Models, Eating Disorders, and Labor




Eating Disorder Awareness Week, an annual event from the National Eating Disorders Association, is always a bit of a conundrum for me. I feel passionately about eating disorder awareness, in part because I was a patient myself. But it’s because of my own experience in treatment that I know what I’d pinned my eating disorder on for so long—wanting to be thin—was only a fraction of what landed me there. I don’t write about eating disorders much on The Beheld because I want to keep a narrow focus on appearance, and I worry that by getting into eating disorders, I’m conflating beauty and health. That is, I’m doing exactly what women with eating disorders do to themselves.

Eating disorders are linked to the beauty imperative. But they’re about so much more—control, perfectionism, chaos, suppression, connection, intimacy, yearning, abundance, fear. Not to mention biology, genetics, family environment, and other mental illnesses. But those things often get short shrift in the discussion of eating disorders, in part because while we all share beauty culture (and most women at some point are frustrated by it, to say the least), not all of us share the particular psychological cocktail that makes for an eating disorder. Point is: I’m never quite sure how to handle the question of EDs here.

Luckily, this year NEDA made it easy on me by kicking off the week here in New York last night with a panel discussion about eating disorders and the modeling industry—not the tired skinny-models-cause-eating-disorders line, but the models who suffer from EDs. Cohosted with The Model Alliance, a nonprofit working to improve models’ basic working conditions in what is currently a nearly unregulated industry, panelists included several models (including supermodel Crystal Renn and sociologist Ashley Mears, whose book I reviewed here), a modeling agent, and a doctor specializing in eating disorders. Three things I came away from the evening with:


1) Some conditions of modeling echo conditions that foster eating disorders—well beyond the thin imperative. 

Models are good girls. Not literally, and not always—plenty of “bad girl” vices, specifically upper-type drugs, are everywhere in model-land, and obviously the industry, like any other, can encompass a huge variety of personality types. But modeling requires a good deal of compliance, perhaps the number-one good-girl trait. You’re managed and molded by an agent, selected by a client, styled by a hairstylist and makeup artist, posed by a photographer, tweaked by a computer. You are there to be handled and worked on; models bring skill and charisma, yes, but they’re also often treated as props. Now, patients with EDs aren’t necessarily more compliant than the average person, but there’s often a clash that happens, particularly with teenagers (an age when many patients first experience symptoms): You see the compliance that’s expected of you, but you’re also aware of your own growing agency. One way to make sense of this clash is to internalize it in a way that serves as both rebellion and compliance: an eating disorder.

Crystal Renn struck a particularly poignant note when she talked of how until she was scouted as a teenager in Mississippi, her paragon of beauty was the self-styled goth girls who hung out at the mall. So here we have this seed of rebellion, but instead of channeling it into long black lace gloves and Manic Panic dye, it went into whittling herself down to 95 pounds. In fact, at the panel we saw a clip of the (fantastic) documentary Girl Model in which two Russian teens realize that their contract stipulates that they can be discharged if they gain even a centimeter in their measurements—so they both start gorging themselves on candy to give themselves an out. The more willful of the two wound up exiting the industry entirely thanks to that particular contract clause. But the quieter, dreamier, more passive model gives the industry another whirl.

Perfectionism comes into play here too. One of the first things Renn pointed out about her own history was that she was a perfectionist, a personality trait that’s stamped all over eating disorders. I don’t know enough about the industry to know whether perfectionism is common among models, but in panelist Ashley Mears’s excellent book, Pricing Beauty, she describes how models are pushed by their agencies to not only fit incredibly specific measurements, but to work for “trade” (i.e. clothes or photo prints, not, you know, money) in hopes of landing a big ad campaign that would pay off big-time (for the model and for her agency). What is more perfectionistic than self-sacrifice? And in some cases, the price of not sacrificing oneself is incredibly high: Many models are plucked from nations with developing or unstable economies, meaning that a 14-year-old girl may be supporting her entire family back home with her wages. The price of imperfection can be devastation.

And the price of mere entry into the industry, particularly for girls from unstable economies back home, is anxiety. (Can you imagine the anxiety inherent in knowing that if you fail at your stab at success, your family might not be able to install proper plumbing?) Even for models who don’t have their families’ well-being balanced upon their shoulders, the job itself is anxiety-provoking. As Mears pointed out, the bulk of models’ time is spent going on numerous calls, auditions, and go-sees—the equivalents of a job interview, meaning that models are regularly undergoing eight job interviews a day. And not the kind of job interview I’ve ever gone through: “You never know when you walk in the door if you’re going to be torn apart—or praised,” Mears says. There’s a huge overlap between anxiety and eating disorders, with some estimates at an 80% comorbidity rate. We cannot talk about eating disorders without talking about anxiety. And we can’t talk of models’ realities without talking about the same.


2) Properly framing eating disorders within the modeling industry can help lead to change. 

Remember, this panel was cohosted with NEDA by The Model Alliance—a labor organization. While there was plenty of talk of EDs as a cultural issue, a key point of the evening was that for the workers in question, this is a labor issue. As Sara Ziff, panel moderator and cofounder of The Model Alliance, pointed out, most models begin their careers as children. When we think of child labor, we’re thinking of kids in faraway factories—a tragedy, to be sure, and one that the fashion industry needs to do a better form of addressing. But whether it’s a 12-year-old modeling Justin Bieber T-shirts for a tween catalogue or the same 12-year-old slinking down the runway in heels and exotic makeup—or her 17-year-old colleague—that too is child labor. And given that one of the populations at heightened risk for eating disorders is also a population that gets scouted in suburban malls and the streets of Belarus, we need to consider eating disorders a work hazard.

Affiliated organizations seem to actively work against this particular work hazard sometimes. Take the recent case of the Council of Fashion Designers of America partnering with a juice cleanse company to give models a 50% discount during Fashion Week. Juice cleanses are notorious for providing a nice cover of “health” and “detoxing” for people with eating disorders. Combine that with the faux-Zen glamour of cleanses and the like—a specific type of glamour that the fashion set seems to particularly fall prey to—and you see the problem.

The irony here is that the CFDA undertook the partnership as a part of their health initiative meant to help combat eating disorders within the industry. And taken at face value, I can see why: Fashion Week is incredibly hectic, and being able to sip a nutrient-filled lunch on the go instead of sitting down to eat it sounds like a reasonable solution. And for people without eating disorders, in a pinch it probably is a reasonable solution. But to introduce this as a benefit to a population with a high ED risk is absurd. I can’t help but wonder what would happen in the industry if there were a modeling union that had regulations as strict as the Teamsters—if, say, such partnerships had to be reviewed by a panel of ED experts before coming into play. The U.S. is hardly in its labor-friendliest era, but there’s still an essential respect for what unions signify. And the more the industry is framed as exactly that—an industry, one with workers and labor conditions and hazards and risks and, one day, regulations—instead of as a glamorous world its denizens are lucky to gain entrance to, the better off its laborers will be.



3) Consumers can play a role in change.

Yes, the industry needs to change from within. I particularly liked Renn’s proposal of designers issuing sample sizes in size 8 instead of size 2—it’s easier to take away fabric than it is to add it, so stylists could still use a model who fits a size 2, but there would also be built-in encouragement to use a wider variety of body types. (And if, like me, you share Kjerstin Gruys’s raised eyebrow of the ubiquity of “size 8,” note that Renn specified that size 8 would simply be an industry-friendly entry point into even further diversity.) But there are things we can do as fashion consumers too.

The most straightforward way is “voting with your dollars.” Now, most of us inadvertently boycott couture fashion not because of our politics but because of our pocketbooks—I can't drop $6,000 on a skirt. But Mears talked about what’s known in the business world as “loss leaders,” or the strategy of offering a product that’s not profitable in order to offer a product that is. And loss leaders are huge in the fashion world. You might not be able to afford a Chanel suit, but you can indulge in a wee bottle of Chanel no. 5—and if that’s too rich for your blood, what about Chanel no. 5 soap? It’s not necessarily the fashions that makes these houses their money; it’s the fragrances, the makeup palettes, the keychains, the wallets, the bracelet charms, the sunglasses, the scarves, the smartphone cases. That is, the things people actually buy. And if we stop buying them, they’ll stop being as profitable, and the brands in question will have to look at why. You see a fashion line that is clearly using unhealthy models, or that refuses to open up its notions of beauty, whether in size, race, ethnicity, or age? Boycott. And when you see a line that actively works toward creating a healthier idea of beauty, remember that you don’t necessarily need to spend a fortune to support them.

Also, according to panelist Chris Gay, president of Marilyn modeling agency, clients do listen to consumer complaints, particularly catalogues and other commercial outlets. Now, I admit to some skepticism on this: Magazines listen to consumer complaints as well, meaning that a magazine I once worked for decided to “take a stand” and use non-straight-size models at least once an issue. That sometimes translated to a size 8 model being used in a throwaway illustrative shot. But even here, I maintain some optimism, for sometimes that policy translated into stunning editorial shoots with plus-size models where their size wasn’t the entire focus of the story.

The point is, even when it’s frustrating and change is slow—no, especially when change is slow—we need to keep speaking up. And not just for the models’ sake, either, as important as that may be. We can speak up for ourselves as consumers. As Mears pointed out, the role that models play in upholding the beauty imperative has been discussed for some time now, but when it comes to solutions everyone wants to pass the buck. Consumers want media outlets to use a wider range of models. Media outlets say they shoot unhealthily thin models because that’s what comes to them. Agencies say they send unhealthily thin models because that’s what the clients want, and because that’s who fits into sample sizes designers provide. Designers say the provide small sample sizes because larger sizes don’t hang right; designers who may genuinely wish for that to change feel caught in a game of follow-the-leader. And then there are retail outlets that say that displaying larger sizes means items don’t sell as well, so we’re back to consumers, who want media outlets to use a wider range of models. If we want things to change, we’ve got to start somewhere—meaning that the buck needs to stop here.


NEDA is hosting a post-event Twitter chat today, February 26, at 2 p.m. EST, with supermodel and host Emme. Follow #NEDAwareness to join.

Strike a Pose: Vogue, Eating Disorders, and Desire

Vogue stopped using bird models in 1921.

Several years ago, after a long day at the magazine I was freelancing for at the time, I hailed a cab and cried the whole way home. The chief cause of the crying was the last task I’d had to do at the office before departing for the night: Communicating to the art department that a top editor wanted to digitally slim a celebrity whose former battles with anorexia were well-documented in the press. Transcribing her request onto the circulating page proof, every stroke of every letter felt like it was being scratched upon my skin. I hated that anyone would look at this particular picture of the (trim, lovely, recovered) celebrity and want it trimmer still, I hated that it was part of my job to communicate this request, I hated that the editor was so high up as to make it improper for a lowly freelance copy editor to question her, I hated that the people reading the final product wouldn’t understand all the labor that goes into making beautiful people look beautiful on the page. Most of all, I hated that the celebrity might look at the story, spot the digital manipulation, and yearn for her days of hunger. I hated it.

So you would think that I’d be thrilled about Vogue’s recent announcement that they are no longer going to work with models who appear to have an eating disorder, will encourage designers to consider their practice of unrealistically tailored sample sizes, and will be “ambassadors for the message of healthy body image.” All 19 global editions of the world’s leading fashion magazine signed on to the pledge, this after an international flurry of other body image actions in the world of high fashion: Italy and Spain’s leading fashion coalitions banned models with BMIs deeming them underweight, and in March Israel recently passed a law doing the same. And indeed, I felt a wash of righteous joy when I read about the announcement: I mean, this is Vogue we’re talking here. Vogue! The emblem of why the fashion world is so often hostile to women’s bodies, the embodiment of the severe impact the thin-young-and-beautiful imperative has on women worldwide. Let’s be clear: This is a good thing. But for the reader, it’s not as good as it seems.

The impact here appears to be significant, yes. Its largest actual impact is on the labor force in question: In addition to no longer working with models who “appear to have an eating disorder,” Vogue will not work with models under age 16 (and will ask casting directors to check identification), implement mentoring programs for mature models to give guidance to beginners, and encourage producers to provide privacy and healthy food backstage. Modeling is precarious work, a fact often overshadowed by its glamour in the public eye; for Vogue to publicly acknowledge that its success is partially built upon the backs of young, precarious laborers, often émigrés from developing or unstable nations, does a real service to those workers, and that fact shouldn’t be lost.

It’s the last item on Vogue’s six-point list that nags at me: We will be ambassadors for the message of healthy body image. To herald Vogue as a game-changing ambassador of healthy body image is to forget that fashion photography is specifically designed to elicit a response—yearning—within us, and few things in our culture inspire yearning like thinness. To point out the obvious: Thinness will never disappear from Vogue’s pages, only ill, underage models. Fashion photography is transportive, both real and unreal. The point for the reader has never been to be able to actually imagine ourselves in the photograph. Let the fashion still lifes do that; we can step into that empty dress, slip our arms through that stack of bracelets. The point of fashion photography is to synthesize distance and reality as we recognize it: It has to be close enough to what we recognize as real to trigger our response, but far enough away to make sure that response leaves us wanting, not contented. This is what fashion photography does; this is what makes it compelling. Longing built into its very function.

“The history of photography could be recapitulated as the struggle between two different imperatives,” writes Susan Sontag in On Photography. “[B]eautification, which comes from the fine arts, and truth-telling, which is measured not only by a notion of value-free truth, a legacy from the sciences, but by a moralized ideal of truth-telling, adapted from nineteenth-century literary models and from the (then) new profession of independent journalism.” Fashion magazines epitomize both of these imperatives: Grace Coddington’s magnificent styling certainly falls into the realm of the fine arts, but fashion magazines are always ultimately selling and promoting products that actually exist and are for sale—that is, they have an amoralized ideal of truth-telling. (Not that selling is without morals, but the sort of truth that advertising purports is quite different than the sort of truth we get from photojournalism. A seller’s intent, even if it’s a positive one, doesn’t stem from morality.) Even if few readers of Vogue are actually able to purchase the clothes on its pages, they can buy the fast fashion knockoffs; they can be inspired by the looks on the pages.

And, of course, they can be inspired by—and aspire to—thinness. Thinness became encoded as a part of the creation of desire, for all sorts of reasons that, if you’re reading this, you probably understand. The thinking here is that Vogue’s move to not use models who appear to have eating disorders will help separate that encoding; certainly Vogue will remain a manufacturer of desire, and they have all sorts of talent beyond emaciated models to do so. I’d love to see thinness separated from desire just as much as the next woman. But the Vogue announcement, on balance, is never going to be a part of that, for on the most basic level, simply refusing to work with models who “appear” to have an eating disorder hardly means the thin imperative will vanish from Vogue’s pages. We have encoded acquisitional desire as thinness—you can never be too rich or too thin—and the entire industry is predicated upon acquisitional desire. Yes, yes, magazines should do their part to end the conflation of thinness and desire, and on the most perfunctory level, Vogue has done so. But the work—the real work—must go far deeper.

For as significant as it is that it’s Vogue, with all its class and tastemaking connotations, making this announcement, it’s also a double-edged sword. If the go-to reference for the absurdity of the thin imperative has always been Vogue, and then Vogue says it’s switching up the game, we’ve suddenly lost our reference point. Yet the referent still exists. Models are going to remain far thinner than the average woman, fashion images will continue to do their job of creating longing and desire, and otherwise sensible women will keep doing the master cleanse. All that has changed besides models' labor conditions is that Vogue gets to seem like it's doing the right thing, and those who have been agitating for body positivity get to feel like we've made progress. Vogue is doing nothing truly radical to change the thin imperative, and to pretend otherwise is to silently walk in lockstep with the very system that put us in this situation to begin with.

There are other concerns with the announcement as well. Some argue it doesn’t go far enough, and I’d agree; certainly not everyone who has an eating disorder "appears" to have one, and when you’re talking about a workforce whose livelihood depends upon skilled manipulation of self-presentation, that risk runs even higher. I’m also a hair suspicious of the timing—both as a PR move to smooth over damage done by “the Vogue mom,” whose controversial piece in the April issue detailed putting her 7-year-old on a diet, and as a reaction to where Vogue is positionally. The circulation of American Vogue dipped 1.7% in the first quarter of 2012 (though it did extraordinarily well in 2011, earning the title of Ad Age’s magazine of the year), and the slow decline of its readers’ personal income may be figuring into their outlook. From 2008 to 2011, Americans’ average per capita income grew slightly (with some recession dips); in that same period, the Vogue reader’s median income dropped, from $64,429 in 2008 (which in and of itself was a 2.3% dip from 2007) to $63,094 today. This keeps Vogue readers substantially above the national per capita income, but I can’t help but wonder if this is an acknowledgment of the behind-the-scenes middlebrowing of the title. For all its prestige and class connotations, Vogue hasn’t been as highbrow as we might think; when I worked at a teen magazine a few years ago, I was surprised to find that readers’ parents were slightly better off than Vogue readers. And let’s not overlook that Conde Nast’s truly highfalutin’ title, W—which has a median reader income of $155,215—has made no such announcement. W has the luxury of doing whatever the hell it wants; Vogue needs to stay relevant to people outside the inner circle in order to continue its success. I’d like to think that prestige audiences care about body image diversity as much as the average American woman, but I’d be thinking wrong.

