Glossed Over

Glossed Over Book Club: Jean Godfrey-June's Free Gift with Purchase, The Merciful End

So, this Jean Godfrey-June book ?  It goes on for an awful long time about lunches.  Sometimes companies serve lavish midday meals at fancy restaurants in order to garner good press!  Real shocker there.  And there are about forty-seven explanations of why she hates having her picture taken.  And then there are a billion pages—approximately—describing various levels of intrigue she faced during her tenure at Elle, which might have been interesting, except that every player is saddled with a cumbersome code name like “Above the Fray.”  The French execs at the magazine try to use European photo shoots in the American edition, and Above the Fray tussles with Eminence Grise and the Playboy and the Fashionista, and, well, there’s a reason we don’t watch daytime soap operas.

We can barely get through the one page she pens in Lucky, so it was clearly expecting too much that we’d be entertained all the way through a 271-page book that consists entirely of poorly organized personal anecdotes and impossible-to-execute beauty tips.  (We tried that concealer stripe, by the way.  No dice.)

All we really wanted out of this book was dirt about Lucky and/or Kim France. And now that we've read every single page, some of them twice because they were so incomprehensible, we’ve compiled a list, based mostly on the book’s final chapter, of the details we gleaned.  We hope that these small morsels of information will be enough to prevent all of you from undertaking the onerous task of reading Free Gift with Purchase.

1. Jean’s office at the magazine is “private-but-not-exactly-private.”  We don’t know what that means either!  Apparently, Jean is so confident in her descriptive abilities that she doesn’t feel the need to expound on this.

2. Speaking of nebulous descriptions:

If Kim uses the word perfect to describe someone, it’s not a good sign.  “She’s overperfect!” Kim once said of an impeccable, extremely fashiony [agh!] staff member, who, incidentally, ejected herself early on.  (There are plenty of superhot gals at Lucky, don’t get me wrong, by perfect I mean that smug, overly groomed, tucked-and-folded-scarf thing that some pretty girls feel enhances their attractiveness.)

3. In a departure from the magazine world’s status quo, the fashion department is “not mean.”  What a ringing endorsement!

4. Kim France has banned the use of certain words in the magazine, which explains why they feel the need to make up new ones!

…we ripped through “bohemian” in the first year; “glamorous” and “amazing” are currently on the endangered list.  “Fashionista” has been banned from the start.

5. Flattery will get you everywhere at Lucky.

Kim is smart smart smart and beautiful and successful (I know, it’s kissing up to the boss, but it’s true)...

6. We believe this claim is a blatant lie:

My test for any piece of writing I’m involved with is known around the office as the “Say this aloud to your smartest friend” test.  Would the friend look at you as if you were crazy?  Don’t write it that way, then.

Really?  Really?  Either Jean doesn’t know anyone who’s very smart, or her friends have a high tolerance for insanity.

7. Finally, Jean once attempted to wear a pair of mold-encrusted shoes to party.  Which, presumably, is why she’s writing about makeup and not about fashion.

Next up in the Glossed Over book club? Falling Out of Fashion, written by Jane Pratt’s former assistant Karen Yampolsky, is the almost-true tale of the editor-in-chief of Sassy and Jane magazines.  We don’t want to give too much away, but we can tell you this much: editorial wunderkind Jill White has an absolutely stellar assistant! 

Lowest Common Denominator: InStyle, January

2: Number of pages devoted to Kate Hudson (“Her 10 best, ever!”)

4: Additional photos of Kate Hudson throughout the issue (pages 78, 112, 115, 149)

7, not counting writer Johanna Schneller: People who gush over Katie Holmes in “What Katie Wants” (The illustrious Kate Cruise Fan Club counts the following luminaries as members: Sherry Lansing, Giambattista Valli,  Diane Keaton, Giorgio Armani, Victoria Beckham, Callie Khouri, and Christopher Bailey of Burberry.)

29: Percentage of paragraphs in “What Katie Wants” in which Katie gushes about Tom Cruise or “being a wife”

Way, way too much: Amount Katie is trying to make her marriage appear sound

1: Ludicrous statement about femininity in “Figure Flattery.”  The collarbone is, according to InStyle, “arguably one of the most feminine parts of a woman’s body.” Wait, are they really claiming certain parts of a woman’s body are more feminine than others?  No word on which parts are, like, unacceptably gender-neutral.

1: Animal whose fur is suggested as a “problem solver” for upper arms in the same article (That’d be the rabbit, and there’s a shrug and a capelet crafted of its pelt.)

$54.80: Average price of the “positively affordable” items in “Deals & Steals,” which is—surprise!—actually affordable

3: Photos of Jennifer Garner in the same magenta Zac Posen dress (pages 75, 76, and 110). We love us some Sydney Bristow, and it’s a gorgeous dress, but three times?

1: Number of animate objects listed in “Designer Lust List” (Jenni Kayne says a French bulldog is a must-have.  Dogs, yes!  But pups as fashion accessories?   God, no.)

