Best Makeup Shop 2015 | Blue Mercury | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Makeup Shop

Blue Mercury

You can buy makeup pretty much anywhere, but Blue Mercury is much more than a makeup shop — it's an experience. In addition to the impressive selection of luxe skincare, hair and cosmetics brands, there's also a full-scale spa nestled right into the middle of the Highland Park Village shop. If the spa services don't quite fit your budget, you can just splurge on some of your favorite brands — Molton Brown, La Mer and NARS among them — without paying any markup for the chi-chi setting. Most important, the staff here will actually teach you how to apply the makeup, which is infinitely better than sitting at home watching YouTube tutorials.

Best Place to Buy Something Weird/Get a Mugshot

Dolly Python

If your shopping list includes a taxidermied bat, hillbilly tarot cards and ephemera, you'll have no trouble checking it all off at Dolly Python. The 10-year-old vintage store houses 3,800 square feet of such treasures and more. "More" includes a mugshot background salvaged from an old Washington County jail, which shoppers can use as a prop for profile pics. If accused of uncovering one of Dallas' coolest stores, you'll have to plead guilty as charged.

Best Enabler

Postmates

Under certain circumstances, Postmates is a lifesaver. If you're sick, you can use the San Francisco-founded app to send someone to pick up your prescriptions or a grilled cheese and some tomato soup. The rest of time, the service just enables you to indulge in the easiest of the seven deadly sins — sloth. Postmates will bring you anything for sale in Dallas, provided you can figure out a way to pay for it in advance. Don't feel like getting off the couch to go to Whataburger? Postmates will grab it for you at the touch of a button. Happily in need of condoms and Marlboros but can't make yourself go outside? Postmates has you covered. It's bad for your wallet, as the app's delivery charges start at $5 plus 9 percent of order total and can be even higher based on distance traveled. And it's not kind to your waistline, either. That Whataburger? Not healthy, but oh so sweet.

postmates.com

Best Ride to Austin

Megabus

Austin is just close enough to Dallas that the time and hassle of flying isn't worth it. And you never know when I-35 construction or traffic will turn a three-hour drive into four-and-a-half (or longer). Megabus offers a convenient, cheap way to make the trip. The interstate under the wheels might still be a mess, but at least you're not behind the wheel. Read or get some work done, thanks in part to the Wi-Fi, power outlets and restrooms. The buses are spacious, the seats are comfortable, and so far the element of crazy among passengers is less than on the competition. Tickets start at $13. Buses leave from Market and Young streets in downtown Dallas.

us.megabus.com

Best Place to Spend Recklessly

Nest Dallas

It would be fair to describe Nest as a "lifestyle store." The showroom on McKinney Avenue is casual enough to make you believe your home could look like it if you just spent a little bit more money, but extravagant enough to remind you that you don't actually need anything it's selling. But you'll want it all ... oh, how you'll want it. A Missoni rug? Yes, please. Designer coasters? Must have for coffee table. A golden wishbone ring-holder? Spoil yourself with jewelry and then spoil the jewelry. That's the kind of place you've walked into. You'll leave with empty pockets but a really chic set of silicone place mats. Your duplex in Old East Dallas will never have looked so cool.

Best Place to See a Celebrity

Highland Park Village

Kim Kardashian? Check. Gwyneth Paltrow? Check. That one model from that spread in Vanity Fair? Check. Well, maybe. Not sure it was actually her, whoever she is. The next time a celebrity, or even semi-famous but fabulously wealthy person is rumored to be in Dallas, our advice to you is to camp out somewhere in Highland Park Village. Probably the Starbucks, because you can't afford to take up space anywhere else. It's the ritzy shopping and dining strip that selfie queens and holistic lifestyle blogging Hollywood types flock to when they're in town. But don't tell 'em we sent you.

Best Jewelry Line

Bracha

Your arms are looking a little bare, and you could use a new pair of earrings. But maybe you haven't hit your do-gooder quotient for the week. Not to worry, you selfless, fashionable, charming human, you. Bracha is a local jewelry line that's about more than classic styles and on-trend statements; buying these one-of-a-kind, locally designed pieces also gives you something to feel good about. Owned by two sisters, Sayra and Michelle, who make their jewelry with hearts of gold, Bracha donates 20 percent of every sale to organizations fighting to end human trafficking, including local nonprofit Rescue Her. So next time you're looking to splurge, you can do it for a good cause and look good, all at the same time.

Best Women's Clothing Store

Lion & Witch

In a world in which you had everything you ever wanted hanging in your wardrobe already, or in a world where clothes did not exist, or perhaps in Narnia, you would have no need for a boutique. But we live in fashion-centric Dallas, where being well-dressed is equal to cleanliness, which is equal to godliness. At least, we think that's how the saying goes. Either way, if you're tired of scanning the disheveled racks at Forever 21 and Charlotte Russe, we suggest you enter the doors of the newest, and perhaps trendiest, boutique in Dallas: Lion & Witch. Just a few weeks into its time on Oak Lawn Avenue, this place has already proven to be perfect for grabbing a new outfit for a special occasion or a night out. You'll leave more fashionable than you entered and with some money to spare for a nice glass of bubbly when you're out on the town.

Best Vape Shop

Flavor Vapor

It may not confer the same sort of James Dean coolness, but vaping is infinitely healthier — well, maybe — than smoking cigarettes, which means that many of us have begrudgingly made the transition. For those times when you're craving a maybe-better-for-you nicotine fix, Flavor Vapor at Mockingbird Lane and Greenville Avenue is an obvious first choice. Beginners can count on an educated staff who will walk you through the ins and outs of setting up your own smoke-free smoking rig, along with an impressive selection of e-liquid flavors and just about any other vaping accessories you can think of. Whether you're chasing hella large vape clouds, bro, or just interested in no longer smelling like an ashtray, this is the spot.

Best World Tour

NorthPark Center

Some people in these offices snidely refer to NorthPark as the rich, white people's mall. We have a lot of class anger here at the Observer. You might have noticed. Obviously, some of our broke-ass, reverse-snobbish staff haven't been to NorthPark in awhile, because a trip there is a like a world tour in air-conditioned comfort, with no TSA and more familiar food. Walk NorthPark's long, art-filled halls, and we promise you'll hear more languages and see more saris, hijabs, stylish sagging and straight-up high and avant-garde fashion than anywhere this side of Manhattan. Goth girls and punks, hip-hoppers and models rub shoulders with hoi polloi, the rich and the in-between here, making for the best people-watching in Dallas, inspiring us to quote Willy Shakes: "O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!" Fancy, eh? And, ya know, the shopping is pretty freakin' awesome too. Think NorthPark is uniformly out of your price range? Well, yes, it can be, but when you're done watching people, take a look at what's in the shops. You'll be surprised at what you can walk away with, feeling fancy without going broke.

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