Despite my arguments here, I am pleased that Vogue is making efforts to stay relevant and on-point with a growing national conversation about body image. I’m critiquing, not criticizing, the announcement. It’s at least a gesture in the right direction—and it’s showing that a critical mass of complaints and activism can actually work, which is enormously encouraging for all the body image and media literacy advocates who work tirelessly in the face of some daunting and culturally embedded issues. And, again, the labor impact here is significant. But as far as its larger impact on readers, I’m not ready to cheer. Short of a complete and total ideological overhaul, there is nothing Vogue could do to truly change the story, for it’s a business that revolves around creating and sating acquisitional desire; it’s why Gloria Steinem referred to the relationship between advertising and women’s publications as the “velvet steamroller.” The policy changes won’t hurt women’s body image, I don’t think. Neither will it truly help. As long as Vogue is a part of the machine of desire—and there is no way for it not to be—the narrative will remain the same; imagery, truth, and beautification will continue their morality play; and readers will receive the same message they always have. And a very thin band will silently play on.

Kjerstin Gruys, Ph.D. sociology student, Bay Area

When I initially met Kjerstin Gruys online, my first thought was: There’s another one! Several weeks before I did my own month without mirrors, Kjerstin had launched a project going a full year without them—the same year in which she was getting married, incidentally. (No, she didn’t peek on her wedding day.) A Ph.D. candidate in sociology, Kjerstin has focused much of her academic work on body image and eating disorders. But her years in the fashion industry as a merchandiser for Abercrombie & Fitch, and then GAP Corporate, were hardly an aside: Her dissertation on the shifting standards of clothing sizes merges her passions of body image, cultural body imperatives, and fashion. The best way to get to know Kjerstin’s work is following her blog, Mirror Mirror Off the Wall—and reading her upcoming book chronicling her yearlong adventure, slated to be published by Penguin in 2013. But she also took the time to share some candid thoughts with readers of The Beheld. We talked about the creative self, the role of trust in body image, and what singing alone in the car has to do with mirrors. In her own words: 



On Scales vs. Mirrors
I first really became conscious of body image and women’s issues in late high school to early college. I had anorexia, and in going through the physical and emotional elements of treatment, I had to carve out an understanding of how our culture kind of shaped my experience. Having an eating disorder, you’re always aware of your own body image, but it’s not until you’re recovering that you’re really forced to take a step back and realize that you have to question a lot of assumptions.

In recovery I had to gain weight and I couldn’t get on the scale, couldn’t know the number; if I got on the scale I’d have to check in with my physician or whatever. But I just had to trust the process. I had to trust that I really didn’t feel comfortable with the numbers going up, and I had to trust that the process of recovery was at some point going to get me comfortable with a larger number. In terms of recovery there’s a lot of self-monitoring and constantly asking myself whether my behavior is in line with my values or with my disease. And luckily the past four or five years the values have won out over the obsession.

So when I started this project I had to consciously think: How am I going to do this in a way that I know is healthy? I didn’t want it to make me feel more symptomatic and paranoid, so I actually had to make the decision to get back on the scale more frequently to make sure that my paranoia that I’m constantly gaining weight has a logical answer. I’ve had to get back on the scale, and I felt kind of ambivalent about that. But now I’m very pleased because it’s not worse—it’s better. In one sense the project has made me say, You know what, good enough is good enough. And that is actually a shift of my values. I’m still very perfectionistic at times, so there’s been a step back from perfection, which is great. But there’s also a sense of trying to find something else to quiet my questioning mind that’s scared about not knowing what I look like in the mirror. It’s possible that I still have some dysmorphia about what my body is, and avoiding mirrors sometimes allows my imagination to run wild. And getting back on the scale has helped me not be dysmorphic about that. Getting on the scale most days of the week keeps me more in tune with what’s going on with my body, which is important if you have a history of ignoring your body!


On Vanity and Pride
At some point I looked up the definition of vanity. It isn’t caring what you look like; it’s caring too much about one part of yourself. The definition actually had “too much” in there, which obviously is subjective. An outsider can decide that somebody is vain based on their own ideas, but the person herself might not actually feel that way. There’s no one way to figure out what is too much, although I think that people who are particularly vain are often not very fun to be around—vanity causes one to be very self-absorbed. Not intentionally, but that’s what vanity is. Vanity can be totally destructive to intimate relationships.

I can say without apology that an eating disorder is one of the most vain things you can experience. I’m in no way saying it’s a choice. But an eating disorder totally warps your whole sense of priorities, even in people who hide it very well. I don’t think someone can feel fully recovered if they’re only eating properly. Behaviors can change, but if there’s this thing—like weight or food—that is the most critically important thing for them to monitor in their lives, that’s where vanity comes in.

But vanity itself should be distinguished from pride. Having pride in your appearance is a wonderful thing. I wish all women were “vain” in that sense—in taking pride in their looks and enjoying what they see in the mirror—without that subjective idea of putting your appearance higher on your priority list than spending time with your loved ones or being flexible with your routines, whether that’s eating different foods, or trying a different look with your makeup or whatever. I have friends who won’t go camping because they’ll feel so humiliated wondering what they look like without makeup and mirrors. And I myself have a little mini mirror and cosmetics that I usually take with me camping, so I can try to look like I’m not wearing any makeup when I really am. I guess you could say that my no-mirrors project isn’t an attack on vanity itself. But it’s definitely an attack on mine.

I’m a little worried that I’ll be disappointed in what I see when I look in the mirror again. [Note: March 24 will be Kjerstin’s unveiling—if you’re in the Bay Area, check out the “First Look” party she’s throwing with media literacy group About-Face to celebrate body positivity.] I was like, What if I develop this really positive sense of what I look like, and it’s not actually what I see when in look in the mirror for the first time? So I’m scared about that—that would be a little bit sad and scary to go without for a whole year and finally look in the mirror and be like, Oh, I liked myself better before I was looking in the mirror again. But my hope is that I will kind of be in a good place when that happens and even if I look in the mirror and I’m like, “Eh, it’s not really what I expected or wanted,” I’ll at the very least feel like it isn't the most important thing in my life. That, and I know I’ll be excited to finally experiment with makeup again, and I’ll certainly do some shopping for new clothes. No amount of research or activism will ever dampen my enthusiasm for a shopping trip!


On Existentialism
Sometimes there’s almost a sense of numbness when I’m all by myself, without the mirror. It’s this sense of: Who am I, what am I? What is this experience? I’m thinking, I’m conscious, I can see my hands and feet, I’m typing on the computer, I’m petting the cat—whatever it is. But what am I? I can’t look in the mirror to see what I am. It’s made me realize that I used to use my reflection as a form of companionship and validation. So having moments when I think of these questions have been very bizarre.

One solution for those times (of feeling existential) has been to use something sensory, like scent, to signal one of my five senses to really experience the world instead of just being there. That’s helped me feel a little bit less like somehow I don’t exist. I’ll talk to myself, I’ll sing along with Pandora. I’m someone who doesn’t mind being alone a lot, and I really love driving in the car, listening to music on the radio, and singing at the top of my lungs. And I’m like: Okay, before I started being conscious of not looking in the mirror, being in the car and singing by myself never felt like an existential crisis. So I tried to kind of bring some of those things back, whether it’s feeling my toes on the carpet or smelling perfume or tasting chocolate. It’s like: Okay, I exist. I’m experiencing something sensual and I have an opinion about it. I’m not just a computer giving input and giving output. It’s weird realizing that simply seeing my reflection in the mirror was, in some ways, very grounding.

At one point I had a head cold, and I had no sense of smell. It was depressing. I’d figured out how to put on makeup without looking at myself, but being able to smell the product had actually been pleasurable for me, and not being able to see myself or smell the products left me feeling numb. I get a lot of pleasure about using scented products in the shower; if anything I found that since giving up mirrors I’ve become a bit more snobby about wanting to use more luxurious products, even though I try to avoid spending too much money.


On Trust and Self-Expression
So much of my issues with body image and not being a certain weight or certain size had to do with refusing to believe anyone who loved me when they’d say I was beautiful. I distrusted everyone, and I had my own sense of standards and disappointments for approval. It’s like if someone said, “I think you’re beautiful,” I’d be like, “Well, you’re either lying to me or you have bad taste.” That’s such a selfish side of yourself, and it’s interesting to see how difficult it is to give that up. I think most women struggle with this a bit. We’re supposed to be modest and not boastful, especially about looks—heaven forbid you say that you have a bangin’ bod! Normal women, if you compliment them, it’s like, “Oh, this old thing?” or “Well, maybe I look nice today but I’ve gained weight lately” or stuff like that. But with the mirror project I’ve really had to trust people, and myself. You start realizing that maybe this vision you have in your head about what you “really” look like—this idea of, “Oh, you might love me and think I’m beautiful, but really I’m not”—is faulty. Giving up the mirror is giving up the idea that your own image of yourself is the only image that’s real or even meaningful.

It makes you think about what purpose your appearance really has. If my relationships are healthy and the people around me are treating me well and telling me that I look good enough for them to love me, and respect me, then why is my own critical vision of my appearance so important? I’m still struggling with that question. I do think it’s important to have a sense of self, but I’m starting to see my sense of self as being more about self-expression and creativity and less of a status thing, or about being too much of this or not enough of that. And in a way it’s a little bit constrained right now because of not being able to look in the mirror—I mean, right around the time in my life when I had started to think that my sense of self was an expression of my own creativity and sense of fashion and play, I’m not as able to do these things. But it’s something I’m looking forward to enjoying again when the year is over. It’s such a great thing to miss! It’s totally different from being paranoid that I don’t look good enough; it’s that I miss something expressive and creative, and I know that this is a really great step in the right direction for me.

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Barefaced and Beside the Point: Appearance Anxiety in Eating Disorders




In preparation for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week—which starts today—the Renfrew Center sent out an interesting press release, one you’d think would be right up my alley. “Barefaced and Beautiful,” a campaign from the Renfrew Center, one of the best-known eating disorder treatment facilities in the United States, is encouraging women to post photos of themselves on various social media without any makeup. The point is to...well, they sort of lost me on that. I think the idea is to display pride in one’s natural, unadorned self, the idea being that...you don't need to...adorn yourself....with an eating disorder?

Yes, I’m being intentionally dense here. Obviously the idea was to touch on the role of appearance dissatisfaction in eating disorders, using something plenty of people wear—makeup—as an entryway to talk about the larger issue. (Certainly it’s more on point than cryptically posting the color of your bra on Facebook for breast cancer awareness.) And for something like a week designed to raise awareness about eating disorders, you need a campaign that's simple, accessible, and attention-grabbing. But not only does it willfully ignore the myriad reasons women wear makeup in favor of a one-dimensional shame-based explanation, it treats bodily dissatisfaction as the cause, not a symptom, of eating disorders. And if we keep the focus of eating disorder conversations on women’s bodies, we’re doing exactly what women with eating disorders do to themselves.

Obviously I think body image is pretty important. Hell, my contribution to National Eating Disorders Awareness week, other than this post, is with a project called Body Image Warrior Week project, which will show up here later this week. But I’m wary of conflating body image and eating disorders, and I don’t think that they’re nearly as connected as they’re made out to be. It’s not like she who has the worst body image develops the worst eating disorder, or that people whose body image is average are immune from eating disorders. (I have yet to meet a woman with an active eating disorder who has a good body image, but then again, I don’t know tons of women with a good body image to begin with.) I’m baffled that Renfrew chose the makeup hook for their NEDA campaign, unless the idea really was just to raise awareness of the existence of eating disorders. (“Anorexic” has been a coverline of enough celebrity magazines that I don’t think we need any more awareness of that elementary sort, but I digress.) Makeup is deeply tied to our ideas of self-presentation, yes. It’s also a way of controlling the way the way you’re seen, and eating disorders are rooted in control. But none of that shows up in the Renfrew campaign; instead, it’s all about appearance dissatisfaction, as though that alone can prompt a disease that ravages one’s life.

Eating disorders are complex beasts, with not-great recovery rates and the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. We don’t entirely know what causes eating disorders, but last year when I interviewed Sunny Sea Gold, author of Food, the Good Girl’s Drug and a recovered binge eater herself, she broke it down nicely:

Therapists pretty much agree that there are three main causes of eating disorders, and most of us who get them have a combination of the three. One is your genetics. Second is your physiology, like the biology of your actual brain—your personality.... The third thing is environment. Environment is broken into two parts: the environment of your home, what your mom and dad said to you, the behaviors they modeled. The other part of environment is culture. So about one-sixth of eating disorders can be blamed on cultural environment, like the pictures we’re shown.... If we magically were able to suddenly change the images we see in order to be diverse in all ways, gradually that part of the pressure would relieve itself. But it wouldn’t relieve that need of a girl to control her food intake because she can’t control her life.
It’s that last part that continues to get short shrift in popular media treatment of eating disorders. And I get why the media might latch onto images and the thin imperative as the root cause of eating disorders: Media outlets love nothing more than to generically critique themselves (what women’s magazine hasn’t covered the problem of unrealistic body ideals formed by...the media?). Less cynically, poor body image is something most of us have experienced at some point; using this as a hook for readers to empathize with eating disorder patients works beautifully. Plenty of people have dieted to lose weight for aesthetic reasons, and the disordered thought loop that makes a satisfying eating disorder story—I was obsessed with food!—is mimicked in the dieting mind-set. So the average reader may think she’s identifying with the subject, not realizing that what she’s identifying with are the symptoms of an eating disorder: the restriction of food, or the overconsumption of it, the vigilant attention paid. But the eating disorder doesn’t lie within its symptoms. It lies within its causes.

Listen, I’m not saying that there’s no connection between appearance and eating disorders. Of course there is. And body image is an essential topic to so many women’s lives today—including women who have never exhibited a single eating disorder symptom in their life. Do I even need to point out the ways in which having poor body image is a drain of resources? Of enormous intellectual and psychic energy? Of time, of money, of already precious resources? Of emotion? Do I need to ask how many times women have asked “Do I look fat in this?” because we lack the words to ask for support and tenderness? As long as we have poor body image, we walk through this world ashamed. Shame isn’t what I want for any person on this planet; it’s not what whoever/whatever created us probably had in mind; it’s not what any of us want for the people we love. Yes, we need body image work, and we’ve needed it for a long time. And a week devoted to eating disorder education is a good time to reinvigorate that conversation.

But eating disorders do not run parallel alongside a track of bodily dissatisfaction, and the more we conflate the two, the less we’re tackling the true complexity of eating disorders, and the less we're looking at the other threads that unite patients more deeply than hating their thighs. We’re not looking at perfectionism, or the twin sisters of compliance and rebellion, and how all of these play out in the lifetime of an eating disorder. We’re not looking at biology, or heredity, or giving proper diligence to plain old depression and anxiety. Hell, we’re not looking at stress. We’re not looking at choice, autonomy, or modernity. We’re not looking at the role of trauma, or sex, or comorbidity with addiction. And it is impossible to treat eating disorders without treating all of these as seriously—no, more seriously than—body image.

It’s one thing for the media to treat body image with greater weight than, say, family dynamics in eating disorders. It’s quite another for a treatment clinic to do the same. The Renfrew Center certainly doesn’t take this approach in treating its patients. When I was treated at Renfrew for my own eating disorder a few years ago, I was repeatedly struck by how little body image came up as a topic, both from the counselors and my fellow patients. That’s not to say it wasn’t important; it was more that we’d all thought about our bodies so fucking much by the time we landed in treatment that we were chomping at the bit to give voice to the things that we truly needed to be able to speak of. I could deconstruct body standards before treatment as fluently as I can now. But before entering Renfrew I had no words to tell you about the factors that took me 25 years deep into an eating disorder before I committed to getting help.

I still don’t have all those words, or at least I don’t have them in the ways I’d need to in order to share them here. That’s part of why I don’t usually write here about my eating disorder. The other parts are that while I’m doing really well, recovery is a long process and I’m not at the end of it, and I can’t get all meta on my recovery by writing about it. (I have a story coming out next month in Marie Claire about my experiences, and while I’m glad I wrote it and my editor was great, it was also emotionally taxing.) I’m sharing it here because it would be disingenuous to write an 1,900-word essay on eating disorders spurred by an action of the place I was treated without disclosing my personal stake in untangling the essence of what eating disorders are all about.