10: Steps involved in a “simple…approach to getting it right in the new year and beyond,” per “Beauty 2008: Your Master Plan”

Absolutely none: Amount of interest we have in developing a “master plan” involving a “signature scent”  and hair accessories.  Like we have nothing better to do?

42: Percent of ad pages in this issue which tout cosmetics, skincare, and haircare products

26: Words we read in the Vanessa Williams story.  They were: “Can a native New Yorker like Vanessa Williams find true bliss—and a really good soy chai latte—way out West?  You bet your sweet Buddha.”

Approximately a billion: Number of times we’ve seen the story about a New Yorker moving to L.A.  Doesn’t anyone east of the Mississippi realize that we do, in fact, have bagels on the West Coast?

Infinitely: Degree to which we were bored with this issue

Glossed Over Book Club: Jean Godfrey-June's Free Gift with Purchase, Chapters Two-Four

Chapter Two:  This is the chapter that made us almost—almost—like Jean Godfrey-June.  (Don’t worry—the feeling quickly faded.)  Her tale of sneaking into the bathroom to apply makeup before her boyfriend woke up struck a chord with us.  Her recollection of a science teacher who turned slaughterhouse remnants into Viking helmets did not.  There was an actual point to the story, something trite about how beauty rituals allow people to have control in a chaotic world, but we aren’t sure how the science teacher anecdote related to it, and we refuse to read those paragraphs again.  Ew.

Chapter Three: Jean’s father eats tuna covered in ketchup and molasses every morning.  We’re sure there was more substance (or at least more text) to this chapter, but that disgusting concoction is pretty much all we remember.  Oh!  And she’s always had the obnoxious habit of adding suffixes to extant words to create, well, non-extant ones.  As a child, she added “-ington” to people’s names—Jeanington, etc.  And, in a stunning display of naivete or stupidity, she chose to attend the University of Colorado because the subscription cards in her favorite magazines were addressed to Boulder, and she therefore assumed that the city was a hotbed of periodical publishing.  Sure, we’ve made life choices based on false information too, but you don’t see us writing about them for the world to see, do you?

Chapter Four: In what is surely its first appearance ever, the phrase “nasolabial-fold-emphasizing” appears in a story about getting a pedicure with a porn star.  (And we’re not sure what this says about our reading material, but we’ve seen that  “nasolabial” everywhere lately, usually followed by the admonition that it’s not dirty.  Enough!  We know!)  There are multiple tales of beauty rivalries with friends that are neither interesting nor vicious nor revelatory.  Beauty tip: Lauren Hutton suggests drawing a concealer stripe down the center of your nose  to make it look smaller.  And news flash!  Models endorsing beauty products are just there to collect a paycheck.  One unnamed model floundered when it was her turn to present the products to Jean; another anonymous mannequin admitted publicly that she had never smelled the fragance she was touting.

Next up: Jean continues her series of stories that are probably charming if you know her personally but are inexorably dull to the those of us who don’t.  Also, she goes out to lunch!  A lot!

Glossed Over Book Club: Jean Godfrey-June's Free Gift with Purchase

Last week, we celebrated our birthday.  And now we’re old!  Awesome!  One of our gifts was a copy of Jean Godfrey-June’s book, Free Gift with Purchase: My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup.  We didn’t open it for a few days because, well, we were busy studying the bags under our eyes.  But last night, we put on our glasses and succumbed to the siren call of the paperback.  We couldn’t hold off any longer. Godfrey-June’s column is the second thing we read in Lucky every month, right after Kim France’s letter from the editor.  And we had so many questions! 

• Would Godfrey-June’s aversion to plastic surgery somehow make us feel better about our aging face?  Not so far!

• Were the descriptors inside as shamelessly fabricated as the words in her monthly column?  Sure, if you count the use of “tint-y.”

• Would the book be crammed with lengthy go-nowhere personal anecdotes?  Well, yeah.  Like the book would even exist without boring tales from her childhood?

• And would she spill any insider dirt about Lucky?  Sort of.  But we’re only on the first chapter.  Hope abounds!

After the jump, the highlights from Chapter One.

Lowest Common Denominator: Marie Claire, December

0: Number of cosmetic procedures Nicole Kidman claims to have had in “Nicole Kidman Spills…”

0: Amount of credibility that statement holds when compared to the cover photo and this particularly jarring shot (Remember when she actually had pigment?)

$37,990: Price of the YSL Downtown Croc Tote, the most expensive item featured in “Shopping Deconstructed” (The article attempts to answer the burning question, “How can a bag cost more than med school?”  We get the how, but we’re still wondering about the why.)

4: Of the seven cars featured in “Primp My Ride,” the number that cost less than the YSL bag (Hence the reason we’re still working on the why.  A bag that costs more than a car?  Is that ever necessary?  Forty grand for a purse is just plain vulgar.)

