peruse the site. (That way, you’ll know what you’d like to order if you’re one of the twenty winners.) Then come back here, and leave a comment, (which may or may not be seen, so keep that in mind,) in the Comments section below this column. You have to say something good about one or more of the Gerard Cosmetics products, or the site, in general. (And something nice about me or this e-zine wouldn’t hurt.) Go crazy and be creative! Length doesn’t matter. (In this case, anyway.)

Since I’m aware that some of you wait until the week-end to catch-up on all my INAM columns, we’re giving you some extra time, until this coming Monday night, August 3, 2020 at 11:59PST, to enter. Then my team (made up of essential personnel) will judge them, and choose the top twenty entries. If we choose more than twenty entries to be fabulous, we’ll put those names in a hat, and choose the winners randomly.

We’ll feature some of them in the Comments section below as we go along, just for fun. (But if yours gets published, please do not get excited yet—it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a winner; just that you’re in the running.) [Privacy notice—even though this site requires that you give us an email address when you leave a comment, we never publish those, of course. Just your name and comment appear in this e-zine. And, in this case, we need the email addresses to give to Gerard Cosmetics so they can send out the e-cards.]

We’ll notify the winners on or about Tuesday, August 4, 2020, and the gift cards will be emailed to them shortly after that.

And that is it!

Just some of the many choices.

But here’s a bonus for all of you reading this, even the non-winners: Gerard Cosmetics is celebrating National Lipstick Day on their own, as well! So, for now through this Friday, July 31st, all their lip products are on sale for just…$10 each!!! So you can stock-up now, and then the winners can use their gift cards at a later date; they never expire!

So, Happy National Lipstick Day! And happy entering our contest! May the best lips win!

As anyone who knows me is aware, I’m far from an adventuress myself, but even I am interested in this give-away!

As a little 4th of July surprise for my readers, I’m giving away a trio of beauty swipes from the company Adventuress, which I just recently became aware of.

The winner will receive a cute little container with five of each variety, which are: sunscreen, cleansing, and moisturizing.  And, in my book, they’re not just handy to bring on outdoor adventures, (except maybe the sunscreen ones.) I’d be happy to have the moisturizing ones for a late night at the club!

They’re great for any girl on the go, (especially moms,) and you can now be the owner of this special set of swipes.

But hurry; we have to choose a winner by noon EST tomorrow, July 2, so the victor can receive them by the fourth, hopefully.

It’s easy to enter this one. Because of the time constraints, you don’t have to write the usual small “essay,” complimenting me! Just give us your info in the Comments section below, including your name, address, and email address. We won’t publish the entries; it’s just the quickest way to get to me. We’ll choose the winner randomly from among the entries at 8:50AM Pacific Time tomorrow. We’ll contact the winner only, so if you don’t hear from us by noon East Coast time, please accept our apologies, and get ready to enter INAM’s next pop-up give-away.

To see what we’re giving away before you enter, click here and look for the “swipes”: www.goadventuress.com

I’m so happy to announce this exciting give-away we’re offering on ItsNotAboutMe.TV, courtesy of My Candy Baskets.  Someone sent me a lovely basket from this New York-based company before Valentine’s Day, and it was so delightful that I just knew I had to share my discovery with my readers.  And now the prospect of Mother’s Day coming up on May 10 gives us the perfect opportunity to do it again!

My Candy Basket is joining with us at INAM to give away sixteen elegant candy baskets this week, so I’m calling the contest, “The Sweet Sixteen.”

This might be the My Candy Basket that you win. Or maybe it will look like the one at the top. Photos courtesy of My Candy Basket.

This is what I told you about these wonderful gifts in my Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas column: “These custom-made candy gift baskets are not only delish, they’re absolutely gorgeous! I received one recently, and, no fooling, it took Mr. X and me a week to open it because we wanted to just admire the stunning packaging for awhile! You can design your own, or just go with an already-created one. There are so many beautiful color-schemes to choose from, and the variety of candies is overwhelming. And, for those of you to whom this matters, it’s all Kosher!”