But the larger reason is that while I’m an advocate for looking at media images critically, and for improving body image in general, I don’t want to do anything to further the problem I’m writing about here. This is a blog about beauty, and while eating disorders have a role in that discussion, that connection is already so firm in the public mind that I feel my role here is to give a little whisper of Wait. I want us to wait before we draw connecting lines too heavily, and instead ask that we look at the connection between eating disorders and appearance as thematic and dynamic, not as an arrow from point A to point B. The connection isn’t that one causes the other; it’s that they’re both partly rooted in expectations of properly gendered behavior. (It’s worth noting here that while plenty of straight men develop eating disorders, gay men are at higher risk.) To untangle the social angle of eating disorders, we need to look beyond the mere existence of the thin imperative and look at what it says about the role of women: that we are to be perfect, controlled, managed, and compliant—themes that come up repeatedly with eating disorder patients, themes that get to the crux of the matter more directly, without taking the meandering detour through our bodies.

Makeup, too, can say a lot about those issues. It’s not the worst motif Renfrew could have chosen for their campaign. Nor is it the best. I’m no PR expert; I have no idea how the clinic could have better channeled their extraordinary work into a simple campaign for the public to engage with. I just know that by the time I was discharged from Renfrew, I’d finally begun to learn that my dissatisfaction with my body wasn’t causing my eating disorder; it was merely a symptom of it, like restricting my food intake or binge eating. I’d begun to take the focus off my body and put it into understanding the roots of my perfectionism, my people-pleasing, my family history, my silent shrieks of rebellion. 

I’d begun to understand that loving my body wasn’t the point. The point wasn’t even to like it. The point was to learn how to eat.

Beauty Blogsophere 11.11.11*

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.


From Head...
Thin Mint lips: Girl Scout Cookie Lip Smackers! But what's with this "Coconut Caramel Stripes" flavor? You already yanked the rug out from under me with that "Samoa" jazz. Caramel Delight 4-eva!

...To Toe...
This little piggy went to fashion week: Fashionista's slideshow of models' feet on the runway is a lightly grody reminder that fashion ain't always glamorous (and that you're not alone in having fit problems).

Pediprank: Indiana governor Mitch Daniels went in for surgery on a torn meniscus and wound up with a pink pedicure. Dr. Kunkel, you old dog you!


...And Everything In Between:
"It's angled, like a diamond baguette": The rise of the $60 lipstick in the midst of a recession. Not sure about the "pragmatic" part of the term "pragmatic luxury," but what do I know? I just drink red wine, smack my lips together, and hope for the best.

Dishy: The flap surrounding the Panera Bread district manager who told the Pittsburgh-area store manager to staff the counter with "pretty young girls" was reported as a racist incident, since the cashier he wanted replaced was an African American man. But as Partial Objects points out, it may have been more motivated by sexism. To that I'd add that it's not just sexism and racism, but the notion of the "pretty young girl" that's at the heart of the matter here.

Give 'em some lip: American Apparel is launching a lip gloss line, with colors that will be "evoking an array of facets of the American Apparel experience." Names include "Legalize L.A.," which references the company's dedication to immigration reform, and "Intimate," an echo of the company's racy advertising aesthetic. Other shades on tap include "Topless," "Pantytime," "In the Red," "Jackoff Frost" and "Sexual Harassment in Violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act Govt. Code 12940(k) Shimmer."

Music makers: Boots cosmetics line 17 commissions up-and-coming musicians to write and perform songs that align with the ethos of 17 products. As in, "You Might Get Stuck on Me" for their magnetic nail polish.

"Let women of sixty use 'beautifiers,' if they think they need them. But you, who are young, pretty, and have a complexion like a rose-leaf—you should avoid such things as you would a pestilence." 

99% marketing: For its 132nd birthday, Ivory soap is unrolling a new ad campaign, which hinges upon it being A) nongendered, and B) soap. Revolución!

Baby fangs: Intellectually I should be against about the practice of yaeba, in which dentists in Japan artificially enlarge their lady patients' incisors to create a childlike appearance. But as someone who is genetically blessed with noticeably sharp and semi-crooked incisors, I'm basically all, I am gonna be huge in Japan.

Vaniqua'd: The active ingredient in Vaniqua—you know, the drug you're supposed to take if you have an unladylike amount of facial hair—is also an effective treatment for African sleeping sickness. Of course, the places where African sleeping sickness strikes can't afford to buy it. But hey, our upper lip is so smooth! (via Fit and Feminist) 

La Giaconda: The Mona Lisa, retouched.

Beauty survey: Allure's massive beauty survey reveals that 93% of American women think the pressure to look young is greater than ever before. Am I a spoilsport by pointing out that every person who answered that question is also older than they ever were before? (Of course, the "hottest age" for women according to men surveyed is now 28, compared with 31 in 1991, so there may be something to it.) Other findings: Black women are three times as likely as white women to self-report as hot, and everyone hates their belly.

Gay old time: Jenelle Hutcherson will be the first openly lesbian contestant of Miss Long Beach—and she's going to wear a royal purple tux for the eveningwear competition. The director of the pageant encouraged her to sign up, and Hutcherson has been vocal about how she's reflecting the long tradition of diversity and acceptance in Long Beach. (Thanks to Caitlin for the tipoff!)

Miss World: In more urgent beauty pageant news, British women protest Miss World, and somehow the reporter neglects to make a crack about bra burning.

The freshman 2.5: Virginia debunks the "freshman 15," and then Jezebel reveals that the whole thing was an invention of Seventeen magazine, along with the notion that every single New Kid on the Block was supposed to be cute.

Ballerina body: Darlene at Hourglassy examines the push-pull between embracing and dressing large breasts (which she does beautifully with her button-front shirts designed for busty women) and her love of ballet. "By the end of the performance I wasn’t paying attention to anything but the movements. There was nothing to distract me from the dancers’ grace and athleticism. Would I have been distracted by large breasts on one of the dancers? Definitely."

(Still taken from SOMArts promotional video)

Subject/object: Prompted by this intriguing Man as Object exhibition in San Francisco, Hugo Schwyzer looks at the possibilities for desiring male imperfection. He's the expert here, both because of his research and his male-ness, but I can't help but wonder how much men have internalized the notion of male perfection. I have zero doubt that the focus on the body beautiful has impacted men, and certainly the tropes of masculinity are a reasonable parallel to the tropes of femininity. But there's always been more room—literal and metaphorical—for men of all varieties to be considered sex symbols. Everyone gawked when Julia Roberts paired up with Lyle Lovett, but even then there was talk of how he had "a certain quality." Save someone like Tilda Swinton—who, while odd-looking, isn't un-pretty either—when have we ever spoken of women in that way?

Am I the only one who thinks gigolo should be pronounced like it's spelled?: Tits and Sass has been looking for voices of male escorts, and lo and behold, Vin Armani to the rescue!

"Did my son inherit my eating disorder?": There's been some talk about how a mother with food issues can transfer that to her daughters—but Pauline wonders if she's passed down her eating disorder to her son. A potent reminder that boys internalize ED factors as well.

What you can't tell by looking: And along those same lines, Tori at Anytime Yoga reminds us shortly and sweetly that eating disorders of all forms come in a variety of sizes. This is enormously important: I'm certain that there are many women with eating disorders who don't recognize it because they don't think they fit the profile.

In/visible: Always glad to see celebrities acknowledge that looking they way they look actually takes work, à la Jessica Biel here: "My signature style is a 'no-make-up make-up' look, which is much harder than people think." Well, probably not most women who do no-makeup makeup, but whatevs.

Touchdown: This BellaSugar slideshow of creative makeup and hairstyle from NFL fans in homage to their favorite teams is a delight. I could care less about football itself (I finally understand "downs," I think) but I think it's awesome that these people are showing that there are plenty of ways to be a football fan, including girly-girl stuff like makeup. (IMHO, football fans could use a PR boost right about now. Seriously, Penn State? Rioting? You do realize your coach failed to protect multiple children from sexual assault, right?)

Face wash 101: Also from BellaSugar: There were college courses on grooming in the 1940s?! 

She walks in beauty like the night: A goth ode to black lipstick, from XOJane.com. 

Muppets take Sephora: Afrobella gives a rundown of the spate of Muppet makeup. Turns out Miss Piggy isn't the first Muppet to go glam.

Love handle: The usual story is that we gain weight when we're stressed or unhappy because we're eating junk food to smother our sorrows—but Sally asks about "happy body changes," like when you gain weight within a new relationship.

Locks of love: Courtney at Those Graces on how long hair can be just as self-defining as short.

_____________________________________

*Numerology field day! More significantly, Veterans' Day. Please take a moment to thank or at least think of the veterans in your life—you don't have to support the war to support soldiers. It's also a good time to remember that not all veterans who return alive return well: The Huffington Post collection "Beyond the Battlefield" is a reminder of this, particularly the story of Marine widow Karie Fugett, who also writes compellingly at Being the Wife of a Wounded Marine of caring for her husband after his return from Iraq; he later died from a drug overdose.

While most combat roles are still barred to women, there are plenty of female veterans—combat, support, and medical staff alike. Click here to listen to a collection of interviews from female veterans of recent wars, including Staff Sergeant Jamie Rogers, who, in When Janey Comes Marching Home, gives us this reminder of the healing potential of the beauty industry: "I went [to the bazaar near Camp Liberty in Baghdad] often to get my hair cut. They had a barber shop and then they had a beauty salon. It was nice to go in and it was a female atmosphere. It was all girls. You could put your hair down, instead of having it in a bun all the time, get it washed. It was just something to escape for a while, get away from everything. And it was nice to interact, and the girls were always dressed nice and always very complimentary: 'You have such beautiful...' and I don't know if it was BS, but it felt good that day. That was a good escape."

Beauty Blogosphere: 11.4.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

Clockwise from top left: eyeshadow app or police brutality?; the tiny tiny woman who lives inside Beyoncé;
fears of a clown; what did ever happen to Baby Jane?

From Head...
All made up: Meet the man responsible for all those makeover apps. Here's to hoping he wasn't behind the Beyoncé matroyshka effect that serves as the pièce de résistance in writer Lindsay Goldwert's photo collection of makeup apps gone wrong.


...To Toe...
Tootsie: Another reason to show off your pedicure with bare feet: You won't be mistaken for a mama cannibal. (Not that cannibalism would do anyone any good anyway.)


...And Everything In Between:
Land of smiles: Thailand is well-posed in the beauty industry because of its biodiversity and the growth of the call for natural products—it's expecting a 10%-15% increase this year alone. Here's to hoping a beauty boon can help offset some of the damage caused by recent massive flooding.

Avon not calling: Between corruption charges in its Asian arm and tumbling sales, Avon hasn't been doing so hot, and the New York Times questions whether it's time for CEO Andrea Jung to hand over the reins.

Occupy skin cream: A small skin-care line is urging us to "occupy" the beauty industry by supporting small lines started by women "who were fed up with products that didn't work" instead of the Citibanks of the beauty industry like Estee Lauder and Revlon. 

Lipstick philanthropy: The Helena Rubinstein Foundation, after nearly 60 years and $130 million in charitable distribution, is closing its doors.

A peek inside cosmetics law: Apparently product names can takes years to clear, trademark-wise? Wondering how Lancome got the Bureau of Consular Affairs to approve Shimmer Mocha Havana.

Can men handle being ogled? Well, women have been handling it with aplomb for centuries; surely the old boys are up to the challenge?

Apple man: Did Steve Jobs have disordered eating? Certainly his habits point toward yes—an apples-and-carrots diet for weeks on end, for example—but reading about his peculiarities makes me wonder how exactly we defined "disordered eating." Does suffering need to be a component?

"How do you spell 'Ms.'"?: Wonderful oral history of Ms. magazine, collated by the daughter of one of the founders. A personal note: Ms. was the first magazine to issue me a paycheck, making the 23-year-old me just about die when I found myself sitting in a real-life honest-to-God meeting with Gloria Steinem, who is just as awesome as you'd expect her to be. This article, in the same issue of New York, about the feminist blogosphere ain't bad either. Ladybloggers represent!

Boxing day: Speaking of Ms., they're the ones who bring us this piece about the Amateur International Boxing Association recommending its female competitors wear skirts, to distinguish them from the men. I think this is bollocks (though at least it's not the Lingerie Football League, which Fit and Feminist beams her laser focus at this week), but there's also a part of me that thinks the fact that women aren't otherwise distinguishable from men sort of proves that "not bad for a girl" might be on its way out? High hopes, people, high hopes.


East meets west: The communist-era Prague metro is now a "virtual drugstore."

Prague officially the land of the future: Commuters in Zlata Praha can buy shampoo, razors, and other goods at the "virtual drugstore" in certain metro stations by scanning codes with their smartphones; the wares are then delivered to their door by mail.
 
Skweez me: Karen Duffy reviews shapewear, and isn't afraid to name names. (Spanx may have the highest brand equity, but it's far from the highest quality, it seems.)

Fair fashion: One of the earliest makeup lines for women of color, Fashion Fair, is revamping its image.

Bathroom bounty: British women have £964 million of unused skin care products in their bathrooms. Unsurprisingly, the number of failed products dwindles with age, making me want to act like a 60-year-old and clean my bathroom shelves already.

Equal-opportunity eating disorders: Adios Barbie on the LGBT community and eating disorders: Gay and bisexual men are at increased risk for eating disorders, while lesbian and bisexual women suffer at the same rate as hetero women.

Calling all angels: Beauty Redefined questions Victoria's Secret tagline, "We are redefining what it means to be sought after." I'm not sure which is more upsetting: the possibility that the tagline is wrong because VS is obviously not adding anything new to the conversation, or the possibility that the tagline is right and there's more redefinition to come.

How little is enough? Verging on Serious examines the Minimum Effective Dose—of exercise, of makeup, of blogging, all of which are dear to my heart, and all of which I do just enough of to be able to live my rightfully slothful life.

By the numbers: I'm usually a tad wary of "here's what I weigh" information, though I understand the arguments in favor of transparency, and enjoy My Body Gallery. In any case, the way Already Pretty presents her measurements is done in such a way as to show why the measurements tell us nothing, even when they're all laid out as they are in her post. "This post shows how little you know about someone just by looking at them, and how body stats actually provide scant additional, relevant information.... And even though you’ve now got a whole bunch of details about my body, you still don’t know everything. ... You know the stats, but you don’t know the story." 

About face: The Jaunty Dame follows up her inspirational "photo philosophy" post with photos not just of herself completely bare-faced, but with her Halloween-ish alter ego, reminding us that we all "perform for a live audience nearly every day." Is your costume comfortable?  

Girl army: Virginia questions the underlying message of the potential Army ban on French manicures and ponytails: "So what does it mean when the strongest woman in the US military agrees that displaying overt signs of femininity might impact a female officer's perceived strength as a leader?"

Nose jobbed: Dress With Courage looks at the connection between body dysmorphic disorder and nose jobs. Much of the talk about BDD surrounds the body, but in fact it's a fixation on any part of one's physical presence. Sadly, I'm unsurprised by the findings Elissa expounds upon here—43% of rhinoplasty patients have BDD.

Beauty Blogosphere: 10.28.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

And yet I still can't cover a pockmark I got in 1979.

From Head...
Undercover: I've got to agree with BellaSugar: The best concealer commercial ever, starring Zombie Boy in the only time you'll ever see him not be Zombie Boy. 


...To Toe... 
Fish pedicures ruled safe! Big news this week from the UK's Health Protection Agency: “Provided that good standards of hygiene are followed by salons, members of the public are unlikely to get an infection from a fish spa pedicure," announced Dr. Hilary Kirkbride, consultant epidemiologist at the HPA. She then turned around, looked at the hundreds of small fish nibbling dead skin off the feet of people willing to pay for the privilege, and silently gagged. 


...And Everything In Between:
When in doubt, market out: The newly emerging urban middle class in Asia and Latin America is making L'Oreal want to play catch-up in those regions, as the company expects three-fourths of future growth to come from those markets. What's interesting here is that those markets are more resilient even in economic downturns than American, European, and Australian markets, as evidenced by the hand-wringing in this piece about L'Oreal Down Under. (Between this and the news that 88% of Australian online beauty spending goes overseas, the Aussie market seems rife for some bright entrepreneurs to swoop in, I'm just sayin'...)

