multiple sources If you've shopped within the last month, you know  ...

undefined

Yesterday the Associated Press reported that the Candie's Foundation paid Bristol Palin $262,500 to be the spokesperson for their teen pregnancy campaign, but gave only $35,000 in grants to actual teen pregnancy health and counseling clinics. Nice work Candies! Also nice, the fact that Candie's is all "don't have sex!" yet their ads are all "look we're sexy ladies being sexual and making you want to have sexy sex with our sexy sex-craving sexual bodies."

Ask any woman to name her must-have beauty item, and chances are she'll have an answer before you've even finished the question. Whether it's a signature fragrance, nail polish or shampoo, the cosmetics we use shape who we are, and how others perceive us. Procuring the perfect product is a coup, but what happens when the powers-that-be decide to stop making it? Losing access to a beloved beauty necessity can send us into panic mode, but resourceful shoppers can still stock up on everything from makeup to toiletries, even when they are no longer "officially" on the market.

Anyone who's flipped through enough VOGUE magazines or been subjected to a Louis Vuitton runway show knows the dread of walking into your closet the following morning only to find the same baggy jeans, pit-stained shirts and worn-out "tennies" still lurking in there. That's because there's the haute couture fashion for the models and those in the "Devil Wears Prada" biz, and then there's the oh-no-you-didn't fashion for rest of us. At least that's my take as I sit here in my Gap jeans and less-than-flattering brown and white striped tee. The mere thought of spending $2,000 of my hard-earned writing dollars on a single Marc Jacobs handbag or $695 on a pair of Jimmy Choo patent leather peep-toe pumps is enough to make me avoid setting foot in New York for the next, say, 80 years. I mean, who can really maintain that high-fashion, high-price tag lifestyle? According to Kerrie Hess, author of "Shoestring Chic, 101 Ways to Live the Fashionably Luxe Life for Less", you can have those fabulous to-die-for designer shoes –- and shirts, and dresses and purses –- and eat your cake too. Phew. She had me at "shoestring".