$20,855: Value of the five ensembles worn by reader Sarah Annibale in “Fashion Boot Camp”

26.8: Percent of the average Marie Claire reader’s household income needed to purchase those same outfits (source: Marie Claire’s media kit, registration required)

$1,385: Retail price of a Versace gold clutch shown in “Clutchy-Feely,” page 64

$650: Price of an Orlane Paris cream containing pure gold extract, as shown in “Beauty Deconstructed”

$797.80: Price of one ounce of gold (source)

5: Pages devoted to the story “Step Away from the Chardonnay!” which is an ever-so-helpful guide to “choosing your booze”

9: Number of pages of Bacardi Rum advertising located immediately adjacent to the aforementioned story (an eight-page insert plus a full-page ad)

2: Pages of alcohol advertising placed elsewhere in the issue

101: Number of readers who appear in for “101 Dresses (on 101 Readers)”

26: Median age of readers depicted in “101 Dresses (on 101 Readers)”

37.1: Median age of Marie Claire readers (source)

$1,320: Average annual per capita income in Bhutan, where fashion spread “A Stitch in Time” was shot (source)

4: Number of items depicted priced greater than $1,320, not including a “price upon request” Maxmara dress

Well, that’s one way to sell stuff… • By insulting potential customers and reinforcing stereotypes at the same time!  Who knew such a feat was possible?  Here’s our least favorite celeb turned brand name Sarah Jessica Parker discussing her signature fragrances, as quoted in “The Fragrance Diaries” in the December issue of InStyle.  “Lovely is very polite.  It’s the girl you marry, and Covet is the girl you date, you know?  Covet is fun, slightly wanton, desperate. [emphasis ours]  It’s for a stop-at-nothing-to-get-what-you-want kind of a girl.”

Lucky: Jean Godfrey-June Isn't Even Trying

Jean Godfrey-June, what do you do all day?  You do spend your working hours reading press releases and listening to pitches from publicists, right?  The junior staffers at Lucky do keep you apprised of the latest industry developments, don’t they?  Because you’re supposed to be an expert, introducing us readers to the limited editions, the indulgent imports, the potions we haven’t heard about because they exist only in samples and don’t go on sale for six more months. Instead, this is what merits a write-up in your December  column, “The Beauty Closet”:

…I didn’t think it was possible to improve upon the blotting sheet.  Except for one small detail: When your reach into the little envelope to get one out, the sheets are so thin compared to your giantess fingers that you inadvertently extract many…

In an astounding flash of genius,

Which—spoiler warning!—is a complete overstatement.

…someone at Neutrogena has put a sticky spot on the inside flap that deftly lifts a single sheet and serves it up perfectly.

Ooh, a “sticky spot.” Amazing!  How clever!  That’s the kind of innovation and technology that put man on the moon! And—what a coincidence!—it’s identical to the “sticky spot” that’s been part of the package of our store-brand blotting sheets, like, forever. Way to be on the lookout for the latest and greatest, Jean.  There are two other Neutrogena products featured in the beauty section, including a glowing review of their makeup remover wipes (which are also pretty much like every other brand of makeup remover wipes).  Either these women love the stuff beyond all reason, or this is some seriously misguided advertorial.

Even if it is pay-for-play, we refuse to believe JG-J would be hanging out in skincare-research labs tracking down innovations and testing new forumlations on primates.  Her other featured product this month is a Jo Malone fragrance, which is probably indeed lovely, but who cares?  Is there a Lucky reader alive who hasn’t heard of Jo Malone?

The other possibility?  Maybe Lucky’s beauty editor really is transfixed by small dots of adhesive.  In which case, next month we expect wide-eyed astonishment at the wonder of flip-top shampoo bottles!  Apparently, it’s no longer necessary to pour an entire bottle into the palm of your hand!  And we’re breathlessly awaiting her special report on travel-size products!  Those miniature tubes of toothpaste are, like, the most genius creation ever!

Lowest Common Denominator: Glamour, November

1: Celebrity slam on the cover (“Mariah’s new attitude: she’s smarter and saner—Britney, take notes!”  Oooh, burn.)

5: Musicians whose onstage facial expressions are analyzed as their “sex faces”

One million:  Approximate number of other magazines and websites where we’ve seen this exact same discussion (Related:  why is it always John Mayer in these stories?)

116: Page which contains the sentence “The pleats flatter too.”  What?   

118: Page on which Glamour advises, “Pleats add volume to your hip and belly area.  Our advice?  Just skip ‘em.”

6: Traits that “make a guy ask you out,” according to dating columnist Jake

10: Anecdotes about women being dumped in “You think you got dumped?”

$456: Average cost of rent, in dollars, for a young single woman (page 204)

1995: Last time our rent was anywhere near that low (No, really, where are these $456 rents?)