Fakeout: L'Oreal has a wildly innovative campaign about "not faking it" linked to their Voluminous False Fiber Lashes Mascara! Gee, can't believe nobody's thought of that before. I can't help but wonder how this ties into the idea that authenticity is "getting old," as per the New York Times.

But you can recycle it, dahling: One of the Estee Lauder VPs on the intersection of luxury beauty goods and the cry for sustainability: "Are luxury consumers ready for a radical swing in the look of their packaging? No, it's an evolution, not a revolution. Luxury consumers don't necessary want the sustainability of the pack branded all over." But, he adds, "Just because sustainability is not branded all over the pack, it doens't mean the consumer is not interested in it, and it doesn't mean it's not part of the brand's message."

Speaking of brand messaging: Estee Lauder discovers the existence of Latinas.

"I want to stay behind the table": A profile of Ariel Sharon's appetite, or rather, his seemingly fraught relationship with food. While I agree with Regan Chastain that you can't tell much about a fat person by looking at them other than the fact that they're fat, as a journalist Matt Rees has spent enough time observing people to be able to tell us something potent about Sharon's inner life when he tells us about watching him devour a plate of cookies during the intifada.

Maybe they can compromise with this Army ponytail holder!

Be all that you can be: The Army is considering some dress code changes, and the thought of banning French manicures and ponytails has been bandied about, reports BellaSugar. Honestly, this sort of makes sense to me, not for reasons having to do with conformity but with practicality. Most French manicures are long, right? When my nails get long I can barely type, let alone do the far more manually dextrous things that soldiers need to do, and ponytails are easily caught in things. I have zero desire to quash feminine expression in the Army but I can't say this targets the ladies unfairly.

And to think I got a C in geometry: Finally! Math has shown us the perfect breast! This is supposed to reduce the number of poorly done breast augmentations, so therefore it falls under public service, right? Right! (via Feminaust)

Occupy Tropes: Having already decided that Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street is grody gross-gross, let's look at how it relates to Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Something I initially semi-appreciated about the Hot Chicks of OWS site was that it wasn't just stereotypically "hot" chicks: Diverse in not just race, but in age and "type," I begrudgingly had to admit that if nothing else, it could possiblymaybe reflect a broader portrait of "hotness" than mainstream media would have you believe. I knew it was shaky ground, and The Society Pages outlines why: Fetishizing protesters as Manic Pixie Dream Girls isn't true diversity in the least.

All the pretty ladies: And just in case you're occupying (or walking down the street, or hanging out at a bar, or breathing in the presence of others) and, whaddya know, there's a hot chick there? Read this guide to "Your Role as Observer" when a lady is strutting her stuff. 

I choose my choice!: Two nice pieces on "choice feminism" and "consumer feminism" this week. Laurie Penny at The New Significance writes about how as she advances in her career, she's expected to bring a new level of polish—that is, consumer goods—to her presentation. "As women, everything we wear is a statement, and we have no right to remain sartorially silent. We negotiate a field of signifiers every time we open our wardrobes, or, in my case, every time we rummage through the clothes-pile on the bedroom floor." Coupled with Jess's piece at XOJane—which I'd sort of thought was all about "choice feminism," but I guess that's why they have more than one writer?—do I sense a backlash? "Until the woman who doesn’t want to be seen as sexually available can go out with certainty that she won’t be harassed or ogled, your choice to turn heads and revel in attention is a privileged one."

Arresting images: Not sure what to make of this W fashion shoot from Ai Weiwei, a dissident Chinese artist, that features a model being faux-arrested. I normally get all humorless-lefty when I see fashion shoots co-opting social causes, but Weiwei has been held for his work, so there's a layer there that normally is absent. Hmm.

 
Kissyface: Capture the imprint of your kiss, then send it to this company and they'll make art out of it. It'll go nicely with the art of your own DNA they can also cook up for you. You always have to be different, don't you?

"Health class taught me how to have an eating disorder": Jessica at XOJane on how eating disorder education can actually trigger ED symptoms. This is a complicated topic—one that isn't fully explored here—but I'm glad to see it broached in this format. I proposed a similar story at a teen magazine years ago and my boss flat-out said, "There is no way in hell we can run that story," the idea being that fighting fire with fire just adds to the inferno. For the record, I don't think ED education causes EDs any more than skinny models do, but I do think that we need to treat "awareness" with caution in neither glamourizing ED symptoms (wow! you can count her ribs, how awful!) nor stopping short in making it clear that EDs are complex, messy, often lifelong, and not a quick fix for generalized teen pain.

Adios Barbie on the LGBT community and eating disorders: Gay and bisexual men are at increased risk for eating disorders, while lesbian and bisexual women suffer at the same rate as hetero women.

Fitspo vs. thinspo: Caitlin at Fit and Feminist on the sometimes-murky line between dedication to fitness and dedication to a disordered relationship with food and the body. "If you are prone to disordered eating, then the world of fitness must seem like a safe harbor, a place to indulge your obsessions without drawing criticism, because after all, you aren’t starving yourself completely and you’re spending a lot of time in the gym.  You’re just being health-conscious!" Cameo at Verging on Serious frequently gets into this too, most recently with her post on superstitions.

Wig out: A particularly delightful offering from Of Another Fashion, which posts vintage photos of fabulously dressed women of color, of Chicago "wig clinic" owner Minerva Turner modeling one of her truly fantastic creations.

Why we're already pretty: It's no secret I adore Already Pretty, and this entry, which sort of serves as a manifesto, explains exactly what it is about Sally's work that makes me take notice. "Whatever work you’ve chosen, whatever opus you’re creating, whatever battle you’re fighting, I want to arm you with confidence in your body and your style. Why? So you can stop worrying about your outward presentation and focus on what’s important."

The crossroads of self-care: Medicinal Marzipan touches on a delicate subject with her typical grace: weight loss in the Health at Every Size and self-acceptance communities. "Here’s the thing: ...I do love myself. It’s just that, for the first time in my life, I am understanding that sometimes loving yourself means wrangling yourself in when you’ve spiraled out of control.... You have to love yourself above everything else. But wanting to lose weight, or the act of weight loss when you’re feeding yourself the foods that make YOU feel good or moving in a way that YOU love, will not make you a body image warrior exile in my book."

Beauty Blogosphere 10.7.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.


From Head...
Beauty shy: If you're among the women (or men) who feel intimidated by makeup but are curious to try it, keep an eye on BeautyShy, a new site from Courtney of Those Graces. I'm eager to see how this develops—Courtney was one of the first feminist beauty bloggers I found when I started The Beheld, and while BeautyShy isn't explicitly feminist, the idea of makeup as a democratic form of beauty is. And when I think back to my makeover with makeup artist Eden DiBianco—and how it made me think about the power of dictating one's own image through cosmetics—it's clear that makeup itself can be a tool to examine beauty through a distinctly feminist lens.


...To Toe...
"Surely corns are the least of your problems": Interesting to see when our culture turns the tables on men and shames them for their moments of vanity/relaxation. Much like the great haircut debate of "Breck Girl" John Edwards (remember when that was the most inflammatory thing about him?), Michael Jackson doctor Conrad Murray makes headlines simply by getting a pedicure. Not sure how we'd handle this if the doctor were a woman.


...And Everything In Between
Makeup medium:
Financial Times looks at artists using cosmetics as their medium, making me want to see the work of Karla Black, who sculpts with Lush bath bombs. 

Airborne: Charles Revson (founder of Revlon) was on the PanAm board of directors back in the day? No wonder flight attendants had to wear Revlon's Persian Melon lipstick as a part of their dress code, as some former stewardesses recall here.

Are women driving the luxury economy? This Motley Fool entry on thriving high-end markets makes me wonder: Lululemon, Estee Lauder, and Whole Foods are outvaluing their mid-market buddies (Nike, Revlon, Safeway). And don't even try to tell me that Whole Foods isn't squarely aimed at women.

Clean green fraud machine: The natural cosmetics market in Asia is plagued by fraudulent labeling, as it lacks even the private standards of North American and European markets. Not that we Americans are drowning in open information on what's in our cosmetics, as No More Dirty Looks' insight on the "Safe Cosmetics Alliance" shows.

A Map of the Open Country of a Woman's Heart, at American Antiquarian

Antique beauty: Investigate the history of women and appearance in America with this thoroughly fascinating online exhibit of women in 19th-century prints. Whether it's looking at the ways America's first women were depicted, examining how images formed early ideas of "erotic capital," proffering evidence of how women's bodies have pretty much always been used in advertising (sheet music!), or showing "A Map of the Open Country of a Woman's Heart," the collection is worth your time.

Tool kit: So it's official, per an evolutionary psychologist and a major cosmetics producer: Makeup makes you seem more likeable. I'm certain I'll have more to say on this study soon (thank you to everyone who sent it my way! I love it when people see something and think, That's Beheld material...) but for now I'll just point you to nice commentary on it over at The Gloss and The Look.

Pulchronomics: Harvard sociologist Hilary Levey Friedman reviews Beauty Pays by Daniel Hamermesh. In looking at the body of work surrounding academic study of beauty, I've found Hamermesh's work to be more solid than most—but I'm a writer, not an academic. To have Levey Friedman point out how dated the research Hamermesh is drawing on—and why that matters when talking about beauty in the labor market—illustrates the difficulty of "proving" the role of beauty. (Also, new word! Pulchronomics, from Latin pulcher, meaning beauty, and economics: the economics of beauty.)

Kooky but true: Why you shouldn't wear nail polish before surgery.

In scientia veritas: A take on a Burt's Bees ad that calls the scientific name of ingredients "ugly": "[The applied chemistry] system has a complex-sounding name for just about every component of milk and honey, too. But it’s impossible for anyone to know that without having a certain background in the naming system. Take glucose, one of the pieces of ordinary table sugar and something that can be found in both milk and honey. Its IUPAC name is something like (2R,3R,4S,5R,6R) -6- (hydroxymethyl)tetrahydro-2H-pyran-2,3,4,5-tetraol."

Eating disorders in Indian country: American Indian women report higher incidences of binge eating than white women but are no more likely to have ever been diagnosed with an eating disorder. But the real story is that eating disorders are virtually unmentioned in either tribal health care or urban Indian clinics. I'm saddened that eating disorders in Indian country have flown under the radar—but proud to play my small role in starting the conversation. Please read my piece in Indian Country Today about Native American women and eating disorders.

From Every Playboy Centerfold, the Decades (normalized), Jason Salavon, Digital C-prints

Heffed up: Composite images of Playboy centerfolds, by decade. Ladies got blonder!

Je ne sais quoi: I can deconstruct the French-girl mystique all I want—fact remains I'm still going to keep looking at them with les étoiles in my eyes, and Dead Fleurette does a nice job here of talking with les françaises on style and showing us exactly why that is. 

What exactly constitutes street harassment? Well, I'm not sure, and neither is Decoding Dress, but this searching post explores the duality of dressing to be looked at, the various consequences that can have, and why one comment can feel like a compliment and another like an attack. Tavi at Rookie touches on unwanted comments this week too, particularly interesting given that as a teenager, she's in the early stages of getting that sort of unasked-for attention. Of course, it's not so early after all: "I want these guys to know that they’re able to be so cavalier because they don’t hear unsolicited opinions on their bodies and alleged sex lives all the time."

I'll have what she's having: Elissa at Dress With Courage looks at a new study about how low body image might make us less likely to buy an outfit we see looking good on someone else. Particularly interesting in light of her post from the previous week about the intimacy of shopping—are we sometimes shooting ourselves in the foot by shopping with particularly attractive friends? I'd hate to think so!

He'll be her mirror: Congrats to Mirror Mirror Off the Wall's Kjerstin Gruys, who got married last weekend and had what seems like an incredible wedding. Click through to find out if she looked in the mirror on her wedding day!

Beardcake: Thanks to Rebekah at Jaunty Dame for pointing me toward the work of Rion Sabean, who does "men-ups" of men in traditional cheesecake poses. I'm digging 'em, aided along by what he has to say over at Jezebel. (Edited to add: Feministe pairs Sabean's work with that of Yolanda Dominguez, who has women re-create poses in public from fashion shoots.)

"Diversity isn’t just that one gorgeous silver-haired model": Why is the fashion industry not getting that the demand really is growing to see true diversity? I used to think it was a feminist thing, but I see complaints about this everywhere—and I'm pretty sure that fashion bloggers are showing the industry that "aspirational" isn't the only route to powerful imagery. Is that wishful thinking on my part? Maybe, but I'm with Sally that the industry is due for a strategic revamp.

"It wasn't a contradiction for me": Rachel Hills on being a feminist and writing for women's magazines. I haven't touched this question publicly yet but much of what she says here resonates with me as well (I think I have more inner conflict about it than she writes about here, as exemplified by the night I crumpled into the backseat of a cab and cried all the way home because I had to communicate to the art department that an editor wanted an actress who had been public with her anorexia battle slimmed, but let's not dwell!).

Beauty Blogosphere 9.23.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

Bedtime makeup is for those afraid to be a total glamourpuss like Miss Golightly.

From Head...
Sleeping beauty: Is this a Thing? Has this been around for a while? Makeup for when you're sleeping? I mean, I admit this would be sort of awesome for early sleepover phases of a relationship (ooh la la!) but, I dunno, those early phases are sort of a handy test, too, you know? Like, if I can't let him see me without makeup, why am I letting him see me without clothes?

Big gulp: The world's first antiwrinkle pill! I'm going to swallow it on half my body for a month and then post pictures.


...To Toe...
Playing footsie: South Africa communications minister files an expense report including $1,300 in pedicures and manicures.


...And Everything In Between:
DIY divas: The new group of YouTube makeup gurus are teens showing other teens how to make their own cosmetics. This is totally brilliant—who didn't love all those DIY recipes in Seventeen? It seems like these girls are sharing information in a particularly inventive way and calling attention to the overpricing of makeup, which, now that they can order ingredients like mica and magnesium stearite directly from sites like DIY Cosmetics, they know the actual value of.

Mutant beauty: New beauty line FCX-DNA is incredible if for no reason other than its level of scienctific BS. They'll test your DNA to "detect mutations in certain genes which affect skin aging" and then recommend appropriate products, which have been "developed [using] a process to extract the essence from organically grown fruits and vegetables without harming its texture or genetics." Other awesome words in the press release include: nutrient metabolism, dermagenomics, micronized. CAN'T WAIT!


Nails painted like antidepressants: No comment!

Avon calling:
A Q&A for investors interested in Avon after the corruption charges filed earlier this year.

Mary Kay China sales to overtake U.S. sales by next year:
Mary Kay is investing $25 million in a distribution center in China, which makes total sense given that because of its sales method the company doesn't need to rely on shopping spaces like malls.

Beyond Marie Curie: The copy here reads suspiciously cheerleader-like, but the point is well-taken: More than 50% of L'Oréal's cosmetic scientists are women, and the company encourages cross-disciplinary women in science too with five $100,000 grants each year to women scientists.

Good news for consumers down under: Cosmetics laws in Australia are becoming streamlined to be more consumer-friendly.

Dead Sea: Flagship Ahava store shuttering in London due to anti-Israel protests.

Halal cosmetics: How to market halal cosmetics? Well, given that 23% of the world population is Muslim, there's a head start already—but this piece points out that halal cosmetics certification also qualifies a product as strictly vegan. Cross-marketing opportunities!

Fly me: With all the press surrounding Pan Am (which I don't plan on watching but am terribly curious to find out if any of the lessons from Arlie Russell Hochschild's study on flight attendants and emotional labor, The Managed Heart, are portrayed), this British Airways ad is particularly interesting. As Deep Glamour notes, it's impossible to pretend that flying as a passenger—or even as a flight attendant—is glamorous, given how un-glamorous flights are now. But by relying on the masculine glamour of old-time aviators, the message still gets across.

The state of supermodels: Great piece at Grantland (a new discovery for me, which is why I missed this piece when it was published in August) on the intersection of the self as brand, the valorization of vanity, and why that means we've likely met the last great American supermodel, Ms. Cindy Crawford.

Beauty from within: Balance is coming out with a nutrition bar that has beauty benefits. The 120-calorie Nimble bar will feature antioxidants, beta carotene, lutein, and tiny elves that massage your face from the inside.

Hand me the man-shampoo, Billy!

No girls allowed!: Proctor & Gamble is working with CVS to create a "Guy Aisle" so men don't have to "weed through the pink razors, floral body wash, and hundreds of shampoo formulations" when buying their grooming products, because unlike us dizzy girls who just love to titter over all the AMAZING FLORAL BODY WASHES in the drugstore, "Men are buyers, not shoppers," said Michael Norton, director, external relations, male grooming at Gillette. No news yet as to whether the boys-only aisle will be located in a secret tree club house at which one has to know the super-secret password ("boobies").

