The Three Month State of Beauty U Report continues.

Okay, I’ve told you that we’re sleep deprived and living on junk food. Now let’s talk wardrobe. The first few weeks at Beauty U, we took the dress code seriously: Black shirt, black pants or skirt, Beauty U apron or spa jacket on top. Professional is the watch word Miss Jenny keeps coming back to on this front. “You don’t have to look like a super model every day, girls — just keep it professional.”

But first of all? The polyester Beauty U aprons don’t withstand much washer-dryer action before they start to fray. Plus, when you spend the whole night mucking around with white or light-colored lotions and powders, an all-black uniform starts to seem like a questionable move. Then there’s that whole issue of jeans not fitting so well anymore. We might have started out in black dress pants and cute flats, but most of us are down to black sweat pants and sneakers now. I’ve figured out that if I wear my black yoga pants to school and then go to bed in them afterwards, it greatly increases the odds that I’ll be able to wake up in time to hit a yoga class before work the next morning. We’ve also generally stopped wearing makeup, because it’s just an extra hassle to wash it off before we practice facials anyway, and you already know how infrequently I brush my hair.

Again, big heaping soup spoons full of irony here. I think Miss Jenny keeps mentioning “looking professional” because in another month or so, we’ll be done with the textbook and ready to start working in the spa on real, live, not-fellow-student clients, and she’s hoping she can get some of us back into real pants by then.

So that’s where we are, gang: Three months and 176 hours down, six months and 424 hours to go. I can name almost every layer of the skin, apply eyeliner in an almost-straight line, and even give you a glycolic peel (if you can withstand the pain). As these last few posts show, the honeymoon period is ending. Most of my classmates started our program overflowing with excitement — they were passionate about makeup and skin care and thrilled to be pursuing a long-held dream that would lead to a glamorous and lucrative career.

I hear a lot less of that excitement now and a lot more worry about whether all this hard work will lead to a job that’s really better than their current low-paying service industry gig — or, given the economy, if there will be any jobs at all.

Now I’d love to hear from you: What did I miss in this Three Month State of Beauty U Report? What else are you dying to know about the inner workings of beauty school, this project, or the beauty industry in general? Put your questions in the comments or email me [beautyschooledproject (at) gmail (dot) com] and I’ll work on answering them in some upcoming posts!