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

From Head...

Photoshop yourself...with makeup: I'm behind on this, but when I read about Make Up For Ever's ads with no airbrushing, I got excited. Then I saw that the ads were to promote their HD line of makeup, the idea being that you're basically airbrushed the minute you start wearing the stuff. Nevermind! (Also note the awesome oh-hi-armpit poses and fish-lip faces that nobody, ever, has looked like except when taking their own snapshot, probably after a couple of G&Ts, or am I alone here?)

"I feel like a queen": I'm just a hair skeptical of the Dove campaign, but still took delight in reading about their newest model: a 99-year-old Israeli great-grandmother.

Avon calling: In other senior beauty news: 82-year-old Texan man is recognized as Avon's oldest male rep.

Science sez: On the clean beauty front, a group of influential scientists have officially put forward a call for greater regulation in chemical testing. You know, chemicals like the stuff that goes on your lips, your skin, your eyelashes, your hair. (Thanks to No More Dirty Looks for the tipoff—and in general for their keen attention to this stuff.)

...to Toe
Snakeskin pedicure?!?! I thought we were supposed to be getting away from scaly feet?

Is it worth the vegan beauty brigade's trouble? Girlie Girl Army, take it from here.

One false step: When I first saw this bit on toenail extensions, my eyes rolled back into my brains. But then with the pictures (not for the foot squeamish) and accompanying text that makes it clear this is sort of reconstructive surgery lite, it made me feel warm and fuzzy about the thought of fake toenails. (I'm of the "my feet need to breathe" camp, not the "feet are disgusting and should be covered at times" camp, and if I lost a toenail it would really bum me out aesthetically.)

...and the Things in Between

"Skin balls" (ewww!): This happens to me all the time! Why some body butters "roll off" your skin.

My favorite coverline ever was "Erotic Sex!": Dense but worthy scholarly writeup on Cosmopolitan magazine. It's not that it tells you anything that the irregular reader of Cosmo doesn't know on some level, but it does a nice job of breaking down the data and examining the male gaze aspect of a magazine geared toward women.

Do we want models to look like us?: Glamour called out research that indicates that women say they're more likely to buy goods when the model looks like them. It sounds encouraging, but note that the scholar behind the research is also the CEO of an inclusive modeling agency (plus-size, older, even disabled). I'm eager to see what he does next, since he seems like he understands both the pull for non-alienating models and "aspirational" images. I'm just hesitant to hail this as a sea change quite yet.

Dads in the house: Nice essay on helping your daughter navigate making her way through the beauty myth. Step one: Don't ogle women in front of her, duuuuh.

The Good Girl's Drug: If there's a young woman in your life struggling with food issues, particularly binge eating, please go and buy a copy of this book now. Food: The Good Girl's Drug by Sunny Gold is a fantastic mix of personal story, hands-on advice, cheerleader, and sage. Binge eating can be overcome, and this book shows you how.

I think I'm a Duchamp: Seems I'm not the only one who hates having her body referred to as a piece of fruit: An Australian underwear line is trying to rebrand women's body types to recall great artists—Rubens, Da Vinci, etc. A mild improvement, I suppose (less judgmental, to be sure), but the fact that the word "rebranding" was the most appropriate word I could find here says something.

Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? We American ladies are still after the Frenchwomen's je ne sais quoi? Apparently we're even taking product design cues from them. The airless pump? The mass brands designed to look like high-end, thus creating my mock-favorite word of the week, masstige? That was them.

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