The Pretty Price Check: Your Friday round-up of what we paid for beauty last week.
First up! You still have 48 hours to take a picture of pretty self, all made up with clean cosmetics and enter it in the No More Dirty Looks Clean Makeup Challenge. The prize is $100 gift certificate to Spirit Beauty Lounge. Where you can get a heck of a lot of pretty for that price. So get on that.
Next:
- $3.8 million: What you’ll pay for the world’s most expensive purse. And it doesn’t even look big enough to hold your cell phone. (Via The Cut)
- 97 percent: How many of us have negative thoughts about our bodies every day, according to the latest “Wait? Women have body issues? And the sky is blue?” survey by Glamour. (Via BlogHer)
- 18: How old you’ll have to be to use a tanning bed if New York and other states pass their Teen Tan Bans. Fun fact: 80 percent (or something) of skin cancer-causing sun damage happens before the age of 18. So this makes pretty good sense. But of course, the industry is offended by the notion that they put children’s health at risk. (Via MyDaily)
- 14: The number of states that have banned those pedicures where tiny fish eat the dead skin off your feet. Public health officials in the UK are investigating to determine whether this practice is downright revolting, or just icky. (Via Jezebel.)
To end the week on a feel-good note: I seem to be swimming in pregnant or potentially pregnant friends at the moment, so I also wanted to link to an awesome project called The Shape of a Mother, where real women post photos of their pregnant or post-pregnancy bodies. Take that, Hollywood Bump Watch addicts. No, you don’t have to be back to your pre-pregnancy weight fifteen minutes after giving birth. Cut yourself some slack! See also: Dr. Dana Udall-Weiner’s wonderful take on pregnancy and body image over at Nourishing The Soul.
To end the week on a much ickier note: We need to discuss this whole business of Lady Gaga’s new fragrance containing a sample of her own blood and the “feeling and scent” of semen, so you can smell like “an expensive hooker.” Lady Gaga is actually around my age, but she makes me feel like an old fuddy duddy who can never tell: Is she being ironic? Does it still count as irony if she makes a bloody (sorry, had to) fortune off of it? Or is the joke on her rabid perfume-buying fans?
I’m beginning to feel weird about how much I TOTALLY WANT TO HAVE A FISH PEDICURE. The kindest, gentlest callous removal ever. I think I’d feel like Cinderella, except with small fish instead of birds and mice. But talk about exploited labor!
Thanks so much for the link Dr. Dana Udall-Weiner’s piece. I thought it was fantastic and I’m so glad it’s getting shared with women facing the pressure of post-pregnancy perfection.
Oh, Gaga. I love your music to the point of lip-synching in my car while making eye contact with strangers, and almost went to one of your concerts wearing a nude lace burqua. But girlfriend. If your fragrance marketing strategy (sorry, “inspiration”) reminds me of a KISS publicity stunt* from the 1980’s, well, it’s time to pull it back a few notches.
*KISS put out a comic book and promised their fans that the ink used to print the art was mixed with real blood from each of the band’s members.
Thanks for the link to my post, Virginia. And yes, I feel that way about Lady Gaga all the time–am I just old? Should I applaud her efforts–are they pro-sex worker? Or just another way to exploit and capitalize upon female sexuality?