TLC

Tara, Brook and Grant on set of DSN

Brook Roberts and Tara Gray are former pageant queens, current co-hosts of Direct Shopping Network and besties forevermore. On June 5 they will add to their professional repertoire stars of TLC's new reality series The Good Buy Girls premiering at 10 p.m. in all its tanned glory.

As trained gemologists, Tara and Brook began selling rare and precious jewelry over a decade ago on Direct Shopping Network, the broadcast network for buying diamonds, gemstones and all things shiny. After their recent upgrade from a run-down studio in Glendale to a much nicer venue in Orange County, they're taking advantage of this fresh start by pulling together pageant secrets and their ongoing interest for locally made beauty, health and fashion merchandise to help small businesses in Los Angeles.

If you're a frequent DSN shopping, fear not. They have no plans to stop selling jewelry. But they've expanded their interests. Besides making sure the goods they choose to showcase are environmentally friendly, economically sound and safe to use, they also care very much about whether the creators behind the merchandise are sincere and ethical people who care about those to whom they are catering.

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Creative Age Communications/Armando Sanchez

Controversial winner Amy Becker

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week *Top 10 Weirdest Stores in L.A.
*10 Best Vintage and Second-Hand Boutiques in L.A.

At the competition to determine the World's Fastest Set of Acrylic Sculptured Nails, the air is thick with the smell of acetone and ambition. Eight contestants sit at long folding tables, heads bowed as if in prayer. Hosted by the Nailpro Trade Show, the contest is being held at the Pasadena Convention Center on a spring day so lovely and carefree it gives little indication of the tension inside.

Preparation has been intense. Contestant No. 112, Shannon McCown, for instance, sat in front of the TV all night every night for a month doing her 19-year-old daughter's nails, driving her family crazy with nail talk. She now fiddles anxiously with bottles of sanitizing solution and Tammy Taylor conditioning cuticle oil.

Two tables over, as if the pressure weren't bad enough, sits contestant No. 113: Tammy Taylor herself, holder of the unofficial record for fastest set of acrylic nails, author of the beauty school standard The Complete Guide to Manicuring and Advanced Nail Technology, inventor of the flattened brush ferrule and Dazzle Rocks White Twinkling Stars nail powder, and president of Tammy Taylor Nails Inc., "where nails are always fun, and never feel like work." Word is that Taylor has this thing in the bag.

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Photo by Star Foreman

Spots? Why not.

When the International Makeup Artist Trade Show rolls into town, it brings with it a million tiny pans of eye shadow -- and the utter conviction that the right shade of lipstick can change your life. At the Pasadena Convention Center, where the trade show took place earlier this summer, beauty is the main concern. Conceptions of beauty, however, are as varied as the people in attendance.

For professionals like Donna Mee, who is teaching the Perfect Beauty/Advanced Artistry workshop, scientific principles hold true. "The epitome of beauty is the oval. The epitome of beauty is not to have cheekbones -- it is to have high prominent cheekbones."

Mee specializes in corrective techniques. The list of undesirables that can manifest on any given face are infinite -- large pores, oily skin, wrinkles, crooked nose, weak chin. All of it, right down to a person's bone structure, can be fixed by the strategic application of makeup.

The methods are highly specific. Take brows, for instance. You could write a dissertation on brows -- in fact, Mee is doing just that. Her book, Eyebrows for Dummies, is forthcoming.

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Photo by Star Foreman

Designer Marwa Atik, in coral, with with her sister, Tasneem Atik Sabri, 26, who also wears a Vela scarf.

See more pictures from the "Fashion Fighting Famine Fashion Show."

Marwa Atik needs five pieces of trim, the kind embellished with pearls and black jewels. At a store in downtown L.A.'s Fashion District, boxes of trimmings line the walls from floor to ceiling, but Atik scans quickly and zeroes in on what she wants. At her direction, a clerk climbs a tall, wooden ladder and pulls down one of the cardboard boxes. He counts out five pieces and, after 30 seconds of bargaining, Atik makes her purchase.

For the next five days, the designer will create elaborate hijabs, which are head-scarves for Muslim women, to display at an upcoming Irvine fashion show. Atik's company, Vela, specializes in unique designs of an item known more often for its conservative connotations than its stylistic value.

But for Atik, a 21-year-old student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, who has worn the hijab since the eighth grade, conservative dress provides an opportunity for style. For her first scarf, in 2009, she used a brass-colored zipper as trim for charcoal gray fabric, giving a softly draped piece an urban touch.

Shopping, she admits, can be a challenge for Muslim-American women because the fabric of hijabs often cover the designs of blouses. So Atik creates headscarves that can be the focal point of an outfit: say, pastel ruffles and pleats that hang down the front of scarves.

See more pictures from the "Fashion Fighting Famine Fashion Show."More »

Photo by Angela + Ithyle

Bri Emery, uberblogger

Erika Brechtel's kid is only 3 years old, but she knows the perils of being raised by a fashion blogger. "Mom, put your iPad down," she'll say. Or rather, scream: "Mom! Put! Your! iPad! Down!"

