With Dec. 26 right around the corner, we ladies can finally go back to the selfish consumerism we set aside while we spent our mad money on iPods and Hickory Farms snack packs for our loved ones.

The strain of the season takes its toll on even the most organized holiday planner, and who isn't due for a little self-indulgence to settle the nerves and calm the spirit?

Noreen Young's beauty cottage is just the place to visit for those needing a glamour-tinged pick-me-up.

I was attracted to Young's San Jose-area studio because I'm a sucker for customizing, and she'll cook up a one-of a kind liquid lipstick based on a customer's preferences. Sure, it's quicker to buy off the shelf, but then you don't get the experience of a visit to Young's cottage-like beauty mecca tucked away under the oak trees. You don't get to sit among the pink feather boas, decorative shoes and collection of lip-shaped accessories and work with her to plan your ultimate lip color.

The process is a girlie chemistry project, with Young mixing your chosen pigments with a gloss base and adding your desired amount of glitter and shimmer. And yes, gentlemen, there is a difference. Glitter is individual sparkling grains (the dreaded "stripper dust" it takes you three showers to scrub off), while shimmer is more of an iridescent sheen.

You also can choose a flavor, which sounds weird until you consider the reports that the average woman consumes 6 pounds of her lipstick during her life. So it might as well taste dessert-like, perhaps a rich chocolate or creme brulee. There are cappuccino and rose options for ladies with less sugary tastes.

Young will throw in a dash of sunscreen for the smart Floridian, and then melt it all together in her extremely high-tech cosmetic lab equipment: a microwave oven.

My favorite part of the process was naming my product when it was ready-to-wear. It's a treat for a person like me, who has spent her cosmetic-wearing years reading names like "Misty Mauve" and "Vixen" and wondering what sort of lucky duck gets to name makeup for a living.

Outside of custom-made lip colors, Young's shelves are stocked with beauty items you just won't find at the drug or even department store - and that's her goal.

An interesting combination of Polish and Chinese descent, Young takes trips to the Orient to find some of her exotic inventory. Chinese rice powder is one of the hottest items at the cottage. While I was visiting, a customer deemed the hard block of translucent facial powder a "lifesaver."

Young is also proud of her "Makeup Magic Wand" - a gumdrop-shaped foam brush she says is ideal for eliminating "ring around the face," the cosmetics crime she sees most often.

Makeup artistry is a calling Young ironically heard while studying to be a nursing nun. When she began mixing Vaseline and food dye so she could wear lip color to chapel, she knew she was meant for other things. Her mission now is to help everyday women feel better about themselves with a bit o' lipstick. And she calms their insecurities that tell them they need plastic surgery and chemical treatments to keep up with the standard set by the rich and famous, who are far from girl-next-door reality.

Paint and glitter aside, it's worth stopping in just to catch a little of Young's infectious zeal.

laura.capitano@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4370