1: Pages devoted to an interview with former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto

7: Pages devoted to Mariah Carey’s home (including a full-page photo of Mariah with her mind-bogglingly vast collection of Hello Kitty paraphernalia)

21: Number of ads for fragrance in this issue

4: pages allotted to “One Spritz and You’re Sexy,” which is about—you guessed it—perfume

Advertising in Allure: Shirtless Shilling

Spotted in the October issue of Allure: four fragrance ads featuring nearly naked women.  Because everyone knows that wearing perfume means you don’t have to wear a shirt!  (But just in case, better cover up those breasts with whatever object is lying around!  Like that pile of flower petals!)

    

As repugnant (and lazy!) as we find the extraneous use of nudity to sell things, we dislike the Marc Jacobs and Mariah Carey ads even more.  Is the model in the Daisy ad unconscious?  Dead?  Or, you know, just asleep in the grass in her underwear?  Totally normal!  And the Mariah Carey ad—she’s mostly underwater, and her perfume promises an “ethereal presence.”  Thanks, but we’d rather be corporeal than ephemeral.

    

We just read the truly thought-provoking book Can't Buy My Love by Jean Kilbourne, which explores advertising and its insidious effects on women, and we can't stop thinking about it (and, yes, questioning everything we see).  However, there was one ad featuring a topless woman that we wholeheartedly endorse.

Lucky: The Magazine About Shopping, Style, and Jean Godfrey-June

You know what we miss?  The days when Kim France could be reliably counted on for a self-indulgent editor’s letter.  Let’s be clear: we think her reigned-in notes are a huge improvement.  And we hope that means she’s happier with her life now that she doesn’t feel the need to spew personal details in every issue of Lucky.  But, honestly?  She was incredibly entertaining—albeit incredibly infuriating—back then.

Fortunately, Jean Godfrey-June has stepped into the role of resident staffer who shares life details for no apparent reason, and there's the added bonus for us that Godfrey-June rarely makes any sense!  At least France’s tangents were marginally related to the topic at hand.  Godfrey-June’s pieces, on the other hand, are often so random that we wonder whether anyone even edits her copy.  What, does she phone it in directly to the printer from the back of a speeding cab?

There’s an autobiographical tidbit in the October “Editor’s Letter,” in which France asks other staffers to share personal recollections about fragrance.  The editor-in-chief doesn’t even share her own story, which is amazing, because the old Kim France never bothered to ask about other people.  But here’s Godfrey-June’s answer:

In true Northern California late-‘70s style, my mother had a bottle of Zen by Shiseido, which I think all her cool, bohemian friends also wore—they had lives, and the Zen spoke to me of having a life.  It still smells really sexy to me.

Ah, yes, having a life.  Way to aim high, young Jean!  The concept—associating a scent with certain people—is sound, so it wasn’t until we got to “The Beauty Closet” that we began to suspect she had inhaled a bit too much of the Shiseido potion in her youth. 

For starters, she writes:

What would happen if you cracked open a Magic 8-ball? is my daughter’s favorite question.  Some old stale water, perhaps a bit of food coloring, and a many-sided piece of plastic emblazoned with “yes,” “most likely,” and “reply hazy, try again” is what you’d get, is my typical answer.

Which is level-headed and reasonable and everything…it just has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the column.  Is it really such a stretch to fill the page?  She continues with a story about taking her kids to a press conference, which at least has the potential to be charming.  The key word here is potential.

Through some rather glamorous extenuating circumstances, [her “working-mom thing”] most recently broke down in Paris…

Glamorous circumstances!  What could those be?  Maybe she’s saving the story for a column in 2008, because she never explains why she was forced to drag her children to a cosmetics-industry press conference.   

At this point, we hoped (against hope, it turned out) the kids’ involvement would at least yield some adorable anecdote.  The quote below, however, is as close as the story veers to cute.

…my exceptionally short, unaccredited-journalist sidekicks were riveted.  Even the antiaging portion, which involved charts about cellular regeneration, was popular: “I loved that whole human-body part!” reminisced my five-year-old later, his eyes shining.

Yeah, yeah, the kid’s gonna grow up to be a doctor.  So what about the Magic 8-ball?

When [the Lancome Destiny Cube] appeared, however, the peanut gallery (myself included) went crazy.  While it’s not an 8-ball—

“Not an 8-ball.”  Uh, doesn’t that render the intro totally irrelevant? Unless...hmm...the cube and the 8-ball are both made of black plastic.  And they both have stuff inside.  So they’re, like, practically the same thing! 

it wears its mystery on the outside, with chic words like “coquette” and “jalouse” stamped on its facets, interspersed with moons and stars and secret symbols—when you crack it open, you get both a darkish-bright and a sparkly-translucent lip gloss, the palest pink and the faintest green eyeshadows, both so wearable as to entice a non-eyeshadow holdout.

If we managed to follow that extraordinarily long sentence correctly (and we think we did), we learned these three things:

1. It is possible for a substance to be both “darkish” and “bright” at the same time.

2. There are, apparently, people in the world who identify as “non-eyeshadow holdouts,” or shadow wearers have a name for those who abstain.  Either way, it’s weird.

