She went on,

Saying that women always simply appreciate another woman's looks without jealousy is a big lie. A HUGE one. Women can be extremely rude, mean, and cutting if they sense another woman may threaten their place in the attractiveness department. This applies especially if that woman is younger. Talk to women who have lost weight amongst a group of friends, and what the reaction was. Talk to women who had childhood friends where someone was a "late bloomer", and ask what the reaction was, and how the group dynamic changed. Talk to women who were called "sluts" in high school, just for being considered beautiful. Talk to women who really are just naturally stunning, and how many other women treat them. Or, go to some rough neighborhoods and talk to young ladies (middle school, high school), who have been physically ATTACKED for being "too cute".

Now, I'd argue that in the case of Fox, my own irritation is as much the public version of that guys'-girl-with-no-girl-friends-because-girls-are-jealous-of-her attitude, that guys always take at face value, as with the actress specifically. After all, I think we all know plenty of stunning women who have no trouble keeping, and maintaining, the friendship of other women. And others, whatever their physical appearance, who've used this line. But she's definitely touched on something we should discuss. Are we, as women, harder on those we perceive as more attractive? And are we dishonest about it? The reader went on,

With all of the discussion on weight, unrealistic standards of beauty, Photoshopping, etc. that are regularly covered, is it REALLY honest at all to pretend that a lot of the "hateration" towards Megan Fox is not attributed to how reader's boyfriends and husbands, male acquaintances would/do react to her? What she represents? Implying that women aren't that insecure, is a fallacy. Otherwise, why the aging creams, Botox, and plastic surgery? The diet threads, the magazine influence on reader's personal perceptions? There are regular commenters on the site who have written about the "shank eye" other women have given them in public spaces.

Are we all hating on Fox because she's beautiful? No. At least, I'm not — for one thing, she's a level of conventional physical perfection that I for one don't even think to compete with. But the reader's larger point is one I really want to hear your takes on. Frankly, I think she's overestimating our collective pettiness, but that doesn't mean there isn't some there. Thoughts?

Earlier: Megan Fox's Minders Are Worried Women Don't Like Her

The Pixels and Policy bloggers interviewed forty Second Life players that presented as female in the game. After acknowledging the extent of gender-swapping that occurs in virtual worlds, the team got down to business.

Out of 40 female avatars interviewed, 70% regarded their bust size as a primary concern when creating a Second Life avatar. Real-world females proved more likely to rebel against the Second Life ideal described by one female avatar as "a balloon chest and a low-cut top." There were several real-world females who embraced a large-chested avatar, though their reasons varied.

"At first I played with an avatar that I thought represented me physically," a Burning Life visitor told me, "But not many people talked to me. Now [with a large-chested avatar] people go out of their way to IM me and send me friend requests." The need to adjust physical features to promote conversation ran deep among real-world women.

Being in a virtual world means that we should be able to don any time of representation that we wish. However, as seen in studies like this one, the biases, prejudices, and beauty standards from the real world follow us into the virtual realm. Interestingly, these ideas were not ascribed to conforming to pre-existing ideas of beauty, but as a virtual beautification process - a way in which to represent an idealized version of our existing real world selves.

It's nothing new to strive for perfection when creating an avatar, but what was especially striking is how many women, when prompted, said their avatars were "better" than their real selves. Not just skinnier or sexier, but better.

The idea of the avatars being seen as "better" should be suprising. As Andrea Rubenstein, avid gamer, game designer, and anti-oppression activist writes:

Studies have shown that many qualities are attributed to people with attractive features–sometimes referred to as the halo effect. These qualities include being seen as warmer, kinder, stronger, more sensible, more outgoing, more socially persuasive and dominant, and even smarter than others. [From Better Game Characters by Design by Katherine Isbister, p. 7]

When I criticize the portrayal of women in video games as being hypsersexualized it has almost nothing to do with creating "attractive" characters or not and everything to do with conflating objectification with attractiveness. As Isbister points out in Better Game Characters by Design, "Whatever the reason, it is the case across cultures that myriad traits considered positive tend to be associated with more attractive people" (p. 8 ). This includes both men and women and is the basis for her recommendation to make most of your characters attractive. [...]