Beauty scandal!: A former Miss Utah was sued by a beauty product company that claimed she stole and then resold their goods; she's countersuing, saying that she was given the goods by the company under the auspices of a charitable donation, and then decided to sell the products and donate the proceeds to the same charity. It's small-time and confusing, and the moral of the story is, don't be Miss Utah.

"A very public table": Interesting article at Psychology Today about the inherent risk—and inherent solutions—of eating disorders among orthodox Jewish women.

"I LOVE MY BOOBIES": Leah at Hourglassy takes a moment of Jessica Simpson appreciation, and I'll sign onto that. (I don't care for her music, but enjoyed "The Price of Beauty," and I think she does a nice job of talking about body image stuff with an inquisitive, open manner and not seeming pat.) "So a celebrity who publicly says she loves her body, especially one who regularly receives public criticism, is a major win in my book."

Inked: A tattooed academic—whose work focuses on the normalization of tattoos and its effect on what was once a distinct subculture—on what might signal a shift in the way tattooed women are viewed. And, surprise surprise: The more accepted tattoos are, the closer its wearers are expected to be to the beauty norm: "Yes, tattoo magazines feature a lot of tattooed women, but which tattooed women?" (via Feminaust)



Model me, model you: MAC's new UK campaign makes over non-models who just love makeup, and for once I've got jack to say about such campaigns! The pictures look great.

Inner love: There's a lot of body acceptance in the blogs I read, which, obviously, is fantastic. But there's an irony there: One of the mantras of loving your body is focusing on the inside--which can be hard to do when you're experiencing doubts about your worth in other areas. Sally at Already Pretty borrows here from body love principles and applies them (and some others) to dealing with a sense of inadequacy in the realm of achievement. (I particularly liked this because the transition from school to job was hard for me, since I was so used to getting regular and positive feedback and suddenly was just expected to, you know, do my job.)
Edited to add: On the off-chance you read me and haven't yet discovered Already Pretty, today's your day to hop over and check it out, as I'm guest posting there today. Topic: Beauty and visibility: "Every choice we make about beauty is a choice about being seen. And the more time we spend focusing on the minutiae of beauty, the less time we spend focused on one possible outcome of beauty work—heightened cultural visibility."

What can a year bring?: Elissa at Dress With Courage asks: What sacrifices have you made for beauty? I've got a rather dark take on the study about how 16% of British women would trade a year of their life for the perfect body—I'm sort of like, if it means it would put an end to all my body struggles, then sure, sign me up! What's a year? But Elissa has an answer ready for cynics like me: "[A year can bring] the possibility of greatness that we all look forward to, the idea that things will probably get better, that we can grow and change into the people we dream of being."

Mirror U: Kjerstin Gruys of Mirror Mirror Off the Wall weighs in on the mirror-free high school in the U.K.: "Some people have suggested that this ban prevents creative expression. I call bullshit."

Chasing beauty: Lisa Hickey's stellar piece about being addicted to beauty is a must-read, even as it's painful: "When I’m beautiful and I’m with you, I’m wondering if the guy across the room thinks I’m beautiful. I think beauty is going to connect us; but I’m not connecting with you, I’m connecting with a beautiful image of myself that I think you might like."

Go fetch: Why do we use the word fetching both as a compliment and a command?

Attack of the 50-foot blogger: Caitlin at Fit and Feminist on the power and politics of women's height: "Height, like physical strength, is one of those things we don’t really care much for in women because we say it upsets the 'natural order of things,' which is that men are the Protectors and women the Protected."

Beauty Blogosphere 8.5.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

"I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits."
—Cindy Sherman (Right, because sometimes they're ads.)

From Head... 
MAC's newest spokesperson: Oh, MAC! You ever-loving high-concept owned by one of the world's biggest cosmetics companies (Estee Lauder) but appearing to be so indie and edgy! You've done it again, with a Cindy Sherman ad campaign. 


...To Toe...  
Barack Obama will personally paint your toenails: Or so says Fox News contributor Sandy Rios, because that's clearly the next logical step after mandating health insurers to cover birth control. "Is the White House out of their mind? ...We’re $14 trillion in debt and now we’re going to cover birth control, breast pumps, counseling for abuse? Are we going to do pedicures and manicures as well?" 


...And Everything In Between:
The beauty biz: 2011 beauty trends from the business end—masstige, time-savers, online retail, green beauty, and heavily engineered products. (Like magnetic hair.) 

Hilton head: How hotels wind up with the shampoo/conditioner/soap brands that they do. (Also: Hilton once had its own brand of wine??) 

Shiseido staying afloat: Even after the March disasters that disrupted domestic production, Japan-based Shiseido nearly broke even in Q1, with a $3.6 million net loss. The prescient company had recently expanded its overseas markets and acquisitions, including Bare Escentuals, which performed well and was able to absorb some of the losses from the catastrophes in Japan. 

Chinese prestige: Business-end review of the Chinese relationship to high-end beauty brands, namely Estee Lauder. The analysts even say that they don't anticipate Chinese women or men to withdraw from the market despite the brand's recent 10% price hike. 

Beauty school: Manhattan College to launch an American first—a master's program in cosmetics engineering.

Reading Letterman's own fat jokes back to him, after whipping the list from her cleavage. Magic!

Letterman's big fat zero: I've never been a big Kirstie Alley fan, but her classy callout of David Letterman and his jokes about her weight is a winner.

Wine as sunscreen?: I can't tell if we're supposed to drink wine or apply it to our skin, but I know which one I'll do. Side note: I once befriended an elderly Sicilian gentleman who insisted that he'd been using beer as sunscreen all his life, and indeed poured a 12-ouncer all over my back when I realized I'd forgotten my sunscreen for a day at the beach, and indeed I did not burn. So! 

"I do not have an eating disorder": Fantastic comics-style graphic series about developing and beginning recovery from anorexia. 
 
The vagina monologue.

Summer's Eve and its anthropomorphic vajerge: Stephen Colbert takes a long-awaited stand on vaginal puppeteering and marketing to the ladies. It's particularly irksome to the women of color some of the ads were targeting, which Wise Latinas breaks down, complete with a group photo of the trainees entering the branding sector of the agency that created the ads. (Guess how many of them appeared to have firsthand experience being brown?)

Just can't get enough: Speaking of vaginas, Tits and Sass goes to a Vagina Pageant. Meet Miss Beautiful Vagina 2011!


Fucking-a: Y'all know I love a good word post, which is why I'm into Hugo Schwyzer's challenge to his students: Start using fuck to mean sex, or fuck as an expletive of anger, but not both. "If 'fucking' is the most common slang term for intercourse, and 'fuck you' or 'fuck off' the most common terms to express contempt or rage, what’s the end result? A culture that has difficulty distinguishing sex from violence." I'm a fan of fuck as expression of emphasis or anger, and so I'll take option B, and the rest of the time I will stick with befriend the beast with two backs.


Run, Tori, run!: Tori at Anytime Yoga just wanted a pair of running shoes for her underpronation—but salespeople kept pushing her toward the "adorable" shoes. I really hate to say it, but this has happened to me too, and I've overwhelmingly found that running shoe salesmen are less likely to do this than saleswomen. Maybe there's a difference in training? Maybe female sales staff feel like bonding with female customers over "cute shoes" can give them an edge that their male colleagues wouldn't necessarily have? I don't know. I just know that men tend to point me to the ugly shoes that feel good more often than women. C'mon, ladies, step up!

Mind/body: Cameo at Verging on Serious had to give up aggressively working out because of a rare muscular disease...that she might not have had all along. The official diagnosis is still in the air, but "I might have 'loathed myself' into a metabolic myopathy as a result of (years spent) disordered eating and over-exercising." A compelling read that speaks to the intersection of mind and body.
 

Instant perspective: Rebekah at Jaunty Dame gives a lesson—however unfortunate—on indifference, gender, and vulnerability. With her just-shaved head, she was mistaken for a man twice in one day, then attacked the next.

Body image billboards "lack newsworthiness": Beauty Redefined's billboard campaign in northern Utah that promotes bodily self-acceptance is the first of its kind that I know of—but their work was deemed unnewsworthy after a news organization had sent out a reporter to interview members of the team behind the billboards. And, you know, I get it—"rah rah" news stories aren't my cup of tea either. But the way Beauty Redefined breaks down the messages the rejection actually sent shows what's really going on here. (A news story that ran the week the billboard story was supposed to: yoga for dogs.) 

"Manufactured discontent": Sally at Already Pretty on that underarm-beautifying deodorant that Dove "love your body until we tell you not to" products invented, because there's not quite enough products out there for us to be buying yet. "I use concealer on my zits and dark circles....I shave my legs and paint my toenails and someday I’m fairly sure I’ll dye my gray hairs. And I’m generally pretty grateful for the products and procedures that I utilize to gently alter my appearance. But I try to keep an eye out for manufactured discontent, stealthy marketing that targets my body confidence."

Workout Spanx: You know, one of the very few downsides of reading all the fantastic blogs on my Google Reader is that sometimes, because of all the spot-on feminist critique my favorite writers do, I learn about the existence of things I wish you hadn't known of. I was able to introduce mandals to a handful of readers here (apologies all around), and now Virginia lets me in on...workout Spanx, which will look great paired with my glamorous armpits.

Beauty Blogosphere 7.29.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

Neodymium magnetic blow-dryer (via)

From Head... 
Hair magnet: Styling products using magnetic fibers to create a fuller, thicker appearance are being developed in Israel. This is sort of brilliant, and a possible plot point in espionage films, when the femme fatale with a luscious mane walks by the supercomputer and erases all covert files.


...To Toe...
Ice cream pedicure:
Okay, so they don't soak your tootsies in melted ice cream, but the fact that there is such a thing as a pedicure inspired by ice cream flavors pretty much proves the study we talked about yesterday. You know, the one about cosmetic use being primarily driven by emotion?


...To Everything In Between:
Thieves!: 41% of British men surveyed borrow their wife's or girlfriend's beauty products, with moisturizer leading the pack of stolen goods, followed by razors. 12% of women argued with said British men about this habit.

Eirebrush ban: The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland has banned two L'Oréal ads for retouching them beyond what the product advertised would be able to achieve. You know, as much as I don't like airbrushing, this claim actually seems sort of hollow to me--am I oversimplifying here? Am I optimistic or cynical for thinking that while these ads are manipulative, the mere act of using Julia Roberts to advertise a product means that we as consumers sort of understand that the ad doesn't represent what the product is capable of?

Mea culpa or greenwashing?: Proctor & Gamble has vowed to go green: using 100% renewable or recycled materials for all products and packaging, creating zero consumer waste in landfills, and designing products that maximize the conservation of resources. Sounds good, but is it just a more elaborate form of greenwashing?

But do they use coupons?: Sixty-four percent of women surveyed earning $100k-$149k a year would continue buying a store-brand beauty product if they were pleased with the results, as opposed to only 50% of women making $50k-$74k. My question is, who wouldn't continue buying a store-brand beauty product if they were pleased with the results? Of course, I'm so rich I replaced all my teeth with rubies, so.

Did the beauty myth kill Amy Winehouse?: I think addiction is far more complicated than what Andy Martin posits here in the Times, but he makes some excellent points: "[H]er devastating — and finally lethal — self-critique tended to home in on her body."

U.S., U.K., and body image: American women report more body confidence than British women, but also want (and get) more plastic surgery, reports Allure. "We love our boobs and we love our butts, but we still want plastic surgery? What do you think is going on?" Allure asks. Well, since you asked! Maybe hyperfocusing on the body, even in a positive sense, leads to the sense that we have and should have total control over our shape? Or that hyping up our body's good points ("I love my butt!" say 30% of American women) just leads to a greater gulf between our ideal selves and our reality? Maybe we shouldn't be focusing so much on "loving" our bodies (for love can invite hate, as anyone who has ever shouted at a lover who would never shout at a friend can attest) and instead focus on caring for them?

Of corsets complicated: On the heels of Decoding Dress's post about shapewear comes a WWD piece (subscribers only, but the gist is that shapewear is now more acceptable, and the market is doing well). "It’s affordable and there isn’t the stigma of cosmetic surgery and the paranoia. It’s like, ‘I put on my lipstick, my perfume and my shaper, and I can take it off whenever I want.'" says stylist Phillip Bloch. Makes sense to me. Of course, so does the concluding quote by psychologist Jennifer Baumgartner: “When people have extra weight on, they don’t like the feeling of their flesh jiggling and shapewear often eliminates that,” she said. “Shapewear can offer a sense of security, but it’s a crutch and a quick fix. It can actually become addicting.”

Hair-care regulation in Ghana: The Ghana Hairdressers and Beauticians Association is lobbying for state licensing. This could have trickle-down effects in the States; unlicensed (and unqualified) hairstylists can flood the African/African-American hair-care market and spread misinformation that can lead to traction alopecia.

Not in favor of unsafe cosmetics, mind you: And in regulation news closer to home, not all small beauty companies are reacting to the proposed Safe Cosmetics Act with joy.

Is it really the makeup that needs to be how-to'd here?

"Ancient Chinese secret" not so ancient: Chinese cosmetics brands are reinventing their images to compete with global brands for Chinese consumers...by touting natural ingredients and traditional Chinese ways. I know, I know, we all thought the Chinese women applied their makeup by correctly channeling their chi. But this is an interesting look into how traditional production can be fetishized even within the country of origin.

Body-image sovereignty mad libs!: Allyson at Decoding Dress takes on questions of bodily ownership when you want to lose weight but don't want to feel like you're falling prey to the beauty myth in doing so, prompted by Virginia's earlier take on the matter in response to a reader question. (Also, if you liked my post on "dressing your figure," check out her post on the myth of horizontal stripes.)

"I woke up as a man today": Holly Pervocracy on gender performance ("Butt-ass naked and half-asleep, in a completely "default" state for a human being, I was about as masculine as a person can get"), and her gracious clarification when she realized she might've gotten it wrong. (She usually doesn't. Get it wrong, that is; she's a lucid writer on gender, though there are many places where I disagree with her.) "I, personally, feel like femininity is something that requires me to make effort and make changes, and masculinity is just how I am when I wake up. I, personally, am not everyone." 

On seeing, and being seen: Oliver Seth Wharton on a run-in with his neighbor that would have been unremarkable, were it not that it marked the first time he'd seen her without her chador. He questions his own complex reaction in light of seeing her outside of her usual proscribed role: "The smile disconcerted me more than her presence. It felt both like a gesture of neighborly kindness and a confession. Well, you caught me. This is what I look like. ... Maybe we just can’t bear the raw power of seeing each other."

"You are capable of much more than being looked at": Congrats to Beauty Redefined--their media-literacy and body-image billboards have hit northern Utah, and they are fantastic. Take a peek!

Musings of a recovering woman: Rachel Hills on her eating disorder history, and the ways it plays (and doesn't play) into being a feminist. "Having an eating disorder didn’t make me a feminist. I was a feminist a good few years before I started starving myself and throwing up meals. But I do suspect that the emotions and general sense of confusion that led to me doing those things might be the same emotions and confusion that led to my fascination with gender issues."

Thoughts on a Portmanteau: Manorexia, Drunkorexia, and Liarexia

Webster's, 1894: Anorexy: Want of appetite, without a loathing of food

As Portmanteau Week here at The Beheld* concludes, I’d like to turn away from cankles and mandals—I know, how could anyone turn away from mandals?—to something with a tad more gravity: manorexia, drunkorexia, and liarexia.

These spinoffs of anorexia seem, at first (and second) look to undermine the severity of these conditions. Anorexia indicates that the sufferer needs treatment; manorexia implies that the sufferer is an outlier, not quite an anorexic (even though that’s exactly what he is), more of an anomaly than a person who might be welcomed into a treatment community. Drunkorexia conjures up not anorexia with alcoholism comorbidity (or alcoholism with disordered eating comorbidity) but a gaggle of sorority girls who skip dinner so they can hit up the beer bong and still fit into their Sevens. As for liarexia, the word didn’t appear to exist until this very month, with the Daily Mail piece about women who eat heartily in public but who restrict in private. The condition, of course, has been around for ages—it falls under the umbrella of ED-NOS, or eating disorder not otherwise specified, which actually has a higher mortality rate than both anorexia and bulimia.