And, perhaps most importantly,

3. Even if you connect two items that have only the vaguest resemblance, tell a story that fails to be interesting, and nullify your own premise, all in the name of a pricey product, you can still have a successful career in beauty writing.  Even a truly magic 8-ball couldn’t have predicted that.

More Vogue: Grooming Habits of the Grossly Overprivileged

No, no, we’re not liveblogging the rest of Vogue.  (Sure, we’re masochistic for even trying, but we aren’t gluttonous enough to go at it again.) Anyway, the September issue is practically bursting with content from Plum Sykes, whom we love to loathe—three whole articles!  We’d only read her personal essay about her life-changing endeavor to wear brooches.  (Which we bemoaned at length in our live blog, mostly due to, well, its length.)

But there are two more pieces penned by Ms. Sykes in this issue!  First up, there’s a breathless account of a Manhattan hair atelier, “At the Parlor.”  The premise: stylist Ashley Javier caters to the wealthy and famous by cutting their hair in his penthouse apartment…on an invitation-only basis.   Oh, what a tempting glimpse at the services available to those with lots of money and nothing to spend it on but their tresses!  Still, those joining the exclusive ranks of Javier’s clientele may find his services rather challenging.  See, his clients must first wind their way through—gasp!—an unfashionable part of Manhattan!

There is a scruffy gray commercial building on the corner of Twenty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue.  Devoid of glamour, it is situated on the kind of grim Manhattan intersection that can provoke clinical depression in even the cheeriest girl.

Well, we’re depressed by the prospect of a hair salon to which clients must be invited, but we don’t think that’s what Plum’s talking about.  And speaking of a downer:

Cuddling the Yorkie, [Javier] says the dog was “a gift from Jemma Kidd and Arthur Mornington.  He’s called Tennessee, but his middle name is Morningkidd.”

Seriously?  People give their dogs middle names?  Also, exclusive hairstylists apparently speak their own language:

When he arrived on Twenty-eighth Street, “This place was harrogatha!  Harrogatha!”

We do not know this word.  Anyone?

For good measure, one of our favorite quotes from the article!

He started decorating in earnest, and “my taste fell together.  If you want to get close to yourself, forget therapy.  Decorate.”

Even better is this gem from Chloe Sevigny:

“I need a snip.  I’m going out for dinner with Bill Paxton.”  Ashley explains that he only “dusts” Chloe’s hair.  “I don’t trust L.A. hairdressers,” she adds…

Must be difficult, not being able to find one single person to cut your hair in a metropolitan area of thirteen million people.  Who knew the Los Angeles area faced such a dire shortage of appropriately trained stylists?  Someone launch a charity event, quickly!

Finally, as Plum wraps up her stay at the penthouse/salon:

Ashley, still bubbling with infectious energy, exclaims, “Adios, Sugarpuss!’…

If only we could bid farewell to Sugarpuss Sykes!  Alas, we’ll be flipping to her third contribution to the September issue, “Village People,” to discover which part of the lives of the over-privileged she’ll illuminate for us next.  We have so much to learn!

Lucky's Jean Godfrey-June Goes Against "Type"

Ever modest, Lucky suggests we organize our accessories just like they do at the magazine’s HQ.  From “Lucky How-To,” September:

Store your jewelry…just like we do at magazines

Because, you know, the Lucky way is the best way!  Their tip about jewelry trays is valid…so in what other ways would we want to emulate Lucky?  If we ever wanted to make up words, amass a collection of expensive rubber pants, and sport the occasional heinous outfit (hello, Vanessa Minillo on the July cover), we’d definitely turn to Lucky for advice. 

Plus, Lucky beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June is extremely skilled at using the most inconsequential of personal anecdotes and stretching them into impassioned endorsements for overpriced beauty products, like the $48 hand cream she touts in September’s “The Beauty Closet.”  Hand cream!  $48!  The only thing more unbelievable than the price of the Peter Thomas Roth lotion is the story she tells to promote it.

My small town teems with Hollywood “types,” some legitimate, many wannabe or has-been.  They’re easy to identify:

Do tell us about “types”!  Is a “type” a man in sandals?  A woman who wears her sunglasses in a restaurant?

When they get ready to do something rude—say, shushing fellow adults as if they were toddlers, or elbowing past the crowd to grab the last tomato at the farmers’ markets—they press their hands together, as if in prayer.  Whether or not the “prayer” is accompanied by a bowing of the head, the gesture is the single most obnoxious of our time.

Well, yeah, that does sound annoying.  But those Hollywood “types” doing this sort of thing?  We live in L.A. and we’ve never once seen such a gesture.  Also, her description doesn’t make sense.  How do you press your palms together while plowing through a throng of people?  That isn’t to say this behavior doesn’t exist in Jean’s town—but maybe it has nothing to do with being a Hollywood “type” and everything to do with being an inconsiderate ass.