The problem comes in when "attractiveness" for women is defined, as Sheri Graner Ray points out in her book Gender Inclusive Game Design, "as male players would like them to be–young, fertile, and always ready for sex" (p. 104). [...] Simply put, the point I try to make every time I bring up how female characters are hypersexualized is that it is inappropriate sexualization, which puts many women off (not all of women are interested in playing characters created for a presumably male player's wank fantasy) and perpetuates the idea of "attractiveness" in women being inseparable from sexual availability.

While Rubenstein's analysis works well when discussing games with set characters - or with restrictions on how customizable a character can be - it does not quite extend to games like Second Life where people can design their own characters to their own specifications. It is here that we start to see the replication of certain structures in society.

The Pixels and Policy article notes:

Drin Brewster, a provocatively-dressed female avatar, said she dressed suggestively in Second Life because there were no restrictive social norms. The desire to be approached and talked to by another avatar is realized by creating a sexually idealized character.

As in real life, there are benefits to being seen as attractive - the virtual world just adds another level, where the expectation is to be not just attractive, but also sexually attractive. The writers at Pixel and Policy point out:

Far from being openly pushed to a large-breasted, oversexualized ideal, countless Second Life residents are so enveloped in a popular definition of "attractive" that they need no coercion to create a sexually idealized character. In fact, the creation of the sexually-idealized character at the expense of a character more in line with many player's tastes is mostly deemed necessary for making friends.

That reasoning is interesting, but not quite the whole story. For one thing, oversexualized avatars are so prevalent that they have become part of the visual norm in gaming. From the Asari in Mass Effect, to the Viera of Final Fantasy XII, we have come to expect our heroines (and villains) to be attractive, slender, and somewhat sexualized.

And secondly, while the article explains that while women may be subject to the whims of other players, ultimately, they choose their own representations. However, these choices do not exist in a vacuum. As Brinstar, gaming blogger and industry professional wrote, when explaining the shift toward a more feminist consciousness in her personal blogging:

I used to blame attention-seeking women gamers like Jessica Chobot for making it harder for other women gamers to be accepted and welcome amongst male gamers. I heaped scorn and disdain upon women like her for using their sex appeal to get ahead, arguing that they weren't "real" gamers (whatever that meant). I used to think that these women were the problem, rather than indicative of historically and socially constructed structures that went beyond their individual experiences. Rather than examine the reasons why such behaviour is acceptable and rewarded in gaming culture and in society as a whole, I just blamed attention-seeking women gamers for sexism against all women gamers. I was focusing on the wrong things.

These women are acting in ways in which our society encourages and approves of. Sure, they are independent women and capable of making their own decisions in the end, however there is unbelievable pressure for many women gamers to be accepted amongst male gamers, to be "one of the guys". Women gamers have to prove themselves to be twice as better as male gamers to gain the same kind of acceptance that male gamers have automatically just by being male. Is it any wonder that some women will use whatever means they have to their advantage, either consciously or subconsciously? I realised that the problem was far more complex than I'd initially perceived.

I applaud Pixels and Policy for taking the initiative to gather some data. Studies of gaming and culture are still in their infancy, and discussions of things like racism and sexism are newer than conversations surrounding how people respond to newer technology. But it is important to continue to refine and gather data as it is one of the only ways to measure progress, and how attitudes and perceptions in gaming shift as move closer into a pop culture landscape where gaming is on par with movies and television. The Pixel and Policy conclusion is on point:

Virtual worlds aren't a place to escape the confines of gender, because real people will ultimately carry those gender biases and expectations with them. This was made evident during our conversations about how real-world women viewed their avatar.

