Monthly Archives: October 2010

October 29, 2010

Pretty Price Check: It’s Protest Friday! (10.29.10)

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

Photo of Teens Turning Green Abercrombie & Fitch Protest Poster

Attention New Yorkers! You still have time to hoof it over to the Abercrombie & Fitch store on 5th Avenue and 57th Street, where Teens Turning Green will be hosting another fragrance protest at 4 PM. (Check out my Lemondrop coverage of their first San Fran protest, and New York Mag’s report on today’s festivities.) Bring your gas masks! Good times for all!

And after you finish fighting toxic fragrances, why don’t you mosey on over to the Hearst Building at 57th and 8th Ave for the Big Fat Kiss-In protesting Marie Claire writer Maura Kelly’s woefully misguided blog post about how fat people shouldn’t kiss (or walk or do much else) in public. (Via Jezebel)

I’m ALL about some fat PDA, but it is also worth noting that MC is starting up an interesting series of counterpoint posts in response to Kelly’s piece. Jezebel’s Sadie also has a fabulous round-up of all the other great writing that has been pouring forth on this topic this week. Bottom line: We’re all talking about the epic problem that is size prejudice — and I’m excited to see what good can come out of this.

Plus you have a busy afternoon of protesting ahead of you, so quick, grasshoppers! On with the Price Check… Read more…

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October 28, 2010

[Beauty Overheard] Should We Regulate Photoshop in Youth-Directed Media?

Considering Rachel Leigh Cook is best known for playing the we-hid-her-hotness-under-glasses lead in She’s All That, I am loving this quote from her, via Jezebel:

Nothing that you see is real, even if you look at what looks like a candid photo of someone, anything can be done. It is false advertising and false advertising is a crime so why isn’t this a crime? I’m just up in arms about it. People need to know that there are actual lenses that are put on cameras that make people stretched out. If you saw these actors in person, you wouldn’t even recognize them as the people you see on TV. It’s just all a complete illusion and maybe it should be viewed as art, the way that art isn’t real. The way that a picture of a rose can be beautiful, but it’s not a real rose.
Cook made this speech at last week’s Healthy Media for Youth Summit, organized in Washington DC by our friends the Girl Scouts, who are continuing their push for the Healthy Media for Youth Act, which I wrote about earlier this month over on Lemondrop. She also said: Read more…

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October 27, 2010

Mary Kay Calling


Mary Kay and Missiles

The first thing I learned from Delores is that Mary Kay ladies don’t drive pink Cadillacs anymore.

Well they can — a shiny pink convertible is still one of the choices if you’ve earned Career Car privileges — but Delores drove up to Beauty U in a silvery-pink Chevy Equinox SUV. She wore a royal blue skirt suit with black fishnets and black knee-high boots plus lots of gold accessories and I later learned that the suit itself was a “Mary Kay Sales Director” suit that she had to qualify (in sales numbers) to wear, but that the accessories were all hers.

Delores carried in a pink tote bag brimming with catalogs, while behind her, Sue wheeled in a the biggest pink polka-dotted suitcase I’d ever seen. Upon closer inspection, the dots revealed themselves to be tiny hair dryers and makeup brushes. There weren’t any clients on the books, so everyone piled into the spa classroom while Sue passed out little plastic-covered cardboard folders. Inside, they held a mirror and a plastic tray, divided into different inch-sized compartments. Mine held the remnants of many prior product applications. The mirror in Blanche’s folder was cracked.

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October 25, 2010

This is My Body.

So here we are, a full two months after I graduated from Beauty U. And while my life is largely back to “normal,” last week’s fat talk made me realize that I’m walking around feeling very not normal in one key way: My personal body image. And it’s time to own up to this. Which means talking about size — but hopefully in a way that changes the conversation a little bit. I’d love to hear what you think, even if you think I’m being not very nice and maybe a giant hypocrite. Because I might agree with you there.

Here’s the thing: I gained twenty pounds during my ten months in beauty school. Read more…

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October 22, 2010

Pretty Price Check (10.22.10)

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

NOW Love Your Body Day winning poster

  • 10 million American women and girls suffer from anorexia and bulimia.
  • 25 million more suffer from binge-eating disorder.
  • Over 80 percent of 4th grade girls have been on a fad diet.
  • 35 percent of dieters will progress to pathological dieting or eating disorders.
  • Oh, and also: 95 percent of diets fail. (All via NOW’S Love Your Body Campaign.)

Those numbers aren’t new. You’ve heard them before, here and in a million other places, and I’m even betting your eyes glazed over a bit as you read that list. But I thought we’d kick Friday off with that price reality check precisely because of how very not new those numbers are. Read more…

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October 21, 2010

A Flapper Daughter Responds.

In her latest column “Feminist Mothers, Flapper Daughters,” Katha Pollitt* admits that she sometimes finds young feminists irritating:

I’m tired of their constant use of teeny-bopper words like “amazing” and “awesome,” the lazy use of obscenities and the way they refer to themselves as “girls” and “chicks.” What’s wrong with “woman?” Is “woman” too fat for them? I don’t get their obsession with ads and women’s magazines and pop culture and celebrities — to me, feminism is about getting that stuff out of your head, not coming up with yet more reasons to object to it while remaining in its thrall. I’m tired of “body issues” getting so much more emphasis than economic and political ones, and the endless fetishizing of “choice” where anything a woman wants to do is sacrosanct, including stripping, prostition and porn, which are simultaneously obscurely troubling and perfectly OK!

Pollitt goes on to defend young feminists (against Susan Faludi who accuses us of ritual matricide) giving us credit for volunteering, mentoring teens, organizing conferences, writing books and blogging. Which I appreciate. So I’m hoping she won’t mind me taking a minute to look more closely at her objections to us. Read more…

Filed under Beauty Standards, Career Opportunities, Government Watch

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October 20, 2010

Beauty Schooled is Over on No More Dirty Looks Today.

It’s like when the sitcom actors do cross-over appearances on each others’ shows during Sweeps! First they guest posted here. And now I’m over there. And it’s a really kick-ass post, so make sure you read it. Here is a taste, to get you excited:

I had all of these questions. Why are salon workers getting sick? What could happen to me from using all of this crap? When am I ever going to lose this last ten pounds? Why do I even think I need to lose ten pounds? What on earth is up with Brazilian waxing? And why would so many of us rather not make eye contact with the woman we pay to do that for us?

I decided to go to beauty school, because I thought by crossing that invisible wall between me (the beauty consumer) and them (the beauty workers), I might find some answers to these questions. I did and I didn’t. (Check out my new Beauty U page to get the full story from start to finish.)

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October 20, 2010

[Fun With Press Releases] Actually, Fat Talk is Good for You

Dear world: My apologies.

Here I go, telling you about Fat Talk Free Week, thinking it’s this lovely group-hug thing. Where women could stop hating themselves and maybe focus on their health, not their jeans size. Boy was I wrong.

Because actually? It’s going to kill you.

Thank God this press release found its way into my inbox, to set me straight. Read more…

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October 19, 2010

Friends Don’t Let Friends Fat-Talk

Fat Talk Free Week Logo

It’s happening on at least 35 college campuses around the country, says Time. I say, why not out in the real world, too? Read more…

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October 19, 2010

[Beauty Overheard] Whitney Thompson is Over Modeling.

Photo of Whitney Thomspon, Love Your Body Day

The first-ever “plus size” winner of “America’s Next Top Model” had a lot to say about modeling when my friend Sunny Gold (creator of the incredibly awesome HealthyGirl.org) interviewed her last week. Read more…

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