Building a wardrobe of versatile neutrals makes sense: Mixing and matching pieces is easy and clothing is less likely to look dated. But a closet full of blacks, browns, beiges and khakis hardly makes for inspired dressing. To brighten up your look without splurging on a whole new color scheme, take a cue from Glamour Magazine and change up your shoes. In this post, they advocate brightly colored shoes with cocktail dresses. But why stop there? An electric blue heel would look wonderful peeking out from beneath the hem of your black pants at work, or a pair of hot pink flats could jazz up your jeans and white tee. Colored shoes are a no-fail way to liven up your look. Here are five inspired choices, all less than $100.

rsvp Hart Heels (above)

Guess Beautifi Sandal

Sam Edelman Delancey Flat

Michael Antonio Mavis Pump

Franco Sarto Now Pumps

Packing lunches is a great way to save cash and eat healthfully: No running out for a $9 fast food lunch or succumbing to the temptations of the office vending machine for you, and no mystery meat school lunches for your kids. But all those plastic sandwich bags (or Saran Wrap, for that matter) are tough to recycle, and end up clogging landfills. What’s more, some organizations, like the nonprofit Healthy Child, Healthy World, site concerns about the impact these plastics can have on kids. Rather than abandon the sack lunch, try packing sandwiches and snacks in reusable, non-toxic bags. The Snack Taxi Snack Sack (pictured above) comes in several sizes and a host of cool prints to make lunch time more fun. The Wrap-N-Mat (below) unfolds to a placemat, so it’s perfect for toting along on picnics or hikes where there may not be a clean place to put down food. The FreshSnackPack (bottom) can hold an entire lunch in its clear pouch.

Sunday night was the premier of Season 4 of Mad Men. I adore this show not only for the fab dialogue and story lines but also for the style! America’s fascination with mid-century style has really taken off over the last three years, and it’s fun to see so many stores offering remakes and offshoots of well-designed 1960s decor.

The Gus classic club frame sofa offers compact styling and a stainless steel perimeter base.

Nothing like an afternoon cocktail served up from a streamlined iron bar.

Imagine leaning up against this tufted headboard as you read your latest issue of InStyle…or watch this season’s Mad Men.

It seems like simply washing your face should be enough, doesn’t it? After all, washing usually… well… gets things clean. But invariably, when I follow my (necessarily gentle) facewash with toner, I see plenty of make-up left behind: residue from foundation , traces of blush and bronzer, streaks of eyeshadow and eyeliner. Yuck.

I like simple solutions, so rather than adding a step to my evening routine, I’d rather have one do-it-all product. Finding something that lifts make-up while being gentle on my skin, however, has been tough… till now. Biore just launched Makeup Removing Towelettes with Green Tea. The ultimate in clean simplicity, each towelette annihilates makeup and grime while nourishing your skin. Obviously, the process is made even simpler by the prepackaged towelettes–you don’t even need a washcloth!

If you have kids, pets, a house or a garden, then you have a use for TubTrugs. These flexible, lightweight polyethylene tubs are washable, bendable, crushable and just about indestructible. They come in 14 bright colors and six practical sizes to make just about any storing or carrying job a breeze.

In the garden:The large size tub is a practical weed pail, or use it to carry the vegetables you harvest out of your garden. The extra-large is ideal for gathering leaves, hauling rocks, mixing soil or transporting uprooted plants!

For pets:Use the TubTrug for as portable bathtub for your dog. The smaller sizes work as feeding dishes for your pets. Add a blanket to on and it become the perfect cat bed!

Kid’s rooms:Use these tubs as organizers for toys in the playroom or as a container for transporting toys between your house and grandma’s.

Around the house:Can we say laundry basket? That’s a no brainer! They are also practical carryalls for beach accessories, a catchall by the door, or as a container for bulk fruits and vegetables in the pantry. Or, buy assorted colors to use as a way to sort your recyclables.

Sheath dresses should be a staple in every woman’s closet. Simple and elegant, they’re great go-to dresses for everything from work to church to cocktail parties. Fortunately, there are beautiful buys at every price point, and you don’t have to spend a fortune to look stunning.

The two dresses above (one from St. John and one from Tahari) are both gorgeous, but one costs $98 and the other costs $995–more than ten times more! (And they’re both from the same store!) Can you tell the difference?

While I’ve been on quest to find a frizz-free solution, I started noticing something: My dark, vibrant brown hair color is fading fast. It seems the sunny days at the beach are doing me no favors.  So now I’m determined to rev it up, because even though I was under the notion that there’s nothing worse than having frizzy hair, I’ve now come to the conclusion that dull, colorless frizzy hair is hitting rock-bottom in the looks department.