The Power Of Real-World Gender Roles In Second Life [Pixels and Policy]
The Beauty Myth And Character Design [Official Shrub]
Better Game Characters By Design: A Psychological Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series In Interactive 3D Technology) [Amazon]
The Sexy Space Women Of Mass Effect [Girl in the Machine]
Sexy Bunnygirls Want to Play With You [Girl in the Machine]
Discourse [Acid for Blood]

Related: Idealizing Fantasy Bodies [The Iris Network]
Introduction (The Gaming Beauty Myth, Part 1) [Official Shrub]
Female Gamer Archetypes (The Gaming Beauty Myth, Part 2) [Official Shrub]
Using Beauty To Establish Gamer Cred (The Gaming Beauty Myth, Part 3) [Official Shrub]

In the clip above - we'll be doing a much bigger post on the documentary itself later today - Wells says that even though Allure extensively tests the anti-aging products editors recommend, they may not necessarily do what readers want, or expect, them to. She explains:

If it makes you feel good and you feel like you've got some tiny bit of control over this process, what's the negative?

Aside from issues of false advertising and wasting your time and money on pointless beauty treatments, the young woman in the video below illustrates the real problem with magazines like Allure hawking these products every month:

We find it pretty sad that she's internalized Allure's message that you should fear wrinkles to the point that she worries about it every time she drinks. But according to Wells' logic, her pointless avoidance of straws and water bottles will actually make her feel great about staving off wrinkles... until she succumbs to the natural aging process anyway.

Youth Knows No Pain [Official Website]

"Serious thinkers" talking about pop culture is sort of my favorite thing ever, almost as good as when opera singers cover Stevie Wonder or chefs "reimagine" Twinkies. In recent weeks, we've seen Wolf, Rhodes scholar, prominent third-waver and beauty myth-maker, ask "who won feminism?" - the humorless old hairy-leggers or those of us living the dangerous vida loca?! The answer, according to her Bazaar piece, is Angelina Jolie. See, that's why women love her - "she becomes what psychoanalysts call an "ego ideal" for women — a kind of dream figure that allows women to access, through fantasies of their own, possibilities for their own heightened empowerment and liberation." Hey, you said it, we didn't.

Wolf breaks down Angie's mystical appeal thusly:

She's Hot.

Bosomy and wasp-waisted, with that curtain of hair and those crazy pillowy lips, she is an obvious male sex fantasy...Polls also show that if women — not just lesbian and bisexual women but straight women — had to choose a female lover, they would want to sleep with Angelina Jolie. In other words, women both identify with her and desire her.

She Has it All.

She makes the claim, with her life and actions, that, indeed, you can get away with it. All of it. Against every Western convention, she has managed to draw together all of these kinds of female liberation and empowerment. And her gestures determinedly transgress social boundaries — boundaries of convention, race, class, and gender — giving many of us a vicarious thrill.

She's Done the Impossible Switcheroo from Whore to Madonna. Wolf points to Jolie's long, strange trip - from tiresomely brother-macking, blood-sportin' self-styled shit-show married to grizzled oldster with fear of antique furniture, to the (sexy!) paragon we all know and allegedly love.

She Flies a Plane.

Women are so used to being dependent on others (certainly on men) for where they go, metaphorically, and how they get there. Flying a private plane is the classic metaphor for choosing your own direction; usually, that is a guy thing to do, yet there was Jolie, with her aviator glasses on, taking flying lessons so she could blow the mind of her four-year-old son. That is the ultimate in single-mom chic: Even before she had reconstructed a nuclear (or postnuclear) family with a dad at the head of it, she was reframing single motherhood from a state of lack or insufficiency to a glamorous, unfettered lifestyle choice.

She's Takes Lovahs.

Equally ostentatiously in her role as lover, she took for her own pleasure the male seen as the most desired of the tribe, Brad Pitt, who is always ranked at the top of indexes of male beauty and virility. As for the constraints of social convention — ahem, he was still married? You can have a variety of feelings about this, but Jolie's evident disdain of that social constraint certainly, for better or worse, put her in the same self-entitled category as those men who have traditionally taken what they wanted and let the emotional chips fall where they may.