Overall, I’m inclined to agree with Stephanie Marcus at The Huffington Post, who writes that “labeling the behavior ‘liarexia’ distracts from its seriousness,” which I feel goes for all of the above terms. But here’s where I’m going to trot out my beloved Gloria Steinem quote again: Because of feminism, “We have terms like sexual harassment and battered women. A few years ago, they were just called life.” The emergence of manorexia shows that people are beginning to understand that men can be afflicted with eating disorders—something that wasn’t true outside of the medical community (and often within it) less than a decade ago. Drunkorexia might get the mental wheels turning in some women who have been doing it for so long that they don’t realize it might actually be a problem, not just a Saturday night. As for liarexia, it highlights the larger problem behind the condition: We’re so on guard about women’s food intake—and we attach so much emotional and moral value to what we eat—that eating a cheeseburger becomes a signal that all is well on the food front, even when it’s not. See also: DIPE, or Documented Instances of Public Eating—which, incidentally, the Daily Mail piece addressed.

In fact, the Daily Mail piece that raised my ire is actually a pretty solid piece that raises awareness that one doesn’t have to have a full-fledged eating disorder in order to have a problem. I’m constantly reading up on this stuff, so I’m always glad to see a public take on eating disorders that goes beyond the classic poor-little-rich-girl tale (thankfully, there are more complex depictions of EDs out there now, but that’s a fairly recent development). But most people learn about eating disorders primarily through mainstream outlets, and by relying on cutesy terms, those outlets are failing the public. The Columbia Journalism Review opined that this New York Times piece about anorexia offshoots was frivolous, even as the writer stressed that addictions and eating disorders are troubling. “But worth nearly 1,400 words in the Sunday Times (the Style section, but still)—and deserving of the implicit validation that comes from reference as a ‘phenomenon’? Doubtful.” Yet I’m doubtful that the CJR would have taken issue with the topic if actual medical terms—say, anorexia with alcholism comorbidity, or ED-NOS—were used instead of the word drunkorexia. In pointing fingers at the Times for its reportage, the CJR dismissed a legitimate concern as a “trend piece.” But with a word like drunkorexia, can you blame them?

Anorexia spinoffs are the inverse of cankles: Where cankles invents a trivial problem to shame us, drunkorexia/manorexia/liarexia labels an existing legitimate problem and then inadvertently trivializes it. And I am fairly sure it’s inadvertent: Neither the Daily Mail liarexia piece nor the New York Times drunkorexia piece glosses over the issues at stake. (I’m picky about the way this stuff is reported and certainly see gaps in the presentation of the information, but overall I found it reasonably responsible.) What I’d like to see from here is a proper naming of what’s going on. If coining one corner of ED-NOS as liarexia helps alert some of its sufferers that what they’re doing is not normal behavior, then I don’t want to get rid of liarexia. Admitting to yourself that you have an eating disorder—especially when it’s not one that leaves you thin enough to warrant concern from others, or that doesn’t have easily diagnosable behaviors like purging—can be a long, self-searching process. My optimistic hope is that the minimizing of ED-NOS through terms like liarexia and drunkorexia may, on occasion, worm their way into sufferers’ minds in a way that a clinical term might not. (Manorexia is more problematic: Men with eating disorders already suffer a double shame, both the shame of having an ED in the first place and then the shame of not being taken as seriously as a woman with the same symptoms might. Male anorectics are already sidelined and belittled enough—but I suppose that there may be anorexic men who find solace in the term, as it indicates that other men suffer in the same way.)

I just want these terms to be portals to real discussion that could lead to real treatment for the people who need it, instead of allowing them to reside in the mental space created by the trivialization of their problem. I’m guessing that for every woman for whom hearing drunkorexia sounds an alarm, there’s another woman who uses it to laugh off her symptoms, popping martini olives—you know, dinner—into her mouth as she jokes about being drunkorexic. If we’re going to use these words as ways to develop a more comprehensive understanding of eating disorders, we need to do so with care.


*    *    *    *    *

Language evolves with the people: Copyediting is my bread and butter, but nonetheless I wholeheartedly subscribe to a descriptive approach to words and grammar. (Don’t tell my clients!) You’ll never find me hand-wringing over the inclusion of LOL, OMG, or IMHO in Oxford; these are terms we use to help us communicate, and if we’re going to communicate effectively we need to make good use of all the tools at our disposal, IMHO. This includes portmanteaux—even the ones I’ve examined with skepticism this week.

But I’d suggest that we should proceed with caution when coining new words. There’s no evidence that language changes more quickly than it did before the Internet; what the Internet has done is give rise to the ability to create mini-phenomenon. When I was researching terms for Portmanteau Week, it stood out to me how the words were clustered. Cankles hit its peak in 2009 (it had gone mainstream well before then, but 2009 provided the most buzz); drunkorexia was big in 2008; liarexia has more than 14,000 Google hits, and I’ve yet to find one of those results published before July of this year. (Mandals, ever the outlier, stands alone, popping up with seasonal regularity.)

What this indicates to me is that we’re eager to examine what may (manorexia) or may not (cankles) be a genuine cultural shift, and that we’re getting better than ever at coining catchy words to describe them. I’d like to see us be careful to not chase clever terminology at the expense of the actual meaning of the words. Trend-ifying portmanteaux may hopefully (hopefully!) work well when we're talking about things like cankles (if we can agree that 2006-2009 was the era of the cankle and be done with it, I'll be thrilled). But it doesn't work out so nicely when we're talking about legitimate concerns that need legitimate examination. We can't allow for the issues behind those talk-cute terms to be swept under the rug once their press cycle has expired.
If coining manorexia leads more sick men to seek treatment for anorexia, fantastic—but we need to keep discussing these issues in order to avoid turning them into the trend that their catchy portmanteaux labels indicate they are. Let’s not forget that the Times drunkorexia piece appeared in the Fashion & Style section (as do most things affecting the ladies, but that’s a different post). Human suffering is not a trend, and giving it the trend treatment makes that easy to forget.

 

*Note that I must qualify Portmanteau Week with “at The Beheld,” because otherwise I’d run the risk of confusing readers who surely participated in 1995’s “Fun People” Portmanteau Week. Everything I do, I do it for you. Also, please allow the record to reflect that as analytical as I got here, I recognize that the concept of Portmanteau Week is utterly ridiculous. Or—and with this I shall allow Portmanteau Week to close with love—ridonkulous.

Body-Positive Images: Not the Best Way to Body Positivity

(Really the only way to illustrate this post.)

Interesting article at Refinery 29 about how body-positive “body positive” blogs actually are, with a particular focus on photo blogs like Stop Hating Your Body and Curve Appeal. The idea of many of these blogs is that users post photos of themselves, often with a story about their journey toward body acceptance, which may be in its infancy; the question posed at Refinery 29 is whether these photos represent progress toward self-acceptance for either the posters or the readers.
...health-care experts are concerned that some body-positive websites send mixed messages to their constituency—particularly by allowing girls to post their specific measurements (which many do), or fixate on certain body parts.

“These websites represent a ground-flow of young women who want to find peace with their bodies, but the messages—‘I love myself, but please accept me’—can be confusing,” said Elizabeth Scott, psychotherapist and Co-Founder of The Body Positive, a national body-image program for women. “These girls want community, and they want to be told they’re beautiful, which makes sense, but focusing on measurements or specific body types is troubling.”

There’s a lot to be said about the usefulness of posting one’s measurements and weight in an effort to be body positive. (In short: I think numbers transparency is good, but I also know that my first instinct whenever I see a “what real women weigh!” story in a ladymag is to look at their numbers and compare them to mine. The failure is definitely on my end here, but I also doubt I’m alone in this. So I applaud those who put specifics out there, but I won’t, as it’s just not how I personally best operate. Anyway.) But what I’m primarily interested in here is the essence of posting an image of one’s self to begin with.

We as a culture like to blame the images surrounding us for our negative feelings about our bodies—and I don’t think we’re entirely off-base in doing so. But I wonder whether creating and reproducing images of ourselves is the solution. It’s as though because manipulated images created a special category of special (nonexistent) people, we then needed to disambiguate “real” women—and we used images to do so. I think it’s worthwhile to play with and examine images, including self-portraits, when working one’s way toward body peace. I also think it’s worthwhile to remember Audre Lorde’s words here: The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

As tempting as it may be to turn to imagery to boost our self-esteem, we need to do so with caution. Images are powerful because they’re visceral; we see them both as a deeper truth and as something unreal. “It is common now for people to insist about their experience of a violent event in which they were caught up....that ‘it seemed like a movie,’” writes Susan Sontag in On Photography. “This is said, other descriptions seeming insufficient, in order to explain how real it was.” Turning to images—rather, turning ourselves into images—as a primary form of developing bodily self-esteem separates us from our bodies. It forces us to view our bodies in the same light under which we view the images of unreal bodies we’re trying to wrest ourselves from. Certainly, as these blog owners hope, we can emerge from that light feeling proud instead of dejected by comparison (look at our hips! our bellies! our stretch marks! our curves!). But we are still letting imagery dictate how we feel about our bodies, because imagery seems more real than ourselves.

I think of what writer and recovered binge eater Sunny Sea Gold said in our interview: “Our bodies are a very convenient, tangible place to place our angst, our disgust, whatever else.” She was speaking specifically about women with eating disorders, which is a distinct psychological condition and not something every woman who groans about her thighs suffers from. But I think her point holds for many of us: We heap a helluva lot upon our bodies, and sometimes the bodily loathing we in feminist circles bemoan isn’t about our bodies at all—or the models, or the images. It’s about larger circumstances that vary widely from individual to individual, but it’s safe to say it’s usually a mix of family and personal history, an economic system that puts a good deal of labor value on display over production, systemic sexism, and good old-fashioned existentialism.

That’s a lot to tackle. So we find an identifiable entry point—imagery—and begin there. My worry is that the prevalence of these blogs allows us to think we can stop there too.

I don’t mean to pick on body-positive photo blogs. I’m sure they can be helpful to some readers and creators, and their mere existence signals that people are working to override the status quo, which I applaud. But body positivity needs to be much more comprehensive in order for it to be effective—something that body image writers like Rosie Molinary and Medicinal Marzipan intuitively understand, with their multipronged approach to body image. They understand that body image cannot begin and end with surveillance, even surveillance of the nurturing kind.

“When the notion of reality changes, so does that of the image, and vice versa,” writes Sontag. “‘Our era’ does not prefer images to real things out of perversity but partly in response to the ways in which the notion of what is real has been progressively complicated and weakened.” When our bodies are the reality in question, and the progressive complication and weakening has been at a fever pitch for a while, we must take care not to allow our notion of the image to override reality. There’s been some excellent critique of the term “real woman” lately; our challenge from here is to make sure we don’t use the master’s tools—imagery of our corporeal selves—in order to define what those “real women” might be.

Beauty Blogsophere 7.1.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

I think I'll try crushing up some Zoloft to use as eyeshadow.

From Head... 
Put on a happy face: Physicians Formula bothers me for two reasons. 1) There's no apostrophe in the brand name, which—speaking as someone who has spent 12 years correcting incorrect apostrophe use for ladymags—drives me bonkers. 2) They're putting made-up antidepressants in their "Happy Booster" face powder. Harmless enough, but the clinicizing of makeup adds to the "hope in a jar" concept—and when we're talking mental health, that's a little icky to me.

Beauty on ice: Celebrity as makeup models normally make me yawn, but I'm tickled by Johnny Weir for MAC. (Via Bellasugar.)

...To Toe...
Home pedicure:
'Tis the season, after all. You can read a zillion of these in a zillion magazines. But why would you do that when the fantastic Jane Feltes will tell you in her trademark fashion?

...And Everything In Between
B.S. in beauty: Scientific breakdown of the "DNA CryoStem™ Skin Therapy System" and its ilk over at Forbes. 

Marilyn myth: Please, God, let the myth of Marilyn Monroe being a size 16 die already. It started out nicely enough but I really don't think all this size talk is helping anyone anymore, is it? 

Sunglasses made from human hair: Why is it that I think "momsicles" are hysterical and these are hideous? 

Fly fishers vs. fashionistas: "For someone to use them as a fashion statement is just sacrilegious," says a fisherman in this piece about the fly fishing feathers that are now popular as a hair accessory. I wouldn't go so far as to call it sacrilegious (it's no hipster headdress, that's for sure) but it is...odd? My mother gave me a fishing tackle box to organize my makeup when I was 13, so it seems this particular cross-section has wrestled before.

Cheryl may have been subject to a ridiculously sexist ad campaign, but at least she didn't have to stuff her beauty kit into 3-oz. bottles.

Fly me: An entire online boutique devoted to TSA-friendly beauty products. I'm happy just buying a bunch of little containers and transferring products as need be, but this store is well-curated and if I weren't as frugal as I am with my beauty products I'd be shopping here.

Smile, baby: Male participants in a study on sexist behavior were less likely to identify "benevolent sexism" even after being instructed on exactly what it was. I don't think this is because men are clueless oafs; I think it's because it can indeed be confusing for even a well-intentioned man (or woman) to navigate. There are a lot of mixed messages out there--including from many women who actively welcome instances of benevolent sexism. Including, at times, me.

Scale vs. mirror: On Day 96 without mirrors, Kjerstin Gruys asks if wanting to lose weight is at odds with feminism. Looking forward to reading her part II; in the meantime, it might be a good time to revisit this pondering over at Beauty Schooled.

Androgynous dressing: Sally at Already Pretty on her erstwhile fears about the androgynous look and body acceptance. This resonated with me; I never feared looking boyish, but I believed I was "curvy" (even when I was rather prototypical-teenage-girl-shaped, which is to say not terribly curvy but it sure felt like it) and even back then the magazines were all about "embrace your curves"! To this day I don't know if I prefer certain fashions because I have a genuine aesthetic preference for them, or if it's that I've coded certain items as "good for my figure" and have made myself like them.

Public eating disorders: Eating disorder awareness is lacking in some areas, exercise addiction among them. I try not to project my thoughts about appropriate behavior onto others, but someone who is not a professional athlete (hell, someone who is) working out 14 hours a day seems like exercise bulimia to me. Charlotte Andersen, guest blogging over at Never Say Diet, asks why we haven't questioned Heidi Montag's public eating disorder yet.

Domo arigato, Mrs. Roboto: Japanese pop star is computer-generated. It's easy to point fingers and laugh because O Japan! ("This must happen every day in Japan," snarks Gawker), but does anyone else remember the Mirabella stunt—a computer composite model on the cover, which was clearly labeled inside the magazine as a composite—which garnered representation offers for the nonexistent model?

Beautiful people: I'm far from scandalized by BeautifulPeople.com and their PR stunts, but still got a kick out of this peek into the site, courtesy a writer who submitted a picture of Ryan Reynolds and gained entry that way (his perfectly normal-looking real face was rejected). I'm particularly glad to see him point out a factor that is far too often overlooked in studies of attractiveness, even if the "study" is just one lone reporter: They rely on normative ideas of beauty, not any one individual's idea of it.

Edited to add: Hollaback has an interesting support program going; check it out and support it here. As a bonus, it "stars" the badass subway woman from this video that went viral when she called out a subway groper on his behavior.

Beauty Blogosphere 6.24.11

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

Uncomfortably numb.

From Head...
Because every girl wants to be a vampire: Am I old-fashioned for being freaked out by lip balm with Benzocaine, designed to "leave your victims’ lips numb and their hearts racing"?

...To Toe...
This case has no legs: New York man sues SoHo pedicure outlet for not complying with the Americans With Disabilities Act guidelines. His disability? He lost both legs in a car accident. (Interesting piece on him in Blackbook a ways back.)

...And Everything In Between:

BUSINESS
Men in the cosmetics industry: Fast Company asks if LinkedIn is a gender equalizer: Men thrive in the cosmetics industry, according to LinkedIn's analysis of user data. Yawn, yawn, male CEOs, blargh. But! Women rule ranching and tobacco! (Go cowgirls!) My initial hunch would be that the novelty factor of women in those fields might give them an advantage, though I'm hesitant to say the same for men. If that world is anything like another female-focused industry I'm familiar with—women's magazines—the business side is likely run by men while the day-to-day operations and development is run by women.

More pink Cadillacs: Mary Kay still going strong, signing up 165,000 new representatives in April—the largest monthly amount in a decade. These are independent sellers, meaning these workers may still be underemployed, but Mary Kay's endurance is a testament to the ability of woman-driven businesses to attract a work force looking for flexibility. (Per the above item, though, it's worth nothing that the Mary Kay CEO is a dude with an MBA, not a lady with a dream.)

Dollar stacks on the left are ad dollars from 2009; on the right, from 2010. Each bill represents roughly $50 million in ad budgets. (Via Ad Age and Marketing Degree.)

