Monthly Archives: August 2010

August 31, 2010

[Best of Beauty U] The Field Trip

We ended up taking four separate field trips to makeup stores (Sephora, Ulta, and MAC). Mostly, these were an excuse to get out of school for the night, shop, and eat mall food. But don’t think I’m knocking that — when you’re in the middle of 600 hours of beauty school, getting a night off to shop and eat mall food is rad.

We never got a chance to learn much more about airbrushing makeup, because the Beauty U system was always out of cartridges. I still think this whole thing is way too much work unless you’re on a movie set or something.

Temptu Scan

Me. Airbrushed.

Today we pile into Miss Jenny’s SUV and drive over to the fancy mall for a demonstration of the AIRbrush Makeup System by Temptu at Sephora. Read more…

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August 30, 2010

[Best of Beauty U] Orientation: The Professional Must Constantly Strive for Excellence

So here we go, ALL the way back to the beginning, and my first taste of Beauty U rules. Barb had to leave Beauty U for personal reasons a few months after I started, which was too bad because I really liked her.

PS. Little did I know, I’d end up wearing leggings (or yoga pants) almost every day for ten months.

James VanDerZee, Beauty School Photo Read more…

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August 27, 2010

So Here’s What Happens Next

[Warning: This post gets crazy sappy. I didn't even bother with a picture because it would have to be of a smiling kitten or something. I'm in that kind of mood.]

Lovely readers,

Thank you so much for the flurry of sweet comments and tweets and such in response to yesterday’s graduation post! While I’ve been getting all misty-eyed about leaving my Beauty U ladies, I’ve also been thinking quite a lot about how much I adore all of you and this little community that we’ve built over the past ten months of beauty lovers, beauty critics, beauty consumers, beauty workers, and just all-around cool people. We pretty much rock, right?

So when Ariana asked yesterday, “I hope this won’t be the last we hear from you?” I laughed in a mildly evil oh-they-only-wish! kind of way. Because don’t you worry, Beauty Schooled isn’t going anywhere. Read more…

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August 26, 2010

I’m a Graduate.

photo of my Graduation Cake

That’s what everyone on the local cable commercials for Beauty U says — usually as they’re looking up from a facial or turning away from a head of hair or standing proudly next to Mr. G, while extremely excited music blares.

And now, I can say it too.

OK, to be technical: I still have to go get a physical and head back to Beauty U for my Exit Interview so they can send all my paperwork to the state and register me for the exam. That will happen in the next few weeks.

But in the meantime, I’ve clocked my last Beauty U hour. That means… Read more…

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August 24, 2010

[Last Ten Weeks] The Practical Report (And Other Good Stuff to Read Today)

Tonight, I take my final Beauty U Practical Exam. This is supposed to exactly mimic what we’ll have to do at the state board licensing exam, so it involves you assembling a whole big kit of supplies, and then demonstrating how to do an arm wax, a lip/chin wax, an eyebrow tweeze, a facial, and a daytime makeup application.

To be honest, I know most of this stuff cold by now. (We all do.) The only places I get tripped up are on the waxing, where we have to use honey instead of wax, I guess because state board proctors don’t want to worry about test models getting crazy skin reactions. So I use honey, but, because it’s honey, I just squeeze it out of the bottle onto my stick and then “wax,” and it turns out, you’re supposed to dip the stick into the bottle of honey like it’s a real waxing pot. Well, sure.

The other, more major catastrophe comes during my daytime makeup application. Read more…

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August 23, 2010

It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Tasered.

photo of metallic pink taser

So fascinating to hear everyone’s take on the Vatoo Thing, from Friday. (I am especially loving the extremely great point that you are not actually tatooing your vagina because that is INSIDE your body. Oh, seventh grade health class flashbacks galore!)

Meanwhile, Gawker and The Cut have been riffing on the male side of the genital beautification biz (manzilians, brozilians, guyzilians, penazzling, yes these are all happening in a day spa somewhere), in response to this firsthand account on Salon by Jed Lipinski. I admit to being a little grouchy because there’s a rather glib tone being taken about a waxer who reports having to pull a taser on an “aggressive” male client in the thigh because he kept making inappropriate advances.

Maybe I’m uptight and old-fashioned, but if you have to bring a taser to work, I’m sorry, your job is too dangerous. Read more…

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August 20, 2010

Pretty Price Check: Vatoos are a Thing Now. (08.20.10)

The Pretty Price Check: Your Friday round-up of how much we paid for beauty this week.

I’m suspending the normal Pretty Price Check round-up today, because I think we need to take five and just deal with this one. This way, everyone can have a little moment about it, and I don’t have to spend the next six weeks explaining the concept every time I’m making small talk at a party or whatever, and people find out I blog about women’s beauty rituals.

Oh, who am I kidding? This is all anyone is going to want to talk about now, when they find out I blog about women’s beauty rituals. Read more…

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August 19, 2010

Summer Hair Challenge Report

As I told you last week, I’ve been going product-free for the past few days as part of the No More Dirty Looks Summer Hair Challenge — both to see what my hair does when it gets to exist without the unholy triumvirate of styling oil/styling cream/styling spray, and because I’m becoming more and more convinced that subjecting ourselves to an onslaught of chemicals in the name of beauty is a dicey proposition.

Here’s the lovely photo gallery that Siobhan and Alexandra put together of all 72 of us in all of our air-dried glory:

No More Dirty Looks Hair Challenge Photo Gallery

Totally rad, right?

I’ve also been digging reading about other bloggers’ experiences with the challenge (like here’s Kendra the Skin Detective and Amy of Things We Make). But I was kind of surprised to see the discussion going on over at Sephora’s Beauty and the Blog, where the general sentiment seems to be, Pooh! What challenge? Read more…

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August 18, 2010

[Glossed Over] And Then This Happened

photo of gross laser hair removal ad

Just as we were getting our heads above water on the whole Pretzel Crisps thin campaign, too. It’s like maybe a new study just came out about women not being paranoid, insecure freaks and the advertising community saw the data and thought, “That really gets in the way of what we come here to do.”

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August 17, 2010

You’re Just Here to Apply the Product

I think everyone in upstate New York must be on vacation, because there is an absolute dearth of customers at Beauty U right now. Which is kinda sad, because Meg and I graduate next week — next week, people!!! — and we’re trying furiously to fill up all the blanks in our blue books. I’m particularly lacking in the lip/chin wax department. In theory, I’d have ten finished by graduation, but I’m stuck at five… and with our usual rotating cast of old lady clients off at the beach or whatever, there’s a serious lack of chin hair in my life right now. Read more…

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