Brechtel, 38, is a mom, homeowner and full-time graphic designer married to "a workaholic architect husband." She is also a blogger: She started posting about fashion on her "brand styling" company Small Shop Studio's website a year and a half ago. Her most successful posts deconstruct a particular trend. "How to wear the gray tee," for instance, or "how to wear red jeans."

"Thousands of hits a day," she says incredulously. "For those!"

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Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

The girl with the pretty face and the big ass -- that's what they called model Rosie Mercado in high school. To become a model, she didn't lose the weight. She embraced it. Mercado is 5 feet 9 inches and weighs 293 pounds. She actually weighed 350 pounds when she was chosen to be the face of Full Figured Fashion Week 2010, barely a year after she started modeling.

As a kid growing up in Riverside, she always wanted to be the girl on the catwalk but never imagined it was possible. Instead, she was the one beautifying her skinny friends, doing their hair and makeup. She didn't date, or dance, or go to concerts or prom.
Things only changed for her when she stopped hiding and started living. She turned her makeup skills into a career. Her confidence grew. Now, at 31, her motto is: "If you close the door, I'll find a window."

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Colin Young-Wolff

The Standard Downtown

See also:
*10 Places in L.A. to Draw Nude Models
*10 Bars Most Likely to Get You Laid in L.A.

Quantifying the best of anything is a dicey endeavor. Whether it be dive bars or gay bars or strip clubs, the best places for you will, of course, depend on your taste. (Many of these lists will be available via the Weekly's new "Best Of" mobile app, by the way).

When we wrote about the "10 Bars Most Likely to Get You Laid in L.A." we were called out and questioned a lot in the comments section, with attractiveness of patrons the biggie. We never promised Victoria's Secret Angels or David Beckham look-alikes, folks.

We're not making any guarantees with this list, either. Some guys like earthy natural beauties, some like tattooed punkettes, some dig curvy Latinas, while many are into lanky blondes. (Were you thinking of the Stones' song "Some Girls," too?) Being genetically -- or surgically -- blessed is one thing, and in L.A., there's a bounty of both. But "hot" is ultimately about attitude, heart and mind; how you carry yourself and put yourself together.

Still, as the Weekly's nightlife prowler-at-large, we do tend to notice a predominance of pretty things at certain night spots. Since we shoot a weekly slideshow, we have to be on the lookout, after all. The following bars always seem to have gal gaggles with moxie and allure -- L.A. women we like to look at and boys go to the bars to meet in the first place.

Note: This one's about celebrating allure, not objectifying. Please refrain from the anonymous hater comments, unless you're an ugly, lonely loser who knows you could never, EVER get any of these babes in real life, even with lame lines and tons of liquor. And ladies, a list of hot boy bars is coming soon...

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Shannon Cottrell

For more photos check out our slideshow, Sage Vaughn: Studio Tour

Sage Vaughn, one of SoCal's favorite contemporary urban naturalist painters, is tucked inside a quaint and tidy mid century modern one story studio, located right where Pasadena ends. There's a small group of mourning doves that gather daily outside his door waiting for seeds, unnervingly oblivious to the occasional hawk overhead. Prime death watch viewing if he's not busy researching other concepts of animal behavior, whether it's a Wagner opera or in an inherited collection of vintage Hustler magazines.

This particular morning, upon LA Weekly's arrival, we find red velvet cupcakes and a mean cup of joe complete with hand frothed milk waiting for us. Not a typical artist interview welcome, but our man Sage is anything but typical -- evidenced by the ski mask he always wears tucked in his back pocket.

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Star Foreman

Queens of the quinceañera

The Teen Party Expo came to town recently, and the L.A. Convention Center morphed into what the inside of a young girl's brain must look like: Hot. Bright. Crowded. Confusing. Loud. Sort of like hell, only fluorescent pink.

Picture it, the giddy schizophrenia of a candy booth right next to an orthodontics booth. A bakery booth handing out slices of cake next to a booth hawking Ultra Body Cleanse Plus Pack weight-loss pills. The thump-thump-thump-thump-thumping of dance music. Entering the convention hall, it takes, conservatively, five seconds before your retinas are ready to explode from staring at everything glittered and bedazzled and feather boa-ed and sequined to death.

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Boxer Manny Pacquiao's fragrance is finally launching worldwide. First wind of the scent came out last year. (Check out our A Considerable Town dispatch on how the fragrance was developed.) Pacquiao will be at Fred Segal on Melrose here in Los Angeles on Saturday April 30 from 4 to 6 p.m. to premiere MP8 Scent of the Champion.

Fred Segal will be selling 50 autographed bottles of the scent. Pre-order for $55 at Ron Robinson.

What does Manny Pacquiao the cologne smell like?

Says the Fred Segal website, "A top front punch of fresh bergamot, lemon, and citrus followed by combination punches of lavender, sage, vetiver, and a jab of nutmeg at the bottom." Also with musk, vanilla, amber, cedar, and blood of the enemy. Just kidding (about the blood).

In the meantime, training for his upcoming May 7 fight versus Mosley continues.