To those of us who find Brangelina impossibly dull (or, you know, fine in Girl, Interrupted and attagirl for UNICEF) her appeal is more like this: people like crappy movies, too. Movies full of abrupt transitions and overblown characters. (What this says about our feminist acumen I'm not sure, but then, Wolf doesn't think much of that.) I'm not sure if Wolf is paying Angie's fans the ultimate compliment or just being really patronizing. She's not wrong: clearly women are drawn to the dramatic highs and lows of the Angelina storyline, the family's beauty and diversity, the novelty of a movie star using her powers for good, the idea of a goddess who has it all. But is that a good thing? (If this is "having it all," "having it all" was a lot more literal than I ever knew.)

Brangelina are totally enigmatic; we don't know anything about them except the Harlequin-worthy synopsis. People like them because they can project whatever they want onto them. Maybe moms fantasize about Angie reading to her kids at night, then having hot sex with Brad. Those who want to turn their lives around probably are inspired by this scion of movie star and model who's fearlessly pursued a course of growing up. Doubtless somebody somewhere has taken up flying as a result. Hopefully a few have turned to good works. (Ideally no one, anywhere, will allow Angelina Jolie to have any impact on her decision to adopt or not.) Some woman involved with a married dude may stay with him that much longer because of her tabloid happy-ending. Some people will see The Last Kiss and think it's profound. And Naomi Wolf will look at Angelina Jolie and project her own fantasies: a feminist icon whom women love because they think the right way. And that right there pretty much justifies the Forbes pick.

The Power of Angelina [Harper's Bazaar]

Related: What's Angelina Jolie's Allure? [People]
The World's Most Powerful Celebrities [Forbes]
Who Won Feminism? [Washington Post]

Elizabeth Wurtzel is someone whom many blame for the current vogue in oversharing and personality-driven youthquaking. Privileged, fucked up, and, of course, pretty, Wurtzel's always had enemies whom she could dismiss, infuriatingly and with some justification, as merely jealous. Although a genuinely compelling writer and a defining voice of her generation, she's someone who's always mistaken candor as a substitute for insight. And with the narcissist's blithely narrow world-view, has always ascribed a universality to her own experiences, mistaking our voyeurism for empathetic commiseration.

Most of all, love her or hate her, Wurtzel was always a professional Young Woman. And as an ambassador of her generation, Wurtzel's aging process is of more than usual interest to the public she claimed as her due 20 years ago. Which makes this Elle article, "Failure to Launch: When Beauty Fades," incredibly depressing. Basically, Wurtzel is growing older. And, in her words, "people who say they have no regrets, that they don't look back in anger, are either lying or boring, not sure which is worse." Not for her serenity and wisdom. No, she is panicking at the thought of losing the power of her beauty, her hold over (horrible-sounding) men, desperate to preserve her youthful looks ("Thank God for La Mer and Retin-A and Pilates"). As she explains with characteristic candor, she was always a beautiful child, a "hot number," a woman who traded on her looks. And she misses it. While she sees the danger and futility of valuing beauty overmuch, she can't help it: panic trumps insight and she doesn't seem eager to stop it. And it's scary to see a smart and accomplished woman so openly in the thrall of others' opinions.

In Salon, Amy Benfer ruefully analyzes this depressing meditation on mortality, and comes away disheartened. While she dispatches Wurtzel's self-deception and lack of insight with a razor-sharp incisiveness (and do read it), there is, as she points out, no schadenfreude to the exercise: it's impossible to take any pleasure in such naked unhappiness. In a way, though, we're grateful to it. While one can't help but come away from "Failure to Lauch: When Beauty Fades" feeling really sad for its author, if she wants to cast herself as a cautionary tale, we're willing to learn the lesson. Early success, education, conventional beauty, a thin body - Wurtzel achieved everything we're taught to want, indeed, helped form the modern mold of what we want. We're told all the time that this isn't everything, but it helps a lot to have that reinforced by an essay like this. Teenage girls should read it. And then they should listen to another youth icon, now turning 50. It was, after all, Morrissey who said, "age shouldn't affect you. It's just like the size of your shoes - they don't determine how you live your life! You're either marvellous or you're boring, regardless of your age."

