Ah, fall is finally here.I love fall -- it's so beautiful, especially in New England. What I don't love is that it heralds the starts of indoor heating season, and what that means that my skin is starting to resemble an emery board. Which is never a good thing, but which really stinks when you also have to wear fleece and wool and tights. I can start a fire if I'm not careful.Here are my favorite ways to keep dry skin at bay:1. Moisturize

I hear people bemoaning the high cost of "going green." And while organic food does cost more than its chemical-laden counterpart, I'm here to tell you that it's easier to spend more for healthy food when you save money in other ways. We can skip many of the green cleaners, deodorizers, and personal care products, most of which are fairly expensive. Why? Because baking soda is our friend. What's so great about baking soda?

Eczema is not pretty. It's painful and itchy and looks it. It's often described as a bad case of dry skin, but it's not quite that simple. Eczema is basically a reccuring rash, often afflicting the same areas of the body again and again - the neck, the inside and/or outside of the elbows and knees, the backs of legs and buttocks, etc. etc. When my son had his first eczema flare-up, I had no idea what I was dealing with, and I scurried around trying to relieve what I thought was a diaper rash gone mad.

sssssssssssssI cannot believe I'm about to admit this. In fact the second I say this my face is going to erupt in painful cystic acne once again and my dermatologist will be injecting Benzoyl peroxide directly into my pores. So here goes: I like Proactiv. No, I...I love Proactiv. And that noise you just heard was my brand new linens screaming in horror due to imminent bleaching.

It's been cold and stormy here in the San Francisco area, which means that my swimsuits have definitely been packed away for some time now. Lately I've been wearing tights either under my jeans (not just to keep warm, but because I have chronic sock-falling-down issues when I wear my fall boots) or with skirts. I've been taking ballet classes once a week since January, which means I'm running around in leggings (or tights again) on Saturdays. And since I've been reorganizing my wardrobe, I realized that except for two pairs of pants, all my pants are skinny.

I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. A part of me gets all giddy at the thought of busting out all my newly-purchased fall clothes that I've been itching to wear . . . but the other part of me is just ITCHY. You see, I live in a New York apartment building. They are reknowned the world over for their lilliputian dimensions, and in addition, their SWELTERING, MOISTURE-SUCKING HEAT during the cooler months. Almost overnight, as the telltale clank of the Lincoln Administration-era radiator system kicks in, my skin becomes papery, dry, and flaky. Awesome.

This is one of those posts I shouldn't write because I know I'm jinxing myself. I will regret it, I'm sure. But here goes...I have great skin.Not that I don't the ocassional wayward breakout or undereye bags, and yes, there was this two-year period where every time I stepped on a plane to LA, I would arrive with a zit so huge between my eyes ("My LA Zit") that my colleagues on the other coast thought it was permanent. Lovely.But otherwise? Great skin. And having officially joined the legions of forty-somethings last month, I'm not complaining.

I have a friend who has beautiful skin -- smooth and even, with nary a wrinkle in sight. But recently, her mother called her and said, "We need to have a talk. You need to take better care of your skin. You're 35, after all -- it's time!" Despite the fact that my friend's skin is truly lovely, I had to agree with her mother. It's never too early to start babying your face.Fortunately, a good skin care routine doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. In fact, the best skin care routine is simple and minimal; this really is a case of less is more.

Last week, I headed into the MAC store in my hood to grab perhaps my tenth refill of powder blush in Prism. And I realized, man, I've been wearing that stuff for years. I think I discovered it back in the mid-nineties when MAC was a teeny little West Village shop for those in the know and the drag queens who loved them. And, somehow, me.

It's the end of August, the sun is beating down upon us and way too many people I know do not put sunscreen on everyday. Not even on days where they know they will be outdoors all day. This fact leaves me totally baffled and not a little frustrated.My grandmother is a skin cancer survivor. She has fair skin, but tanned with abandon in her teens and twenties because that's what people did and nobody knew that it might be hurting them. She has an excuse! We don't!

Look, I admit it, I'm fickle. The things I like are constantly changing, and while I do have a few constant beauty must-haves---I have yet to go a couple of weeks without buying Cover Girl's Lipslick in Daring, for example---I have no problem with switching pretty much everything else out whenever I feel like it. Variety is the spice of life, after all!  So here are four new products---well, new to me---that are currently rocking my world. 1. Trader Joe's Tea Tree Tingle Body Wash, $3.99 at Trader Joe's

I need to tell you about a product that's changed my life. No, really, I know that sounds like hyperbole, and it's....well, okay, I guess it is kind of hyperbole; this product didn't give me a kidney or rescue me from a burning building, after all. But guess what it did do? It finally put an end to my quest for The Best Self-Tanner Ever, So Help Me God I Don't Want Orange Palms Anymore.