I just gave you that reminder so that you’ll know how special this give-away is! My Candy Basket is making-up these special Mother’s Day baskets just for you, with what they feel is the perfect color scheme for the occasion, and with a wonderful array of delights. So, you have no decisions to make, other than to enter our contest in the next two days!

Some of the baskets, all ready to be sent to the winners! Photo courtesy of My Candy Basket.

This is how The Sweet Sixteen contest will work:

It opens as soon as you read this, and closes on Wed. night, April 29th, 2015, at 11:59PM Pacific Time.  It’s open to everyone in the continental United States, including people who know me.  (Now I’ll really find-out how many of my own pals, who say they read INAM daily, really do!)   The only person who can’t enter, as  matter of fact, is me!  And, trust me, I’m sad about that because, even without being a mother myself, I’d love one!

The My Candy Basket is due to arrive before Mother’s Day, so I’d love moms to win, but there’s no restriction on that.  And I’m sure that some people will enter to be able to give it to their mothers!

You enter by putting your statement into the Comments section, below, but no worries–we won’t publish them; you’re putting your entry there just so my team and I can read them together, and decide on the winners.  [Note: If you win, and do want us to show your entry, just let us know.]

Since this is a contest, as opposed to a sweepstakes, this is what you have to do to win: Write a brief comment, saying why you would have liked to have me as your mother, daughter, sister, or aunt.  They can be as short or long as you want them to be. You don’t have to be schmaltzy; the entries can be sincere, nice, or funny. Or whatever you want them to be. They don’t even have to be true!

We’ll notify you only if you’re one of the sixteen winners.  But I promise that we will totally appreciate all entries. (And, if you’d like to give us some feedback when you receive yours, please feel free to respond to the email the notification comes in from.)

And don’t be sad if you don’t win this one; you can always order an affordable My Candy Basket for yourself! Just go to their site, by clicking here: www.mycandybasket.com

And that’s it! Best of luck to all who enter. I can’t wait to read your comments!

Continuing the tradition that began years ago on Karen’s Restaurant Revue, we were planning on doing a give-away of what I consider the only necessity for foodies—The Zagats restaurant guides. (They now serve many other cities, but we do just the Los Angeles and New York City ones because those are our main two cities of coverage.)

But just like with the famous fast food places that have secret menus, (In-N-Out Burger’s double meat animal style, anyone?,) many people in the know already asked when we were going to be doing our Zagats give-away before we even posted it! So, since we’re starting so late this holiday, (which wouldn’t give us time to begin a new give-away, choose the winner, and then send them out,) we decided to just go with the first forty-eight people who had already inquired.

But since, between the oh-so-many movies I have to review for you, along with time-sensitive live events to tell you about, I don’t have time to do a whole column of holiday gift suggestions this year, this gives me the opportunity to once again recommend the Zagats guides as great gifts for any holiday!

So, I hope this is a fun surprise to those of you who hadn’t even realized you were entering, and, as soon as we notify the winners in the next day or two, the Zagats will be on their way to you. And next year, we’ll go back to doing the give-away in the normal way. Well, normal for us!

Since this is Thanksgiving week, my pals at Helzberg Diamonds and I decided to give one of you something to really be thankful for: we’re doing a give-away of one of their top items!

Since I first mentioned this company, (when I met them at a gifting suite which, if you missed it, you can read here: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/gifting-suites-gbk-emmys-gift-lounge-2013,) I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries into the potential give-away. And now it’s finally here!

First I’m going to tell you what you can win, followed by the rules. The winner will have a choice of two items from Helzberg Diamonds’ exclusive line, INFINITY X INFINITY™, which was inspired by one of my favorite television shows, (and I’m sure all of yours,) Revenge. That ABC hit series uses the infinity sign to “symbolize a love that lasts forever.” 
 I just use it for every disagreement I have with Mr. X, by adding “infinity times infinity” to whatever my side of the argument is!

The sterling silver and diamond Infinity pendant.

