We Read It So You Don't Have To: The Un-Lucky Life of Jean Godfrey-June

We hate to admit it, but this week’s installment of We Read It So You Don’t Have To will only save you the time it takes to peruse one page of September’s Lucky.  Still, it’s an egregiously obnoxious one page, so we’ll forge ahead with our summary of Jean Godfrey-June’s “Beauty Spy.”

This month, just like every other month, she initially doubts that she’ll like the product she’ll eventually promote. Is the fragrance too strong? Can any anti-aging ingredient live up to the dramatic claims of its manufacturers? Will the results really be worth the thirty seconds a day it takes to apply the product?

Then, also like every other month, she relates a dull anecdote only vaguely related to the product in question. She rides an elevator with someone who comments on the way she looks and/or smells. Her kids and/or husband question her religious use of some new-fangled device. Or there was this one thing that happened a very long time ago that, through a highly dubious sense of which topics are related, she manages to connect to the product in question.

And—you guessed it, just like every other month—she falls irrevocably in love with the item, cost be damned, and she hoards enough to last through a nuclear winter.

At this point, if these columns are to be believed, the woman must own enough beauty products to stock a Sephora.  And have you seen her on TV? She doesn’t even appear to wear makeup. What is she doing with all of this stockpiled stuff? Should we organize an intervention? Is Lucky complicit in her addiction by depicting her as a charmingly slender and well-dressed cartoon character each month?

But never mind all that negativity—it’s not important. We choose to look at the upside of this potentially disastrous situation: if Jean Godfrey-June continues to trot out these tired tropes month after month, we won’t need to bother reading her page. And we don’t have to relate a boring tale from our childhood to know that skipping this nonsense is something we can recommend to everyone.

The further adventures of Jean Godfrey-June: Lucky Sets New Standard for Passive-Aggressiveness, Long Lashes; Now Which Staffer Will Take Care of Her Hair?

Photo of Jean Godfrey-June and her ever-increasing collection from the News and Observer