Failure To Launch: When Beauty Fades [Elle]

Confessions of a middle-aged "Bitch" [Salon]

To most of us, the news that one can live without regular facials is hardly earth-shattering. Says one dermatologist, "'Getting a facial is a great cost to cut,' because, unlike sunscreen, 'it's not doing anything preventative or anything long term for your skin.'" Well, no: you don't need to be a Lamarck expert to figure out that an extraction and mask isn't going to have permanent effects.

But then, apparently that's exactly what some folks to believe — or, rather, what ever-more-elaborate, pricey, and scientific-sounding facial treatments have sold folks on.

Aestheticians say that so-called oxygen facials can plump skin, produce collagen and regenerate new cells. A company called Intraceuticals has its technology in 300 spas, resorts and doctors' offices nationwide. It uses pressurized oxygen to deliver modified hyaluronic acid to the face, but doesn't have any research to back its machine, said Deirdre Burke, the director of sales and education. Still, the company believes in its efficacy, she said, adding, "If you have had a treatment, you're a believer."

The whole lucrative miracle facial phenomenon has caused some friction with dermatologists, who call the treatments so much hokum, and no substitute for the arts of medicine. "They're bad-mouthing us because they want our business to go to them," says one aesthetician.

The real issue, I suppose, is whether the regular facial will be a recession casualty. For most of us, it already is — if we ever got them at all. In my experience, treatments like this are more a sop to one's sense of self than anything else. While a facial can certainly make skin glow (and the pain and breakout make you know it's working!) that glow is more than matched by the good feeling of knowing you are "taking care of yourself." The truth is, unless the extraction is treating chronic acne, most of us can probably do okay with a tube of apricot scrub and some Cetaphil. And this is one of those "Styles" pieces that feels like it has so little relationship to real life that you're left wondering about a world in which an oxygen facial is in the rotation in the first place, let alone a year into a recession. What's curious about pieces like this is that they acknowledge the economy — but in such a peculiarly let-them-eat-cake fashion that it's almost more insulting.

I'm not going to lie to you: last night, I made myself a facial mask out of an egg yolk. It was tight and gross and my face looked none the firmer after its application. But the (big) part of me that relished making my own perfumes and potpourris from kits as a kid enjoyed the ancient do-it-yourself aspect of it. I don't know what will happen to the facial industry, and I hope small businesses don't suffer too terribly as a result of some folks' recognition that facials aren't a life necessity. But anything that leads to an increase in hands-on dorkery, potion-making and general Jennifer Hecate Macbeth-style shenanigans is surely a silver lining.

An Expression of Doubt About Facials [New York Times]

So, according to the Sun, British plastic surgeons have seen an upswing in certain procedures, like "people wanting to get rid of thread veins and redness around the nose and cheeks." Men's procedures, like man-boob-reduction and hair implants, are also going strong, with male brow lifts alone up by 60% this year in Britain. Says a spokeswoman for one plastic surgeon,

We've been in business for 30 years and we have found that recessions are times when people still want to look and feel good, especially in a competitive work place...People want to look good and are willing to make cut backs on going out, shopping and luxuries like holidays in order to look good every day of the year.

One doctor explains that the redness around the nose can make a job candidate look "drunk," while a hair transplant surgeon tells the LA Times, "If you have two people coming in for a job, and one of them is partly bald, you'll think that the one with hair has more youth and vitality." The perceived benefits of implants are, I suppose, apparent.

It's not hard to see that, as in many things plastic surgical, the actual issue here is one of confidence, and I'm guessing most of these people would probably have made surgery a priority in any case. As such, it seems unfair for these doctors to play upon their insecurities to such a degree. On the other hand, anyone dwelling on perceived faults probably is hurting themselves in a job search ...and, of course, the cosmetic surgery market's hurting, so no one's shocked that the docs are playing up the angle. But much as "The Economy" has given some people an excuse to drop gym memberships or cross cousins off wedding guest lists, surely it's serving as a rationale for a few people who might have otherwise denied themselves...which goes to show that a) you can justify anything and b) at the end of the day, you really don't have to.

