Oh man, cosmetic surgery, right!?? Those people are so embarrassing. All consensually altering their bodies in an effort to feel beautiful and emotionally fortified after spending a lifetime in a grueling culture that hammers into them the message that physical perfection is all that matters and human worth has an… » 5/22/14 6:30pm 5/22/14 6:30pm

"Not wearing makeup: is it feminism, laziness or the rise of cosmetic normcore?" wonders Slate. Huh. Good question: having a face and not smearing cosmetics upon it: is it a political statement, sloth, or, uh, some kind of weird fashion thing? Or could be it be some strange, unheard-of fourth option... such as being a… » 4/17/14 2:55pm 4/17/14 2:55pm

Dove has moved their marketing strategy away from merely using "Real Women" as models and towards manipulating "Real Women" as part of totally unscientific experiments that prove nothing. The latest iteration of this project is Dove Patches, a patch for your arm full of a magic substance that makes you feel more… » 4/09/14 11:20am 4/09/14 11:20am

How can we as a society tolerate you if you have the temerity to conduct your life in such a way that the appearance of your corporeal being actually corresponds with the number of years you've existed on earth? It's as if no one told you that the eight things you're doing nearly every day to feel better are… » 2/06/14 6:15pm 2/06/14 6:15pm

No one has gray hair on purpose, k? Gray hair is only something old people or weird early agers have or people who don't know better. Something people have who've decided to not "fix" the problem everyone else can see plain as day. But Kate Middleton left her house recently with gray hairs and didn't plan in advance… » 11/09/13 3:00pm 11/09/13 3:00pm

Once, on a blind date in my twenties, a guy I instantly didn't like realized this and said something hilariously awful by date's end: "You're a bitch, and you're not even pretty enough to be a bitch." It's funny because I totally was pretty enough. No, it's funny because HE LOOKED LIKE AN AARDVARK. Actually, it's… » 10/22/13 11:20am 10/22/13 11:20am

Ladies: things are wrong. Things are wrong with me, and they're wrong with you. Other (perfect) people don't have things wrong, but we do, you and me. And if we fix the things that are wrong by purchasing products and services, the wrongness will sort of drift away and we'll garner the admiration we so crave — or at… » 10/17/13 11:25am 10/17/13 11:25am

Did anyone else miss the day when girls got good at applying makeup? I must've been out sick when some magical fairies came in and taught us how to apply tangerine bronze to create cheekbones and purple eye liner to make green eyes pop. When I put on those things, I actually look like a jack-o-lantern. And not a cute… » 10/14/13 11:30am 10/14/13 11:30am

Young women's internet-fueled obsession with the "thigh gap"—which is that thing where your thighs don't touch and therefore it's "better" (cool made-up garbage, beauty myth!)—is raising concerns among eating disorder professionals. For most women, a thigh gap is a physiological impossibility, not a goal that's… » 10/09/13 10:00am 10/09/13 10:00am

I read or hear about beauty and women about every single day. Partly, I'm in it, so to speak — the rabbit hole of things women think and talk about. But also it just comes up a lot in the background of conversations about being alive. And it's always pretty much in the exact same way: Women are supposed to be… » 10/07/13 5:43pm 10/07/13 5:43pm