My 600-hour adventure in esthetics school. Read about the project, or catch up with Weeks 1 and 2.

So, it’s not all trips to the mall and fancy eyelashes, kittens.

Tonight we studied the history of skin care. Oh, those Egyptians and their wacky kohl eye shadow — great for making eyes look larger and brighter if you don’t mind that it’s a not-so-distant cousin of arsenic. Milady’s apparently does not, because that’s all it has to say about that.

We carried on to Science. Because science is really where it’s at, if you ask Milady’s Standard Fundamentals for Estheticians.

Page 10:

Esthetics, from the Greek word aesthetikos (meaning “perceptible to the senses”), is a branch of anatomical science that deals with the overall health and wellbeing of the skin, the largest organ of the human body.

Pages 15-16:

Experts predict that the skin care and medical industries will continue to work closely together to create products and treatments that promote dramatically younger-looking skin. Skin care products will be more potent, will contain both medical and natural ingredients, and will be available in more efficient delivery systems that penetrate deeper into the skin. […] Gene therapies — and even skin transplants for wrinkled skin— are on the horizon as well.

It may be worth noting that Merriam-Webster has a slightly different take on the matter:

Main Entry: aesthetic

Variant(s): also esthetic

Function: noun

Date: 1822

1. a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation and appreciation of beauty.

Eh. Philosophy? Science? If you cut us, do we not bleed? We wear white lab coats, too, you know.

Onward.

PS. Thanks to Nutmeg Knitter —who, in addition to being a great knitter and mom is an actual scientist — for the lovely shout-out and for turning me on to the fantastic Operation Beautiful. Ending Fat Talk? Yes. More of that, please.

[Photo Credit: Flickr]