To Get A Job – Get A Boob Job [The Sun]

In A Hairy Market, Can Transplants Aid The Balding? [LA Times]

A new photo exhibit in Milan, featuring images of 'beauty' dating back to the 1930s, provides a chance to analyze how our perceptions of "the most valuable currency in the fashion industry" has changed. Nowadays, says Givhan, our conception of beauty is an amalgam of advertising, media, medical science, plastic surgery and of course socioeconomic factors. "The folks in charge of our popular culture make the rules about beauty. The people who direct the movies, publish the magazines and create the television characters that become our constant companions, absorb the shifts and upheavals in our lives and sell them back to us. "

And nowadays, it's all about a combination of fragility and muscle tone: you have to be beautiful, perfectly groomed, but also fit and tough. Time in front of the mirror's not enough; you also need to log hours in the gym.

The exhibition serves as a guide to how we have gotten to this point on the beauty continuum — for better and for worse. Today, women willingly spend hours in the gym lifting the kind of weight that their mother or grandmother would have considered practically vulgar because they believe beauty is enhanced by a sculpted physique and the strength that goes along with it. And television gives us the pretty cops and investigators on "Law and Order" and "CSI" who are always tough and never have bad hair days. "Cagney & Lacey" meets "Charlie's Angels." That's modern beauty..But we have also come to a point where beauty is maintained by expensive and time-consuming rituals. Manicures and pedicures are no longer luxuries; they have become as de rigueur as brushing one's teeth. Along with eyebrow arching, teeth whitening, facials and massages, things that were once occasional treats have become necessities. Why? Beauty standards have been raised through retouched photographs, the constant recitation of celebrity grooming habits, the eternal rerunning of "Sex and the City" and the insatiable fascination with "Gossip Girl."

In a sense, our new notions of beauty echo other unrealistic expectations we face: beauty is expensive, time-consuming, demanding, painful - but wholly necessary. You've only to watch an episode of Made to know that grooming, straightened hair and heels are regarded as essential to well-roundedness as grades and accomplishments. And as Givhan points out, beauty in the classic sense isn't enough anymore: you must be thin but muscled, effortless but manicured, expensive but cool. If beauty is still a reflection of aspirational societal goals, this contradiction makes sense. Celebrity, after all, is a weird combination of "real" and manufactured, in which stars' effortless perfection is a lie we all willingly buy into.

Channeling the Ideal of Modern Beauty [Washington Post]

The scientists who ran the study - one Nicholas Epley and one Erin Whitchurch - showed a bunch of students pictures of their faces, brought them back a few weeks alter and asked them to identify their face from a series of eleven morphed images, which ranged from, as Scientific American terms it, "an extremely attractive gender-matched composite face or unattractive targets suffering from craniofacial syndrome." And apparently folks chose "more attractive" versions of themselves.

If this is true - and already the notion of "extremely attractive gender-matched composite faces" is setting off some Eugenics-triggered alarm bells - then, isn't it basically a good thing? After all, if by "beauty" we mean a socially acceptable consensus, then surely overestimating one's similarity to said ideal can only make self-confidence higher, never bad. Basically, it means we overestimate our sexual desirability, which seems like a survival instinct less than an artificial product of inflated self-esteem. They don't mention, of course, those few poor souls who went for the " craniofacial syndrome" version of themselves - who, one hopes, were given a little gratis counseling.

Think You're Good-Looking? Think Again [Scientific American]

Douvall, a "glamour model" famous in Britain for having kissed and told about various celeb boyfriends, has had 15 boob jobs, facelifts, and repeated operations to change the shape of her face. Doctors in the UK will no longer treat her, so Douvall comes to the States for surgery and lies about her medical history. She says she has been known to walk into a surgeon's office without a clear idea of the procedure she wants, as long as she gets something. She tells the Independent, "Imagine playing Russian roulette with your life,t hat's what I'm doing. It's out of control, and has cost me more than £1m. Before I decided to come to Malibu, I'd accepted that I was going to carry on with it until I was either bankrupt or dead...I've had so many operations that I can't feel my stomach, my left breast, or anything under my right arm."