No matter what you use infinity to represent, Helzberg Diamonds is giving the winner his or her choice of a sterling silver and diamond pendant or sterling silver and diamond dangle earrings from the Infinity X Infinity collection. You’ll win with either, because they are both fabulous! If I were the winner, (which, of course, I can’t be,) I know it would be a hard decision; it just depends if you’re a pendant or an earring person. (I’m definitely the latter, but the former looks beautiful, as well.) Here are the descriptions, straight from the company, which I hope help the winner decide:

INFINITY X INFINITY™ DIAMOND PENDANT IN STERLING SILVER

“Symbolizing never-ending love, this sterling silver pendant is adorned with a beautiful array of diamond accents.”

INFINITY X INFINITY™ DANGLE EARRINGS WITH DIAMOND ACCENTS IN STERLING SILVER

“Each of these earrings is crafted from sterling silver and carry a cluster of four round diamond accents in the center.”

To see more about the jewelry pieces, please go to:  www.helzberg.com/infinity

Now, here are the rules of the give-away:

The sterling silver and diamond Infinity dangle earrings.

Even though the very title of this e-zine declares that “It’s Not About Me,” if you read the fine print, you’ll see that “it really is!” So, to that end, (and to give me extra things to be grateful for right now, since I’m still dealing with my messed-up hand issues,) the winner will be the one who comes up with the best complimentary comment about me! It doesn’t have to be true, but I’ll take it as such, anyway, to cheer myself up.

The judges will be my mysterious webmaster, Lou, several members of my reviewing panel, (you can read about them in the About section of this site,) and of course, me! (Mr. X chose to stay out of it.) There will be an odd number of us, so that there can’t be a tie.

The comments can be as interesting, and long or short, as you want them to be. They can be funny or serious. And no worries—none of them will be posted except for the winner’s, which will be announced in the Comments section under this post, next Monday, December 2, 2013.

Sadly for all my international readers, (for which, thankfully, there are many,) this contest is open to only my readers in the United States. But if you have something nice you want to say about me, anyway, you know I’ll be happy to see it! And I’ll be eternally grateful for it, seriously, so that’ll make you a winner in my book.

The contest will end at 12:01 AM, on Sunday, December 1, 2013, so that we can take that whole day to choose a winner. We’ll notify you by email, and then we’ll need your address, and jewelry choice, of course, to pass on to Helzberg Diamonds, who will send you the item directly.

So, on your mark, get set, go! But no rush; you have five whole days to come up with something fabulous to say about me, (though I’m hoping it will take you each just one second to think of something good.) I wish we could send each and every one of you something from the Helzberg Diamonds Infinity X Infinity collection, because that’s how much I really do treasure all my readers. But since we can’t, I’m hoping that the winner will enjoy his or her jewelry enough for all of us.

I meet so many people in my line of work that I just can’t keep up with most of them. I’m sure most are worthwhile, but there are few I think are lovely people. I’m just so glad that I’ve finally made time to go to the adorable Laura Filipowicz’ Bag Lady Promotions functions! She’s exactly what I feel people should be. And wish I was! Always pleasant.

And her events are as worthwhile as she is. Her previous one I went to in Culver City in July, We Heart Moms,was wonderful. I had planned on writing about it, especially since I got a subtle hair feather put in by Brenda Higuera of Manu Salon in Santa Monica, and won a gorgeous blue sparkly bracelet, made my none other than Laura herself, (who I keep bugging to get back into the jewelry business,) but my sudden trip to New York then prevented it.

So, before anything else can get in the way, I want to tell you about a recent, enjoyable, daytime event from this company. It was last week at a store that I was unfamiliar with, D.L. Rhein, on trendy Third Street. This one was titled, “Crafts and Cocktails Soiree,” but it was so much more than that.

I really didn’t know what to expect at 10:30AM, so everything about it was a surprise. We were greeted by amiable co-owner Andy Rhein, proffering mimosas…on a week-day morning! And most everyone accepted! Happy Holidays to us!

We mingled while perusing the stunning appointments the store offered. I honestly can’t imagine how owner Deborah Rhein does it. Each section featured wonderful unique gifts in one shade and each one was interesting. I usually can’t find anything I really want in shops like this, but in D.L. Rhein, there was hardly anything I didn’t want!

Looks like I'm not the only one who loved this food--the sandwiches on the left were already depleted.