Ad budgets: Interesting graphic from Ad Age detailing ad dollars for various beauty companies. The buried lede here is Axe's ad cuts, though I suppose given the onslaught of, what, 2006, you can only go down from there. (The entire cross-industry graphic is here. Of note: Weight-loss companies went up, quelle surprise, as did Proactiv and Yoplait. Good to see the latter company can afford to swallow the cost of their pulled eating-disorder-littered ad. While jogging in place.)

Those hormones paid for your yacht, lady: Evelyn Lauder makes a good point in an unfortunate way at the Elly Awards Luncheon: "Older women should be on boards." Agreed! "There's just less hormones, less crying." Oh! I'd really like to see a broader conversation about women and aging happening (Naomi Wolf's piece in the Washington Post was a start, but am I alone in finding it a little dismissive of younger women?), and I suppose these sorts of fits and starts are a beginning? Maybe?

Holy house: Estee Lauder's synagogue in Queens gets a makeover. (Why am I so obsessed with Estee Lauder real estate? Between the casino and the graveyard I'm a one-woman watch.)

INTERNATIONAL
Behind the veil: A young Saudi-Canadian woman on feeling liberated from the beauty myth by wearing the hijab. "When I cover myself, I make it virtually impossible for people to judge me according to the way I look.  I cannot be categorized because of my attractiveness or lack thereof."

Characteristics of the Chinese beauty market: Chinese women as demanding cosmetics consumers. Interesting bits about how even though China is rapidly becoming more westernized, there's still a very strong Chinese ethos to cosmetics--hair-dyeing, for example, is rare except to cover grays.

Faux cosmeceuticals: False claims in cosmetic advertising increased five-fold in Korea last quarter, with products fraudulently advertising use of "stem cells." (Ew!)

NATURAL BEAUTY
More false advertising: Center for Environmental Health sues Kiss My Face and Hain Celestial (Avalon Organics, Alba Botanical) for falsely labeling cosmetics as organic when they're not. Say it ain't so! I love Alba lotions!

BEAUTY BLOGOSPHERE

Still from Dark Girls, which, from the preview, looks to be startling and poignant.

Help kickstart Dark Girls: Via Ashe at Dramatis Personae comes an alert to help fund a documentary that sounds incredibly promising about women's skin tone in the black community.

Wax on, wax off: Sally at Already Pretty on feminism and body hair, which has been a sticking point for me personally. I shave my legs, etc., because I feel more comfortable that way; I tried challenging that, and just felt unappealing to myself. Ironically, the way I came to peace with this was to start shaving all the time, not just when my legs would be available for public viewing. I realized that I truly do take my own pleasure in having smooth legs. As Sally writes, "Does this mean I’m willingly bowing to the patriarchy on this issue? I guess you could see it that way.... Everything we do to change how our bodies look, feel, and smell is a nod to societal norms. And I’m willing to nod occasionally."

Hup!: Allyson at Decoding Dress questions the symbiosis of fashion and the military—it might not be just a one-way conversation.

Reflections: Y'all know I'm a sucker for mirror talk, and Kate at Eat the Damn Cake goes in for it: "People say, 'This mirror makes me look weird,' but they only half believe themselves. The other half is saying, 'I think I might actually look like that.'"

Socrates' sister: Feminist Philosophers questions whether philosophy itself is gendered, and of course the answer is a flaming YES, which points to why questions of personal beauty haven't received their philosophical due. "The self of feminist philosophy...often knows that Descartes was wrong...to hold that the human mind is whole and entire unto itself. She cannot be the whole respository for the normativity that is needed for a theory of concepts, for example. Her intellectual thriving is dependent on social inputs, corrections and co-constructions."

Mentoring: Not beauty-related, but enough young women have contacted me through here for this to be pertinent: Australian feminist writer and blogger Rachel Hills has some excellent posts on women and mentoring for her recent Mentoring Week (well, weeks) project. Here is but one of them, with links to more at the bottom. You read a lot about the importance of mentors but this series explores unexpected angles, like mentoring and media and male/female mentoring styles.

BEST OF THE REST

Yes, I'm exploiting this bunny for its sheer cuteness, but I'm not going to pinch its ass, so we're all cool, right?

Bunny hop: This story at The Good Men Project about being a Playboy Bunny in 1978 is revealing about the effects of being in a highly image-conscious environment: "I was getting a thorough training at work in just how much looks mattered if you were female." Aw, hell, it's really just an excuse for me to recommend Gloria Steinem's classic essay "I Was a Playboy Bunny." (I can't find it online, but here's an excerpt.) The Good Men Project piece isn't as insightful, but it's more personal, as the writer's reasons for being a Bunny weren't journalistic.

Sweet smell of success: Between Mercedes-Benz perfumes and The New York Times-scented candle, can't wait to catch a whiff of the bourgeoisie!

Portrait of a perfumer: Better fragrance chat here, with Bella Sugar's Annie Tomlin interviewing fragrance legend Frédéric Malle.

Beauty exhibit skin-deep?: Thoughtful Tom Teicholz review of the "Beauty Culture" exhibit in L.A., asking the pointed question: "Is this exhibit really a conversation?" So much beauty talk isn't talk at all, but presented images. I still want to see this exhibit, but am eager to keep the beauty conversation going.

Beauty Blogsophere 6.17.11

The latest beauty news, from head to toe and everything in between.

From Head...
Behind Bare Minerals: Nice profile of mineral-makeup guru Leslie Blodgett. I'd argue that the piece overstates the revolution of mineral makeup (is it really that different than regular makeup? Or am I wearing it wrong?), and the comparisons to Estee Lauder are a little baffling, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

 Sic McGruff on pedicure bandits!


...To Toe...
Nailed!: What's up with all the pedicure fraud lately? Between the Muncie, Indiana, pedicure bandit and the Great Park Slope Nail Salon Freakout, pedicurists are getting shafted. For shame!

Foot fault: The pedicure that nearly killed Serena Williams.

...And Everything In Between:
Men and beauty purchases: That ever-reliable source of meticulous research, MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, released a study about how grooming products are the #1 item purchased by men online, beating out tech. Forgive me for being a tad skeptical of the research methods here, but clearly something is going on here. Are men buying more body products online because they're embarrassed to be buying bath gel in person?

Beauty sales rising:
Mass products fared somewhat better than prestige cosmetics in Q1, though prestige skin care easily beat gains from mass products. Let's call a victory for those pricey cosmeceuticals, shall we? 

Poker/Face: Estee Lauder facility on Long Island may become casino operated by Shinnecock Nation. 

Lush wants everyone to kiss and makeup.

Lush "Kiss and Tell" event in support of same-sex marriage rights: I am thrilled to see a cosmetics company taking action on an issue that's actually controversial. Once upon a time, breast cancer research was controversial. It's still important, but I tend to view corporations whose "women's issues" begin and end with pink ribboning with skepticism. Like WOW you're really taking a stand, aren't you?! So if you're near a Lush store on June 18, join the protest! Head on over with your partner at 11:38 a.m. local time (U.S.A. and Canada only)—1138 being symbolic of the number of marriage rights that are denied to same-sex couples under current law—and smooch!
 

Social media marketing: How ladybloggers yakking about Secret Clinical Strength proved a success for Procter & Gamble. Yikes!   

Beauty and the veil: Student project from a media literacy class at the American University of Beirut about veiled women and beauty. Things get interesting around 2:40, when we start to hear from Lebanese men and veiled Lebanese women about the signals the veil sends in regards to beauty and desire. Actually, the whole thing is interesting—I've heard so many stories of "...and in the Middle East CURVY women are considered BEAUTIFUL!" that I sometimes fall into the trap of "Orientalizing" body image and beauty concerns. This was a good reminder that not only are American beauty standards being heavily exported, but that each culture will interpret these standards in their own way.

Tila Tequila and root causes of eating disorders: Tila Tequila is (sort of) shedding light on an essential aspect of eating disorders that's often overlooked, especially when discussing their prevalence among professional beauties. "I put pressure on myself to constantly eat, but once I put pressure on myself, that's when eating is no longer a ‘natural’ thing to do for me and ironically becomes the opposite," she said in Radar Online. It gets to the idea of EDs being about control, not thinness, which is essential to an understanding of the disease.


Udderly gorgeous! Moo-tiful! Alert Hugh Heifer! (It's been a long week, okay?)

Cattle contest is so pageant: I'm not particularly into the whole Sexual Politics of Meat angle, though I think it's an interesting-enough discussion. That said, this piece at Der Spiegel about a dairy show, which the magazine terms a beauty pageant for cows, gave me the heebie-jeebies. (THAT said, a personal bit of trivia is that as a young 4-Her I had a flair for beef cattle judging, and I can tell you from personal experience that there is absolutely no wink wink nudge nudge about judging cattle. It is as earnest an activity as you will ever find.) 

Barbie-blaming: The F-Word takes on Greenpeace's campaign against Barbie as responsible for deforestation because of her packaging. "Were Greenpeace to roll out a complementary campaign featuring Action Man or GI Joe being court-martialled for his rampages through the rainforest...it would be an even-handed address....No such campaign exists."

Nail salon history: The contemporary history of the nail salon is the history of the Vietnam war, as shown in this article that traces the growth of Vietnamese-owned nail salons from mass emigration in the 1970s to today. New York might not be representative, but at the salons in my neighborhood, workers tend to be either Asian (usually Chinese or Korean) or Latin American. Given the slowing of Vietnamese immigration and the increase in Latin American immigration, I wouldn't be surprised to see more Latina-owned salons within the decade.

Chewable toothpaste: Effin' brilliant workaround for liquids restrictions on flights.

Shopping style: Sally at Already Pretty asks if you're a lone shopper or a pack shopper. I'm interested in how one's preference might translate to attitudes toward appearance—I always shop alone, and besides just being a solitary sort of person in general, I've wondered before if my need to shop alone has to do with my self-consciousness. It's one thing to be self-conscious, quite another to have someone witness it so up-close. shopping with others but it's because I feel so self-conscious about someone knowing I'm looking at myself.

Facebook fast:
Courtney at Those Graces quit Facebook when she saw her self-perception changing—check out her self-portraits (none of which look phony to me, but which don't) to see what she means. "Instead of being me, I became the image of who I thought I was." Social media can indeed function as a mirror, in other words.

Feminist fashion bloggers on women in the media: Awesome collection of posts on women in the media, all from members of Feminist Fashion Bloggers (and beauty bloggers too!). Historical media criticism, a no-no to ecofeminist representations, tired old tropes, "Hollywood ugly", representations of feminism in the media, depictions of indigenous women (which, as a part Caddo woman who looks white and therefore doesn't get the tiptoe-around I might if looked more Indian, particularly resonated with me). 

Duff!: Remember Duff? She's also a writer, and she now has a column in the New York Daily News—fashion, beauty, and, yes, "aging gracefully," but her spin aims to be fresh, funny, and inclusive. This is a woman who has been included on People's Worst Dressed list, so it'd better be.

Sunny Sea Gold, Writer, New York City

Writer, editor, and recovered binge eater Sunny Sea Gold shares her personal story with a forthright fearlessness, both on her support site, Healthy Girl, and through her book. Food: The Good Girl’s Drug is a step-by-step guide toward recovery for an eating disorder that has only recently begun to be fully addressed. One of the most outstanding aspects of her book is in its very subtitle: How to Stop Using Food to Control Your Feelings. Her writing spurred me to think more comprehensively about the roots of eating disorders (hint: It ain’t all about the airbrushed models), and if you read her book, it’ll do the same for you. She’s currently a deputy editor at Redbook, and the former health editor at both Seventeen and Glamour. We talked about the media as eating-disorder scapegoat, the role anger can play in recovery, and having “such a pretty face.” In her own words:


Sunny Sea Gold at 29 weeks pregnant with her first child

On the Role of Media in Eating Disorders
Therapists pretty much agree that there are three main causes of eating disorders, and most of us who get them have a combination of the three. One is your genetics. Second is your physiology, like the biology of your actual brain—your personality. Some people are incredibly resilient and slough off difficult messages; other people are not. In my book I call them Velcro; things stick to them. I’m Velcro. The third thing is environment. Environment is broken into two parts: the environment of your home, what your mom and dad said to you, the behaviors they modeled. The other part of environment is culture. So about one-sixth of eating disorders can be blamed on cultural environment, like the pictures we’re shown. That’s what I mean when I say skinny models don’t cause eating disorders. I just think that’s completely oversimplified and kind of ridiculous. If we magically were able to suddenly change the images we see in order to be diverse in all ways, gradually that part of the pressure would relieve itself. But it wouldn’t relieve that need of a girl to control her food intake because she can’t control her life.

I think people focus on the images because they’re an easy scapegoat. It’s something outside of yourself that you can look at and demonize, and get angry about. You can’t get angry about genetics, you can’t get angry about personality. You can get angry at your parents, but after a while you’ll forgive them. But you can forever blame and be angry at the fashion industry and the media. Not that I don’t think people should have some anger—I think the passionate advocates for change in the media have made a difference, and I hope that people still keep talking about it. I do think there’s a lot wrong with the images we see, and I’m hoping in some very small ways to work from the inside to help. But I think it’s largely about having something to be angry with.

It’s also about rebellion. The media is a convenient thing to rebel against. And rebellion, for me, was a very important part of getting better. I wasn’t really angry at the media—I rebelled against the dieting stuff. I was pissed off at diets and diet books and diet pills and diet gurus, and that anger made me strong. I didn’t have full internal strength yet: I hadn’t been through therapy, I hadn’t sort of resolved my issues, and I needed something to kind of pull me upright. The anger of rebellion really helped me do that. After a while, I didn’t really need it anymore. I’m still disappointed and frustrated by the way our society deals with weight. But I could let that intense anger go. Media rage probably helps other people get to that point. 




On “Love Your Body”
Serious body image issues are very, very rarely ever about your actual body. So learning to love it isn’t really what’s going to change anything. What’s actually going is that you have a control issue, a self-esteem issue, depression, anxiety. Just like the fashion industry or magazines are convenient places to place our anger on, our bodies are a very convenient, tangible place to place our angst, our disgust, whatever else. You know how sometimes you’ll leave the house and feel fine? Then something—you don’t even know what it is—happens during the day, and the next time you pass a mirror you feel like you look like gunk. And you are suddenly the ugliest creature on the planet, and so fat. There’s no way your face or body has changed in a matter of hours; something inside of you has changed, and we just place it right on our bodies. The other stuff is too amorphous, and it’s scary and not easily remedied. Our bodies, we’re told, are easily fixed: four weeks of this, five pounds in one week, or whatever.

In a way it’s almost like hope: If only I could get my body to be a certain way, I’ll be happy. When I stopped believing that, I felt lost for a while. Because I thought, Oh great, now I’m stuck with my life. For so long I’d been thinking that when I’d be thin, or when I’d stop binge eating, everything would be fine and I would be perfect. Then my body got to be the right size for me, and I stopped binging, and everything was not perfect. I didn’t have severe depression anymore, I didn’t binge, my body was healthier, and all sorts of things were resolved from there. But I remember feeling slightly depressed—and scared. 



On Presenting a Pleasant-Looking Package
For a while I purposefully left pictures of myself off my website because I didn’t want to crowd my message. I didn’t know what people’s reactions would be; I didn’t know if they would feel that I couldn’t possibly know what I was talking about because I was objectively fairly attractive. So I was like, Okay, let’s just leave that out of the conversation, because it doesn’t matter here. And I don’t think it does.

But I know that looking a certain way has probably helped me get my message across. I know that difficult topics can be easier for society to swallow if they’re delivered in a pleasant-looking package. And, yes, I think I’m pleasing enough—attractive enough to create a positive feeling in someone, but not so attractive as to turn them off, you know? That just happens to be how I came out. I know that there are people in the world who are objectively not attractive, and that’s an experience I don’t understand. I don’t know what the struggle might be for someone who has odd features to navigate a beauty-obsessed society. It’s a place that I’m lacking. Even when I was really heavy, my mom would be like, “Oh, your face is so beautiful”—the classic “such a pretty face.”

I think of Stephen Colbert’s “I don’t see color; people tell me I’m white.” I don’t really focus on looks, but I think they have some sort of visceral, primordial effect on humans, and you can get your message out if you wrap it in an attractive package. Even Naomi Wolf says that, saying that there’s a reason she does her hair and puts on lipstick, so people will put her on TV and share her message. When I did finally put a video of myself on the website, some of the girls who had been reading were like, “You look like this? I had no idea—I pictured you in a completely different way.” I don’t know how they had pictured me, but they were reacting to the way I looked.