Douvall's a pretty clear case of body dysmorphic disorder, and it's heartening to know she's treating her addiction. Why she's doing it on a celeb rehab reality show is another matter, but we'll take the charitable approach and hope the example helps others with cosmetic surgery addictions. And if exposure is the only way certain celebrities can be induced to get help, well then, so much the better. The nature of the treatment is somewhat controversial, focusing as it does on "curing" addictions rather than adhering to the time-tested AA-style approach that addiction can only be managed. Douvall found the round of experts and intensive therapy so draining that she describes breaking down numerous times per day (which we would sort of assume is standard in rehab) and after the show wrapped, she stayed on an additional two weeks. Has it worked? Well, Douvall recently canceled an appointment for an upcoming "toe facelift," so we can only hope.

Alicia Douvall: Addicted To Cosmetic Surgery [Independent]

We knew the implant industry had taken a hit, but brace yourself: according to the New York Times, Botox, which analysts thought could weather any storm, is down. "The company reported that sales of Botox - both for wrinkle-smoothing and for medical problems like eyelid spasms - fell about 3 percent, to about $329 million in the fourth quarter, compared with the corresponding quarter in 2007." Also hurting: the face-plumping racket (which, in fairness, probably the same industry.)

As such, Allergan, the maker of Botox, is bring forced to lay off five percent of its workforce and use all sorts of incentives to entice people. "These include a $50 coupon on a Botox treatment and a $100 rebate if a customer buys two syringes of Juvéderm, a facial filler. The company has also just introduced Latisse, a $120 eyelash growth drug, which could help drive cosmetic consumers into doctors' offices." And sales are only expected to drop further.

What we'll be curious to see is how the industry rebounds. Sure, any hardcore Botox junkies aren't going to deny themselves, and as the Times points out, the bulk of Allergan's revenue comes from insurance-funded medical procedures. But as we know, cosmetic procedures can be addictive: what will happen to those people who have been forced to abstain from Botox and other such procedures and are forced to deal with their faces in their natural form, perhaps for the first time in years? Will they be appalled by the normal affects of living and time? Or will they, perhaps, come to deal with it - and even like it? We're hoping the latter. The Times calls this drop "Vanity's Downturn," but we're guessing the Seven Deadlies don't go that easy. More realistically, we're anticipating a major upswing in the "surgery-alternative" cream market.

Vanity's Downturn [New York Times]

Says writer Sarah Kershaw, "It is an awkward topic, a wretched concept, really, and, of course, a terrible insult when flung in your direction." Studies have found that "lookism" exists in almost all spheres of life. A 1994 study, “Beauty and the Labor Market,” found that "unattractive people" earn between five and ten percent less than those found to be beautiful. San Francisco and Washington have put anti-looks-discrimination looks on their books. But it's not as straightforward as other discrimination issues: for one thing, people don't like to think of themselves as "ugly," found wanting behind some societal velvet rope, and why would anyone? It's an absolute insult, yet wholly subjective. It says, in essence, whatever else you are, it doesn't matter.

Then too, what even is "ugliness?" The piece points out that while perceptions of beauty are pretty much cross-cultural — they generally hinge on symmetry and certain perceptions of health — there is no "ugliness" standard and it can be hard to separate such discrimination from racial and ethnic prejudices. It's no secret that more attractive people are perceived as superior and that conventional "beauty" is an asset in almost any industry, but the definition of "ugliness" and its attendant lookism is far more fluid. The only constant? It's bad. "Ugliness is associated with evil and fear, with villains and monsters: the Wicked Witch of the West, Freddy Krueger and Harry Potter’s arch-meanie, Lord Voldemort, with his veiny skull, creepy slits in his nose for nostrils and rotten teeth."

Several people in the piece claim we're having a brief "ugliness moment" because cultural phenomena like Ugly Betty and Shrek celebrate "bringing ugly back." But this cute "ugliness" — which basically consists of a cute girl wearing a frumpy outfit — has nothing to do with the true physical differences that have traditionally stood as shorthand for deeper deficiencies. And this superficial acceptance of the other lasts only as long as it takes for the next episode of Extreme Makeover or Style by Jury to begin, allowing the unfortunate subject to get a new face. We might study the idea of "ugliness" in art and society, confront our prejudices, but the truth is we are so insulated from any difference that, ironically, anyone without braces or Accutane strikes us as grotesque. Today, my Grandpa Moe would probably have been put on Extreme Makeover. But when he was a kid, even if people were a lot crueller, there was no pretense of false acceptance — and at the end of the day, he was just another person.

