The minute you start to look at divisions between "good" and "bad" beauty work, they start to unravel.

Playboy spread aside, no, Marge Simpson doesn't count.

Overreporting extreme aesthetic treatments allows us to put distance between our own beauty work and beauty work that “crosses the line.”

Given the history of the "female Gothic," it's actually a surprise there isn't a whole lot more brother bangin' going on in YA lit.

In which I take an episode of "South Park" about digital photo editing far too seriously.

Exclusive blog confessional: I can't stop checking out everyone's ladythighs.

"There's pressure on women to have bodies that are 'better' than normal. But it turned out with my pregnancy, normal was exactly what I needed to be."

"Glamour only works when it can tap preexisting discontent, giving otherwise inchoate longings an object of focus": A look at Virginia Postrel's "The Power of Glamour"

"A friend told me to buy a red dress in Paris because I am leaving my husband."

If you use makeup to delineate the public from the private, what happens when your private space becomes shared?

On dressing well as a military wife abroad: "We wanted to show the Japanese that we were nice people after the war."

When it comes to extravagant beauty services—hell, most beauty services—it's the ultimate placebo effect: You only get out of it what you think you'll get out of it.