The practitioner may well be thinking, “I come in peace,” or more Hollywood, “I bow to what is holy in you.”  But the true message is unequivocal: “I am holier than thou!”

Also holier than thou?  People on the East Coast making broad generalizations about the way people on the other side of the country think and behave.  Yeesh.

Anyway, she goes on for a few more sentences about this alleged behavior and how returning the gesture is the sole defense against it.  (Don’t ask us to explain.  We read the whole thing three times and we’re still confused.)   Somewhere in the course of this fruitless exercise, we began to wonder what any of this had to do with the potion she’s tasked with hawking.  And what would Jean consider a “Hollywood type” beauty product, anyway?  A face lift?  Botox injections?  The blood of pious virgins?

Nope, it’s a $48 hand cream that magically trumps the lousy behavior of showbiz scoundrels.  We’ll let her describe it, since we found her segue to be a bit of a stretch:   

A smooth and youthful hand—naturally featured in this exchange—further irritates most Hollywood types, as age grates upon them more than most…

Good to know—having more youthful-looking hands is a surefire defense against annoying people!  Sounds like that cream would come in handy in places other than Hollywood…like, say, Jean Godfrey-June’s office.

Vogue, Vodianova, Vapidness? Count Us In!

Confession time!  We’ve hardly cracked open the June issue of Vogue.  Maybe it’s the heat, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to read “Life With Andre” (normally a reliably eye-rolling experience) once we saw it involved Tom Ford.  There was the whole Keira Knightley-with-elephants thing.  And we vaguely recall reading an excerpt from a British novel so drab it literally put us to sleep. 

Yet we are bursting with anticipation over the July issue.  Take a look at this!

Natalia Vodianova, an actual model!   A respite from the glut of actresses promoting summer blockbusters!  And check out those cover lines: Tanning abstinence!  Red lips!  The “manny” phenomenon!  Oh, light and fun!

Not a single one of those items, save perhaps the red lips (which we love, but which we’re unlikely to attempt in the wilting heat of summer anyway), has the slightest shred of bearing on our life.  But when it looks this glamorous, we’ll gladly wallow in irrelevance for a few hours.  We only hope we won’t get so swept away that we feel the need to acquire a manny.

Image from DNA Models via Oh No They Didn’t

Lowest Common Denominator: Marie Claire, June

1: Cover credit given to Neutrogena for Rebecca Romijn’s makeup

0: Number of Neutrogena products apparent in the photo of makeup artist Fran Cooper working on Romijn (“Behind the Cover Shoot,” page 20)

3: Number of Neutrogena products recommended in “Sexy Summer Skin”

7.25: Number of advertising pages purchased by Neutrogena in this issue—including one immediately preceding “Sexy Summer Skin” and two more interspersed in the same feature

$1,532: Largest “Splurge vs. Steal” price differential

$85: Smallest “Splurge vs. Steal” price differential

$9.95: price of a K-Mart floral housecoat suggested as “a cool summer dress”

1: Movie declared “antifeminist” (Knocked Up)

1: Movie called “feminist” (Gracie)

8: Women other than Rebecca Romijn Marie Claire suggests could play male-to-female transsexuals

4: Celebs cited for “prominent” noses

4: Plugs for “The Masthead with Marie Claire” podcast

2: Stories about foreign women (profile of the commander of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Liberia; the Turkish honor killings)

3: Stories about American non-celebs (a woman’s essay about her nose; a profile of fugitive Sara Jane Olson’s family; another essay about a married couple who’ve each been married twice before)

24: Pages featuring photographs of actors or musicians, not including the cover or advertisements, and not including models

119: Pages of advertisements, including foldouts and the back cover

A Glossed Over Guide: Becoming a Big-Time Beauty Editor

We never thought being a beauty editor was a particularly simple task—if you know what all those different mascara brushes do, you’re way ahead of us—but after reading Jean Godfrey-June’s completely phoned-in column, “The Beauty Closet,” in the June issue of Lucky, we’ve changed our tune.  In fact, based on this page alone, we’ve discerned there are just four easy steps to becoming a top beauty editor:

1.  Carefully select your featured products.  Think you should patrol out-of-the-way boutiques and track down women brewing body lotion in their kitchens?  Not necessary.  It isn’t even mandatory to seek out new formulations or effective innovations to share with your readers.  In fact, all you need to do is read the press releases from a couple of national chain stores, and maybe stroll through the cosmetics aisle at CVS once in a while.  Following the example set in Jean’s June column, a typical article can contain ringing endorsements of mass-manufactured products from commonplace shops like Bath and Body Works and Crabtree & Evelyn.  And why not throw in a L’oreal lip gloss that can be purchased in pretty much any drugstore in the U.S.?  Done!

