Beauty Blogosphere 5.24.13

 

The devil wears Pantene: Procter & Gamble renews its allegiance to Beezlebub. New board members include Lucifer, Angel of Light, King of Babylon, Son of Perdition, Satan, Great Dragon, Author of All Sin, Enemy of Righteousness, and some dude named Rick.

Wait wait wait: Ted Nugent's brother was former CEO of Revlon?

Congressional makeovers: The Professional Beauty Association had its annual lobbying day on Capitol Hill, in part to advocate for an act that would give salon owners a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on taxes they pay on employee tips, which the restaurant industry has enjoyed for years.

Beauty schooled: Transitioning into a new career can be difficult for anyone—especially for sex workers, and especially for sex workers who were working against their will. Enter this partnership between an activist and a hairdresser to provide job training for workers exiting the sex trade. (Throat-lump moment for when some of the students threw a "wedding" for the hairdresser and his husband upon learning that, at the time, the pair was unable to legally wed in their home state.)

Seeing red: The "lipstick index" holds true—sorta—during this period of the sluggish Chinese economy. (The "sorta" is unsurprising, given that the damn thing doesn't really exist.)

Factor this: Some brilliant bits of cosmetics history were recently discovered in a California garage, of all places. When the daughter of a facilities manager of Max Factor's former studio asked a friend for help in clearing out her garage, she had no idea they'd find boxes filled with relics of 1920s Hollywood, including a piece of Factor's infamous "Beauty Calibrator." (via Makeup Museum)

No, you're so pretty: One of the greatest things about the growing number of professionally funny ladies out there is that "girl stuff" gets its due in the comic eye, but without the nasty "can't you take a joke?" edge that's just become tiresome by this point. Case in point: Amy Schumer's sketch on how women take compliments. (It's backed up by science, folks!) Thanks to Lacy of ModernSauce and my agent, Brandi Bowles, for the link.

Laugh/riot: Speacking of women in comedy, which is worse: the whole "male comics deal with female hecklers by wishing rape upon them" scenario, or this infuriating "female comic ignore male hecklers chanting 'Show us your tits' and is fired as a result" scenario? Can we call a draw?

$aving tip: You heard it from Suze Orman: Quit with the manicures and beef up the 401(k). My verdict: Just paint 'em yourself, darling! (Okay, fine, so I'm linking to this primarily so I have an excuse to link to her amazing It Gets Better video.)

Screened: In New York, at least, summer weather has arrived! So as Kelley Hoffman puts it at the Sephora blog, "I'm as devoted to wearing sunscreen as I am to brushing my teeth." Which, we hope, is pretty damn devoted.

Tall tale: An old post, but a good one: Why one woman born with achondroplasia dwarfism chose to undergo limb-lengthening surgeries.

And here is where I half-assedly defend Kim Kardashian: Nikki Sixx, arbiter of crisis etiquette, snarled at Kim Kardashian for promoting her bronzing product during the height of the catastrophes in Oklahoma. (Am I the only one who feels really callow saying in my public capacity how horrible tragedy X is when it has nothing to do with that public capacity? Of course I feel for Oklahomans; isn't that how humans work? We feel empathy for one another? I just feel like making some statement about it does exactly squat unless I feel like I can illuminate some aspect of it because of my perspective. Certainly I'm not about to take my cues on collective grief from Kim Kardashian, you know? I get why other bloggers feel otherwise, but I'm not about to think less of Kim Kardashian for not tweeting her sorrow. Ugh. Pointing fingers from your activist armchair? Please.)

Charmed, I'm sure: Fairly certain the writer of this piece on why men don't have charm anymore has never met a person who actually has charm, which he describes as something only the self-aware can have. In fact, I've found that it's often people who don't quite get that they're charming who have the most of the stuff, but maybe I just don't know charm from my elbow.

Glamour shot: Just preordered Virginia Postrel's The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion at Amazon, which I'm tremendously excited for—an examination of how glamour is actually conjured. It's not out until November 5, but won't it be a lovely surprise when it arrives?

Occupy Barbie: Yes, the Barbie Dream House exists in real life, and yes, you can go visit it. Will you get excited about the cool interactive features and virtual makeup-sampling booths, or will you join the East German (!) communists and protest the thing?

All made up: Cristen Conger takes that whole "But ladies, you don't need to wear makeup!" idea and pokes enough holes in it that I'm now using it as a watering can.

Black is the new black: My transcriptionist pointed out the other day how bizarre it is that the classic "sexy" dress is the same color as funeralwear—and the next day, Worn Through collates a collection of articles on the social role of black clothing. Is it in the air?

Common scents: I'm a fan of Demeter fragrances, but admit I winced a little at their fundraising scent for the Boston First Responders Fund. It's fantastic that 75% of the sale is donated to the fund, but even though Demeter takes pains to say that the notes of smoke and rubber in the fragrance are meant to honor the daily work of firefighters, not as a reminder of the bombing, it still strikes me as...tone-deaf, I suppose? Especially given that this is a company that really understands the connection between scent and experience. One of the most unsettling things about living in New York after 9/11 was the lingering scent in the city air from the disaster, which was terrible in the deepest sense of the word. Am I being oversensitive about this? (I might be.)

I, androgyne: Zoe Saldana's use of the word androgynous in her cover-story interview with Allure makes it spike in lookups at Merriam-Webster.com.

Sabbath Sharpie: Perhaps inspired by the recent case of an Orthodox Jewish woman suing Lancôme over the failure of its "24-hour" foundation to last 24 hours (applying makeup is considered "creative work," which is forbidden on the Sabbath), the Daily Mail takes a look at tricks women have been using to stay made up for the duration of the Sabbath without bending guidelines. I'll cop to being half-tempted to try Sharpie as eyeliner (but only half, I swear), and also to being intrigued by this peculiar clash of modern life and ancient law, but there's also this sort of "check out the weird Jewish freaks!" angle going on here. Or am I just imagining that because the Daily Mail has such a long, proud history of trolling all of us?"The espresso commercial that is your life": Read this piece, if for no other reason than item #1 (though all seven are spot-on): How men who think catcalls are compliments think the story goes, vs. how it actually goes. As they say, it's funny 'cause it's true.

I've made a huge mistake: If you, like me, are currently strategizing how best to binge-watch new Arrested Development episodes on Netflix this weekend, check out The Closet Feminist's fashion lessons to be learned from the show. #1 involves Never-Nudes, natch.

Sweating modesty: As someone who wears close-fitting clothes to the gym—quite a change from when I first started working out and wore baggy clothes, in part because that's what I had and in part because I didn't want anyone to see what my body actually looked like—I was intrigued by this consideration on modesty from a gymgoer who tends to wear "little more than underwear."

Click: With everyone walking around with a camera on them at all times, the relationship between photography and body image begs more exploring than ever.