Move Over, My Pretty, Ugly Is Here [New York Times]

Apparently home spa products, "an amorphous category that can include anything from tooth-whitening strips to plug-in steam facials" is a growing market, since penny-pinching rich people are now skimping on spa retreats and plastic surgery. The article goes on to quote various experts who, unsurprisingly, debunk the products' claims. But snake oils aside, Marie Antoinette-like conceptions of economy aside, what the hell is wrong with us that this kind of a placebo is necessary?

I'm not under the illusion that rich women pampering themselves is a new phenomenon — Cleopatra, asses' milk, etc. and heck, even the Tin Man gets a shine in the Emerald City — but as we all know, the prevalence and attainability — nay, the pressure to pamper yourself! — of such products is relatively recent. I saw Cindi Leive, the Glamour editor, on the Today show the other morning talking about ways women could save money, and obviously beauty treatments came up. She made the point that small luxuries we take for granted — manicures and pedicures and facials — would have been pretty much unthinkable to prior generations. But whereas once getting treatments was the purview of luxury, now it's a necessary sign of the aggressive "self-love" that is apparently measured, ironically, by very traditional mercantile standards.

I for one am heaving a silent sigh of relief that the pressure to get professional grooming — because we're worth it, or something — is abating. What's obviously been a boon for various beauty and spa industries is a serious waste of money for the rest of us. Don't get me wrong: I know a thorough facial is a good thing when I can afford it, my home-polished toes never look any good and I enjoy a free ride in the massage chair when I'm at the Sharper Image, too. But the feeling that luxury — and more to the point, getting other people to do things for and to you — is an accepted part of women's lives might be one of the healthier casualties of the economic turmoil.

A Tupperware Party For The Body [New York Times]

While the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics seeks to address the issue by getting companies to "pledge to phase out the use of chemicals linked to health problems and replace them with safer ingredients," Garrity developed Organic Diva as a direct resource for products that are not only safe, but vetted — she's extensively tested all of them — and without the confusing jargon, says the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "She's wary of marketing terms such as "natural," "pure," "clean," "green" and "organic" because there are no standards for such adjectives." As Garrity puts it, "If you have a vat of uranium and throw in an organic flower, you still have a vat of uranium...We really need to be thinking nontoxic." Accordingly, any company she promotes on her site have "signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics; they rate well on the Skin Deep Report developed by the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org), they fully disclose their ingredient list," and it has to meet her standards. Both sunscreen and mascara are apparently problematic.

Now, all this is awesome. And I'm sure if I had health problems like Garrity's — or, for that matter, kids — I'd run home right now and toss all my products (many of which have probably fooled me with buzzwords like "pure" and "organic.") Will I? No. I don't smoke and I eat organic and I try to be responsible for my bit of planet but at some point I give into fatalism and stop worrying. Because I'm still stupid enough that I want my sunscreen to glide on — I don't want to rub it between my hands to soften it — and I want my mascara to not clump, damn it! And maybe this is reckless and foolhardy and a product of being young, but I'm always left thinking: what is this Rousseauian purity we're in search of, in which everyone lives forever and never gets cancer? When humans were at their purest — in some pre-historic age, surely, when everything was certainly organic and the air was nothing if not pollution-free - the life-expectancy was probably something like forty. Was there some magical period when purity and hardship didn't overlap? With no scientific or historical backing, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, no. This site sounds awesome, don't get me wrong, and the more resources we have, the better. But from a personal and philosophical perspective, I have to stop worrying about the small-scale things at some point; there are few enough things in this world that only effect you without larger ramifications.

*Debbie Downer sound effect

Beauty Without Toxins[Star Tribune]