On Legacies
One of the things—you know, that one-sixth of the things that caused me to binge eat—was the messages I got in my family environment. I don’t blame my mother because she didn’t know any better, but she grew up thinking you had to be pretty to be loved. Not just pretty, but the prettiest. And she was. Her mother was very beautiful too, and my mother’s grandmother actually measured my mom’s features when she was a kid—you know those old-fashioned 1950s devices? She measured my mom’s features to see how far apart everything was, and declared that she had a perfect face. That’s what was going to get her love and acceptance. She was never encouraged to develop any of her other skills—her painting, her interior design, her writing, none of that. It was just being beautiful and modeling bikinis, which she did for a while.

So when I came around, I was born into this family where attractiveness was incredibly important. My mother thought I was cute as a kid, so I didn’t get that kind of thing like, “Oh, you’re not cute enough.” What I did get was constant affirmation that it was super-important, and that I’d better stay that way. She would make a point about comparing other girls in the class to me: Well, you know, you’re the prettiest one in your class, or Well, she’s as pretty as you are. There’s no point to that! It does absolutely nothing, except to make you crazy, and it did. Luckily, whatever it was about my personality—that anger, that rebellion—came up eventually and I rejected it. One of the ways that I did that was becoming overweight. In order for me to say, No, I totally disagree with your values and I’m not going to go along with it, I was like, I’m just gonna get fat and then see what you think. I feel like that anger helped me reject those values.

Now my mom has learned so much, and she’s careful about what she says to her grandchildren. But to some degree those forces are always there. Just today—this literally happened two hours ago—a woman left a comment for me on my website, and she was saying that she’d gone to high school with my mom and her sisters, “and they were all so pretty.” I mean, she’s a nice lady and she was just reaching out, and that’s fine. But it made me laugh, and it was an example of how my mom’s not alone with her intense feelings about beauty. I’m very appreciative that when I describe someone to other people, I’m not describing how pretty they are. I understand that beauty is valued in this society, and it’s pleasant to look at beautiful people. And of course I care about making myself look presentable; it’s fun to get dressed up sometimes. But beauty is not a value. It’s not something I care about intensely. And I’m so grateful for that.

Beauty Blogosphere 6.3.11


What's going on in the latest beauty news, from head to toe and everything in between. 

From Head...
An oldie but a goodie: A fantastic post from fashion blog Dress a day on why you don't always have to be pretty. "Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female.'" Sing it, sister! (Thanks to Rebekah at Jaunty Dame, who also has a fun "this is the picture I took to the stylist, and this is the haircut I got" post here, for the tipoff.)


Counterfeit beauty: Roughly 85% of cosmetics in Nepal are fakes. They might be sold for cheaper than the real brands, sure—but counterfeit Oil of Olay is a helluva lot likelier to give unwitting consumers a skin rash.


Okay, but sometimes you don't want yellow nails, dig?

To Toe...
DIY beauty: Okay, I'll cover a "product", but only because it's homemade and because switching my pedicure polish from crimson to raspberry did indeed leave me with yellowed nails: Abuela's Yellow Nail Stain Remover.  


...And Everything in Between
"Exercise was my mirror": When blogger Cameo Morningstar was diagnosed with glycogen storage disease a few years ago, she was forced to give up—and, later, scrutinize the motivations behind—her intense workout regimen. Verging on Serious focuses on health, particularly mind-body and the struggle to be as healthy as possible without sliding into obsession; this thoughtful post springs off the control issues that came up in my mirror fast, making the link between the control of the mirror and the control over one's body. "If a mirror is a device one uses to assess and manipulate one’s appearance, then exercise was my mirror." 

Is Facebook a mirror too?: Rob Horning at Marginal Utility suggests that our ability to constantly monitor ourselves through our online presence functions in the same way I was indicating mirrors do for me: "Social-media sites seem to me to be self-consciousness machines."

Clothes shopping without mirrors: Kjerstin Gruys of Mirror Mirror Off the Wall gives it a whirl! Kjerstin, if only we lived on the same coast, we could totally take each other clothes shopping. (I still haven't seen myself in the dresses I bought.) 


We all loved Dove's "Evolution." Why are we still referencing it five years later?


Is knowledge enough?: Social work student Valerie Kusler looks at whether knowing that media images are heavily manipulated can change our perception of them. The answer: sorta. This just means we need more of those counter messages (here's looking at you, Beauty Redefined!)

Enough with the "real women": Tea and Feathers on why applauding body-diverse models by calling them "real" is unhelpful to all of us. (Via Mrs. Bossa)

Sartorialist SERVED: Threadbare's fantastic takedown of The Sartorialist's treatment of service workers, alongside the scrutiny from always excellent Of Another Fashion, will make your eyes roll even farther back into your head as far as the Sartorialist is concerned.   

How racist is the beauty industry?: Um, pretty racist sometimes! Great ads slideshow. I'd argue that skin whitening creams aren't necessarily as racist as they may appear; from women I talked to in Vietnam (which, admittedly, is one country among many), the goal was to look like a woman of leisure, not a white woman. (And sure enough, the compliments random people gave me on the whiteness of my skin decreased exponentially the more tanned I became.) They're still toxic and upsetting, to be sure, and we can't completely extricate race from the equation, but I do think it's more complex than it seems. (Via Beauty Schooled) That said... 

Asian skin development: Estee Lauder is opening an "Asian Innovation Center" in Shanghai to develop products specific to the skin of Chinese and other Asian women. Let's hope it goes beyond whitening, shall we?

More global Estée: New Estee Lauder head of global corporate marketing could be interesting to watch: She's planning on focusing on "global travelers" in megacities, directly anticipating desire instead of following the "customer is boss" approach.

Wow, Darren, way to break type with your female lead opposite Vincent Cassel.


Requiem for a Cologne: I sort of hate Darren Aronofsky (though I did like Black Swan), mainly because Requiem for a Dream was one of the most overwrought, ham-fisted pieces of filmmaking I've ever witnessed. Second only to his commercial for YSL's La Nuit de Homme fragrance, that is! But coming in at two minutes instead of two godforsaking hours makes this totally awesome in its ridiculousness. Vincent Cassel at his sleaziest! (Via Scented Salamander)

Nailed It: Fantastic, well-researched history of nail polish at Beautifully Invisible, focusing on classic red but hitting plenty of intervening trends.

Nurse Jackee: Silly but fun spoof of Nurse Jackie (btw, major girl crush on Merritt Wever!), starring Jackee as a beauty-products-addicted nurse. "Stop primping, start nursing. We're here to save lives," goes her inner monologue after her false eyelashes fall into a patient's spleen.

It might really be all in your head:
I don't know enough about science to comment, but this news about the role of visual processing in body dysmorphia, and this piece on researchers who play with visual processing by making people think they're giants or dwarves (!), seem potentially related. I sort of want to build a center for people with body dysmorphia to go in and lay next to mannequins sized to their bodies and see what happens.

Digital plastic surgery: Beauty Redefined doing what they do, as excellently as ever. This time they examine how we're "Photoshopping ourselves out of existence."

Beauty Blogosphere 5.27.11

The latest beauty news, from head to toe and everything in between.

 Willie Nelson has a venerable place in makeover history.


From Head...
A history of the makeover: Great, entertaining piece at the New Zealand Herald tracing makeovers from ancient China to Willie Nelson ("2011: Willie Nelson cuts his hair off"). 

Too pretty to do math: Oh, Christ. 

Quite an eyeful: Gorgeous eyelid landscapes by artist Katie Alves. 

Bella, bella!: No particular news here; I just want to do a shout-out to Italian photo blog The Feminine Touch, which juxtaposes photos of well-known women (usually, but not always, entertainers) from their height of fame with photos from how they look now. The photos rarely have comment (and when they do, they're in Italian, so...), allowing us to draw our own conclusions—or simply observe—from the way these largely image-conscious women have presented themselves as they age. Totally worth adding to your RSS feed.


To Toe...
The red shoes: Anything that manages to reference both The Wizard of Oz and The Red Shoes (the film AND the fairy tale!) is a must-read: a history of red shoes.

The Red Shoes, 1948, totally creepy and awesome and basically puts Black Swan in a playpen

...And Everything In Between:
The White House on salon worker safety: The White House has launched an initiative to make nail salons just a leetle less toxic. This actually seems pretty exciting: The Environmental Protection Agency has developed a safety workshop series; the Department of Homeland Security (of course) is working on a smartphone that can "sniff" chemical levels in the air and assess worker health; and the Small Business Administration is evaluating how it can incentivize green nail salons. It appears to be spearheaded by Audrey Buehring, senior advisor on intergovermental affairs for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders—fitting, given that 40% of nail workers in the U.S. are Asian. Of course, the EPA has stepped in on behalf of workers before. The agency's previous interventions have left ample room for improvement: One of its worker safety manuals read, "Nail salon products may contain many potentially harmful chemicals that can be a major cause of...health and environmental concerns." You don't say. The EPA strengthened the wording of their guidelines, but it begs the question: How committed to greening up nail salons can the EPA really be? We'll have to wait and see.

Governing taste: Spot-on breakdown of the incredulity of Arnold Schwarzenegger cheating on Maria Shriver with women who supposedly aren't as attractive as she is. Cheating? Sure! Cheating with a normal-looking woman when he's got Maria Shriver at home? He must be a head case!

 Raw food!


Never say diet: Virginia Sole-Smith is rocking the foodie beat hardcore this week (well, she does that every week, but this week's Never Say Diet was particularly awesome): On why we don't "deserve" food (isn't just eating and enjoying it enough?), and why we need to approach "perfect" eating (vegetarianism, raw foods, etc.) with caution.

Damned if you do, grand slammed if you don't: Serena Williams was attacked for posting this picture of herself as a part of the World Tennis Association's Strong Is Beautiful campaign. Lisa Wade at Sociological Images deconstructs the problems behind this; Williams was accused of basically inviting stalkers (which she's had problems with) by appearing sexy. 

The bath/body upsell: Awesome "exposé" from a former peddler of such things, with tips on how to leave, for example, Kiehl's with just the damn lip balm and not, say, the coriander bath set even though you don't even USE bath gel but it smelled so nice and it goes with the lotion and "layering" scents is the way to go and sigh.

Sexy girls have it easy?: Rachel Hills looks at a short documentary that follows a woman through town to discover what she can get for free when she's dolled up versus when she's plain-Jane'd down. The film is interesting enough, but Rachel's take more so. 

Team Estee: Estee Lauder continues to kick butt in the stock market, with Avon not far behind. I am pleased to announce that weight loss company Herbalife trails both.

The art of not being threatened: Anika writes—and shows, with glowing, confident photos—on the near-Zen practice of appreciating the beauty of others instead of turning the gaze inward.

Dressing for your shape: You might already know how much I despise "dressing for your figure," particularly when that figure is being referred to as a piece of fruit. But Mrs. Bossa asks us the question about whether we should aim to dress for our body types, with her usual grace and quiet provocation. Her smorgasbord of independent fashion bloggers answering the question is a delight.

Month Without Mirrors 5.12 Update: Who, and What, I See in the Mirror Other Than Myself

Note: This is a reposting of an entry that was deleted by Blogger during their recent malfunction. Apologies to those wonderfully loyal readers who may have this show up in their RSS feeds twice.

Girl Before a Mirror, Pablo Picasso, 1932

Whenever I'd try to quit biting my fingernails as a kid, inevitably my fingers would find their way to my mouth somehow. In the split second between noticing that I was biting my nails and ceasing to do so, I'd flinch, like I was smacking my brain on the wrist. The flinch was as involuntary as the biting—after all, nail-biting is a bad habit, not a conscious decision in which I'd sit there and weigh whether or not I should bite my nails. I'd feel that mild jolt of "oops! not doing that anymore!" and stop, and that would be that.

Naturally, I've had a few of those moments so far during my month-long abstinence from mirrors. Most of them have been what you'd expect: emerging from an elevator to find a mirror directly ahead, turning the corner and seeing my reflection in an open shop door. I feel the flinch, avert my eyes from my image, and all is well. No big deal. What's concerning me are the times I'm feeling that reflex when there's no mirror involved.

The first time I felt that flinch when there wasn't a mirror around, I'd followed a link that brought me to a pair of Lululemon yoga pants. I mention the brand because Lululemon is associated with a very particular sort of lifestyle: not just yoga, but Yoga of the Upper East Side. Yoga of juice cleanses. Yoga of shiny ponytails anddesigner seaweed. Yoga of silent retreats with Tibetan singing bowls and raw foods buffets. Yoga of maybe thinking you could live on air? Basically: Lululemon embodies a sort of lifestyle that I have a love-hate relationship with, and I look upon the people who successfully embrace that lifestyle with a wary admiration. I like how I feel when I'm being all green-juice-proud-warrior, and those shiny-ponytail ladies tend to look fantastic (hence the admiration). I also know I just don't have the time or dedication to be a true yogi—and that it's also not that far of a trip to crazyland for me if I get too into "pure living" (hence the wariness).

So I was looking at these pants, but was really looking at the model's butt, and then reflexively stopped myself,because I'm not supposed to be looking in mirrors.


The second time, I was waiting to cross the street and saw an arrestingly good-looking young man walking toward me. I looked away, then looked back at him, and my gaze settled on his face. He was handsome and chiseled and also probably 15 years younger than me—which, for the record, would make him barely out of his teens. I'm not prone to double-taking men on the street—it's rude, and I'm in no rush to "turn the tables" of the street dynamic that's more often directed at women. But there he was, young and handsome and muscular and narrow-hipped and with all the time in the world in which to be a good-looking man, blithely walking through the street traffic as though he knew that somehow he would be protected from harm.

And I flinched when I saw this broad-shouldered young man who was totally unknown to me, because I'm not supposed to be looking in mirrors.



Now, it wasn't that I saw myself in these two people: I'm under no illusion that I have a perky yoga butt, nor that I have the sort of presence that routinely causes people to double-take on the street as I did with the young man. It was that in each case, I was treating others the way I sometimes treat myself when I gaze into the mirror. With the Lululemon model, I was taking her apart, zeroing in on one single part of her. And it doesn't matter whether I was looking at her rear end with admiration or admonishment. "Love your body!" wisdom often goes that if you look in the mirror and focus on the parts that you like, you'll feel better about your body. Yet this well-meaning exercise keeps the focus on parts, not the whole; on two dimensions instead of more. I saw a part of her as a possession—an object—that I'd like to own.

As for the young man: Sure, I was ogling him, but that wasn't the link between him and the mirror, as I don't normally ogle myself. (Just a wink here and there, I assure you.) It was that I imbued him with all sorts of qualities that I had no business presuming he actually possessed. He became successful, a heartbreaker, carefree, hopeful. I saw very little of him (how could I; I saw him for mere seconds) but plenty of a type, a set of signals I encoded with something that he wasn't necessarily presenting. I saw him as an object.

Note that each of my flinches weren't about "oops, I just objectified that person"—we all do it occasionally even when we know better, no true harm done. They were specifically a knee-jerk reaction about "oops, I'm not supposed to be doing that because I'm not looking in mirrors." Objectification and the mirror are so tied together for me, however, that my animal brain was unable to untangle the two. And it's worth noting that I never had this flinch when I saw myself being looked at. I had other reactions to that, as I described yesterday. But I didn't recognize anyone else's gaze as being forbidden, only my own.



*   *   *   *   * 


Like all of these reflexive pullbacks, my third instance of flinching lasted less than a second. The buildup to that second has lasted twenty-five years, perhaps more.

You must understand that these moments aren't conscious thoughts; I'm reporting them to you in words because they're the best tool I have to communicate what I experienced in these instants. But words are tools of reason, and each time I've had a no-mirror flinch with no mirror in sight, there was no reason involved, only instinct. When your heart speeds up upon believing you see a crush from afar, you don't consciously think, Wait, that person has a corduroy jacket like him, could that be him? Instead, your heart leaps, your head reels, your eyes get bright and focused. The thought process comes afterward, when you realize that wasn't your object of affection; that it was a stranger, and your heart leaped for naught. It was a malfunction, a result of your body and mind being on high alert to see this person. Your limbic system reacts before your conscious brain can catch up and let you know you're being irrational.

So: The third time I flinched, I was at home, alone, at night. A slight pang of hunger hit me. I went for my usual late-night snack, graham crackers with almond butter. This is something I eat probably three times a week, if not more: It's treat-like but not sugary, satisfying but not heavy. It's perfect. And I've been eating graham crackers with almond butter at least three times a week for about a year and a half, okay? I eat a lot of these miniature sandwiches. Yet familiarity alone does not quell my food-based anxieties: At least once a week—even though I know the information—I look on the side of the graham crackers box to check how many calories are in one serving.

I turned the box on its side to look at the nutritional information, then withdrew my hand from the box as though it were a hot iron. Because I'm not supposed to be looking in mirrors.