2.  Find colorful ways to describe the items. Beauty editors are supposed to be creative, so be bold with your language.  Don’t be afraid to refer to candles with nonsensical descriptions like “stuffy, stodgy chic,” and feel free to use cloying constructions like “uber-British-y.”  Not sure what these phrases actually mean?  Don’t worry!  Your readers won’t know either!

3.  Keep the big picture in mind. Never forget that, as a beauty editor, your job is to sell products that no one really needs. Don’t hesitate to overstate the cultural importance of common items like lip gloss if you think it’ll move a few more units, and be sure to couch even the most pedestrian of beauty aids in convoluted, grandiose language.  Even though no one will truly comprehend your prose, they won’t want to admit it.  For example:

Women no longer powder their noses; cigarettes are out; only lipstick remains, a final holdout of the glamorous secreting away of oneself in full view that was once the epitome of femininity.

No editor will dare to delete sweeping generalizations about the nature of womanhood!

4.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.  For instance, don’t bother figuring out whether a shower foam saves time over a shower gel because it doesn’t require lathering.  No one’s going to test any of your baseless claims anyway because, well, they’re insignificant.  (How much time do you spend working up a lather in the shower?  Mere seconds!  See?)  Likewise, don’t waste a moment pondering if you, as the beauty editor, should even be recommending home accessories like candles, even if your magazine has a home decor section where candles would be much better suited.

With practice and persistence, a beauty editor position is easily attainable.  And if you get discouraged, keep the faith:  these four steps obviously worked for Jean Godfrey-June.

Previously:  A Glossed Over Guide: Parlaying Your Pregnancy Into Press

Lowest Common Denominator: InStyle, February

1: Number of times the word “hottie” appears on the cover

2: Number of photographs of Hilary Swank in this issue that aren’t part of her cover story

$99: Price of the most expensive of the “Frugal Finds for Under $100”

3: Number of plays on the already-annoying nickname McDreamy in “Man of Style: Patrick Dempsey” (McDaddy, McSomething, McGeeky)

17: Number of actresses revealing their teenage crushes on male celebrities

0: Number of actors revealing their  crushes on female celebrities

8: Number of celebrity nuptials declared “Weddings of the Year”

1: Number of former couples whose marriage to a new spouse was included (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman)

3: Number of items mentioned as necessary to transform America Ferrera into the titular character on Ugly Betty (wig, eyebrow extensions, braces)

8: Number of items found “Inside America Ferrera’s Makeup Bag”

5: Number of pages devoted to “Eat Right, Look Great,” explaining how nutrition and supplements can improve the look of skin and hair

18: Number of pages in the beauty section featuring skin and hair products and makeup

1: Number of truly questionable Valentine’s Day presents in “More Great Gifts…” (InStyle suggests a red-and-pink doormat—is a doormat really the right implication for a Valentine’s Day gift?)

Lowest Common Denominator: Self, January

250: Number of “ways to make your life better” promised on the cover

11: Number of babies born to Self staffers in 2006

$25: Price of a hand scrub containing Himalayan sea salts

$23: Monthly per capita income in Nepal (source)

47: Percent of men who prefer natural lips to lipstick, as reported in “Beauty Flash”

1: Number of lipsticks or glosses featured in this issue

0: Number of lipsticks or glosses advertised in this issue

1: Number of utterly appalling ads for jewelry (Silpada Jewelry’s “I found it’s nice being noticed for something other than my intelligence.”  Good, we guess, because that statement certainly doesn’t display any intelligence.)

31: Number of days required to achieve “your best body” when you follow Self’s “The Easiest Diet Ever”

12: Number of weeks to fit into your favorite jeans when you follow the Slim-Fast plan, advertised right next to “The Easiest Diet Ever”

7: Number of celebrities under 30 whose photographs appear in this issue (Natasha Bedingfield, 25; Selita Ebanks, 23; Olivia Wilde, 22; Sarah Michelle Gellar, 29; Marla Sokoloff, 26; Shakira, 29; Jessica Biel, 24)

4: Number of celebrities over 30 whose photographs appear in this issue (Mariska Hargitay, 43; Diane Lane, 41; Gwen Stefani, 37; Elle Macpherson, 42)

7: Number of Self staffers whose photographs appear in this issue

When You're Famous, You Fight in the Pages of Allure

In Allure’s “Insiders’ Guide,” October, teen starlet Hilary Duff shares how she tested samples of her new fragrance, obnoxiously called With Love…Hilary Duff.

I would wear them, and I asked my sister and people on tour with me to wear them.  Actually, my sister’s boyfriend really liked the final scent.  And he’s a regular guy from Arizona.

“A regular guy”?  Ouch.  Hilary just used Allure to lob a not-so-veiled slam at her sister.  We’re thinking the actual quote, prior to the magazine’s occasionally judicious editing process, went something like this:  “I’m dating the crazy punk tattooed guy from Good Charlotte—he’s a twin, so I can’t remember his name, because there’s this other dude that look just like him!  Oh my god, it’s, like, soooo confusing!  But my sister, who’s mostly famous for being related to me, is just dating some normal guy.  Like, he doesn’t even have a piercing or a record deal or anything!  Which is okay, because otherwise he’d totally overshadow Haylie, because she’s not even half as pretty as I am.”