But, since we know that I’m a food whore, (we all knew that, didn’t we?,) I was thrilled to see, and taste(!), beautiful treats in the back room. The heartier food, (sandwiches, stuffed cherry tomatoes, mini-quiches,) were catered by Meg Hall from Manhattan Beach. And the adorable bite-sized desserts were baked by Susan Salzman, the Urban Baker. The other femmes couldn’t stop raving about the lemon meringue pies, but I absolutely could not tear myself away from the pumpkin pies! I don’t even like pumpkin, but these barely left my hands. Or lips! I’m sure I embarrassed myself with them.

When we had all arrived, (or most of us, anyway,) we got a real surprise. (Or maybe just I did, since I’ve never been crafty, except detective-work-wise, and it was a craft, which the invite clearly stated.) We were given goodie bags, which included make-it-yourself bracelets! At first, I thought that Deborah (the D.L. in the shop’s moniker) was nuts to show us her secrets. But, when I saw the level of non-talent we all had for the discipline, I knew she was safe.

Some of the crafty ladies.

She helped us through, and it was great! What a fun, unexpected morning activity! Through the luck of the draw, I received a moonstone, which signifies goddesses. (Boy did they get that one right!) Or maybe the stone and I were just drawn to each other cosmically because I used to collect them on Moonstone Beach when I lived in Rhode Island when I was younger. (I found out later that it’s the state gem of Florida, so I probably got it because my hair was wavy that day!)

Because I loved everything in the store, when they offered to give a $50. gift certificate to one of my readers, I jumped at the chance for you guys! Even though Mr. X and I will be spending the holidays in New York with my little mo, and we just use an official Charlie Brown little Xmas tree there, (hence, no ornaments,) I bought several gorgeous ones at D.L. Rhein, just to look at! And to enjoy for years to come, of course. So I can vouch for the merchandise.

In addition to this location where the party was held, there’s a branch in Culver City, and you can use the cert at either one.

So, here’s what you do to enter the drawing:

You have to “like” this E-zine, ItsNotAboutMe.TV, (which I assume you know since you’re reading it right now!,) on Facebook, which I swear I hate doing to you, but that’s unfortunately the way we all have to go nowadays. Then you leave me a comment under this column, (which won’t be published, so no worries there,) and the nicest one wins! My assistant and webmaster will help decide the winner, so it won’t be up to me alone. (Even though Mr. X thinks I can be a dictator at times, I’m really all about democracy.)

Since I know some of you catch up on my columns over the week-end, I’ll give you till Monday morning at 9AM west coast time. The winner will be notified by Wednesday at 5PM, after all three of us have a chance to read all the comments and check on the stupid Facebook thing. I’m really sorry, but we won’t have time to contact anyone but the winner. I’m sure we’ll appreciate all the entries, though!

And that’s it! I’ve been offered to do give-aways in the past, but wanted to wait until we could figure out the best way to do them. So, this is the inaugural give-away! Best of luck to all of you, and may the best comment-er win!

D.L. Rhein
8300 1/2 W. Third Street Los Angeles

One of my favorite features of my show, Karen’s Restaurant Revue, was the give-aways. I did them as often as I could. My love for them was two-fold: firstly, I loved to reward my loyal viewers with fun gifts, and secondly, I was happy to give free publicity to good companies, especially new ones who had no advertising budget.

They usually brought the mirth of my show to a stand-still for a few minutes, because they more often than not were serious items, and, as much as I wanted to keep the laughter going, I didn’t want any humor I was creating about the products to be misconstrued as mockery. But I didn’t mind the laughter break–I wanted the winners to get what the items they desired and enjoy them.

I’ve always longed to continue my tradition of give-aways on this site, but just couldn’t figure out the best way to do that. Now, I have my webmaster and a friend who’s very knowledgeable in these types of things working on it, and we’ve got it 90% set. So, we’re hoping to bring you the first one in June, when I return from New York.

The one rule I can tell you now is that they will be in effect for just the day that particular give-away is posted, so please remember to check back daily. We’ll give you the description of the item and let you know just how many are being given away. And then the first of you who respond are the winners, until all the items are spoken for. There will be more specific details with each one.

I’m so excited to be doing this for my loyal readers, just like I did for my loyal viewers. So, thanks for always hanging in there with me, and get ready to win!