Naturally, I needed to jumpstart my color, so I knew the best way to do it is with a deep conditioning mask. It’s the hero hair product that makes your hair super-soft and leaves behind moisturizing ingredients (dry hair makes hair look dull and drab) that boost shine and vibrancy. Phyto, long known for rescue-type hair treatments, has recently revamped their hair mask line with new packaging and formulations. The reformulations are free of silicones and parabens, and the Phytocitrus Mask has color-saving ingredients like grapefruit extract, that restore my hair’s ph level to lock in color. It’s also filled with shea butters and sweet almond proteins to hydrate and leave my dry, frizzy locks, feeling soft and smooth. Look for the new packaging soon too, that boasts 60% less plastic.

For those sunny days, when I’m not wearing a hat, I need to make sure to coat my hair with a leave-in conditioner like Warren Tricomi Protect Organic Hair Shield. The SPF saves my color and keeps my tresses from feeling fried, and the silky moisturizers make it look vibrant and shiny. I’ve got to be vigilant about this and do it every time I rub on sunscreen. Anything to prevent fade out, now back to the frizzies… 

Although I am a huge fan hard surface floors (tiles, stone, wood, laminate) because they’re low maintenance, I find myself always shopping for the perfect area rug to soften up certain living areas in the home. The kitchen often poses a particular challenge because you need something that looks good and is also easy to clean. That’s where indoor-outdoor rugs come in! They are fade-resistant, wear-resistant and stand up to the traffic and abuse we give them in the kitchen. What a great way to add a touch of softness underfoot without extra work. Just place one in front of the range or sink, by the door, or underneath the kitchen table.

Animal patterns pack a graphic punch. The Mali Giraffe Rug has the soft feel and look of a wool rug, but it’s designed for elegant indoor-outdoor living because it’s made with a plush, UV-protected poly-acrylic pile. To clean, just wash with mild soap and water and rinse. Sizes start at 2×3-feet for $59.

The Marrakesh rug features a washable sisal weave made of polypropylene, which is resistant to mildew and fading. The patterns echo printed fabrics you might see throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Use a rug pad with the rug to keep it from slipping. A runner is $66!

This elegant poem rug design was created with words from famed 17th century French writer of fables, Jean de La Fontaine. La Cigale et La Fourmi, “The Cricket and The Ant,” tells the story of an industrious ant and a carefree cricket and the end of summer. Hand-hooked of washable, poly-acrylic pile that’s soft underfoot, this rug works indoors and out! Sizes start at $59.

For a long time, you probably pooh-pooh’d getting a better TV. However, it is a fact that once you go high-def, it’s hard to go back. The same can be said for Blu-ray.

If you haven’t replaced your old DVD player yet, you may not notice a difference. However, once you’ve made the upgrade to Blu-ray, you’re going to want to take that movie magic everywhere and anywhere. Panasonic’s DMP-B500 makes that possible.

Boasting 3.5 hours of battery life, this portable Blu-ray player features a nifty 10.1-inch screen so you can catch a movie on a plane, in the car, or just out in by the pool.

However, it will be hard to hoard this kind of image to yourself for too long. For those times when you need to share (and they WILL happen), this unit can be easily hooked to any HDTV, via the player’s HDMI output. Using HDMI means one cable for a quick, easy connection. That means there’s no need to fumble around weaving that wire clutter.

Aah — but for $699 (on sale!), you didn’t just expect to watch movies in and out of the house, did you? The DMP-500 isn’t just a portable Blu-ray player, but it’s your key to all sorts of other entertainment. One of the key features on the unit is VIERA Cast. This is Panasonic’s own service, which provides easy, instant access to content providers such as Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube and a slew of other services.

Neutrals are nice, but summer is a great time to take a cue from nature and add pops of color to your look.  This season, purples are hot, and surprisingly easy to wear. For daytime, sweep a pale purple, like Anna Sui Eye Accent in Vivid Lavender (above), up to your brow bone and lightly under your lower lid (On darker-skinned gals, I like Stila’s Eye Shadow Pan in Wisteria (below), a brighter, shimmering lilac). It’s a subtle wash of color that will brighten up your face.

For evening, add a deep purple or plum, like the one found in Cover Girl’s Eye Enhancers 4 in Berries & Cream (at bottom) to the crease and lash line. It’s a sultry, summery alternative to the smokey eye.

Stila’s Eye Shadow Pan in Wisteria

Cover Girl’s Eye Enhancers 4 in Berries & Cream