Sibling rivalry aside, looks like Duff has finally revealed what we’ve suspected all along:  celebrities have different olfactory glands than those of us who toil in obscurity.  By testing her perfume on a “regular guy,” Duff was assured that the general, non-movie-star population would like the scent—essential considering that no one who is either famous or over the age of fourteen is going to buy the stuff.  And even if someone of legal age deigns to purchase With Love, it’s not as if they’re going to admit it.  All of which forces us to question why this is in Allure at all.

Photo of sisters/rivals Hilary and Haylie Duff courtesy of DailyCeleb

Marie Claire: The Opposite of Subtle

Marie Claire has a freshly installed editor-in-chief, which means that there’s now an entirely new person to pen eminently mockable editor’s letters. We’re especially pained by this little gem in the October missive from Joanna Coles:

Asked about the risky biz of launching a new scent, [Sarah Jessica] Parker likens it to capturing lightning in a bottle. The ever-electrifying SJP!

“Ever-electrifying”? “Biz”? Gag.

We’re guessing that what Joanna truly finds electrifying is ad revenue—and Sarah Jessica Parker’s newest product just happens to occupy a two-page spread following the masthead. 

Coincidence or collusion? You decide. The feature on “SJP,” save the first two paragraphs, focuses entirely on—you guessed it—the actress’s fragrance line.

Not that we aren’t cynical enough to have expected any differently, or that we’re naïve enough to believe that magazines aren’t desperately trying to sell us something on every single page. We just wish for a bit more finesse. By titling the article “Putting On the Spritz,” the sales pitch is ultra-blatant. Why not just run ads instead of articles? Better yet, why not simply print a plea to send cash directly to Sarah Jessica Parker? It may not be subtle, but it’d be far more interesting than a few thousand words chronicling Parker’s adventures in perfumery.

Allure: With Looks Like This, Who Needs a Brain?

Allure’s “Beauty Reporter,” September, gets caught up in the back-to-school spirit of autumn and confirms our suspicions that, were this magazine an actual person, we would never be friends. For instance:

In high school, we called the kid with all the answers a brownnoser. In beauty, we call that person a freakin’ genius.

And:

We hadn’t contemplated Newton’s law of gravity since high school—until we started to notice its effect on our face.

Despite what we were told during the dark days of ninth grade, some things never change.

Self Offers Unbiased Beauty Tips, Hope to Easily Duped Readers

From Self’s “Notes to Self,” August:

I wish I looked as good as Rebecca Romijn after a dip. Can you suggest a mascara that will stay put?

This letter, from reader Nancy Lee of Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, is accompanied by a photo of Rebecca Romijn in full diving regalia—is that a knife strapped to her thigh?—tugging an inflatable boat out of the waves.

Hey, Nancy?  We hate to shatter your illusions, but Rebecca Romijn didn’t actually dive into the ocean in full makeup for this photo shoot. What you see in Self is not an accurate representation of any kind of acquatic activity, unless you consider standing knee-deep in the waves with a photographer, makeup artist, stylist, and a dozen other people nearby to count as an athletic endeavor.

Besides, if you’re going to covet something about the model/actress’s appearance, is it really something as easily attainable as her eyelashes?  Apparently, Romijn’s glossy lashes can be had with just a simple swipe of the $7 Revlon mascara Self recommends. And never mind the specious placement of a Revlon ad on the facing page. Really. We’re sure it’s just a coincidence—you know, the same way Self just happened to capture Rebecca Romijn’s return from a deep-sea diving expedition on film.

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

Makeup More Valuable Than College Education, Says Allure

From Allure’s “Beauty Reporter,” August:

There’s something about a mechanical pencil that makes us feel like an MIT graduate—even if we are just using it to apply eyeliner.

Also, successfully using an eyelash curler makes them feel like they’ve graduated summa cum laude in mechanical engineering from Caltech. Those contraptions are awfully complex, you know.

Elle: Permanent Dye, Permanent Damage

From Elle’s “Dye Happy,” August:

“I used to be an intellectual. Now all I want to talk about is my hair,” [fashion stylist Ilaria] Urbinati says semiseriously, staring meaningfully at one shopper’s long, butter-color locks. “My friendships are divided between the people who still let me talk about hair and the people who don’t. I’m not even allowed to say the word hair in front of my boyfriend.”

It was in the news recently that hair dye might cause lymphoma, but has anyone checked to make sure that excessive use of the stuff doesn’t induce terminal vapidity?  As soon as this woman finishes waxing rhapsodic about the strands of dead cells hanging from her head, she may want to check with a doctor about that.

Vogue: Inspiring Disgust...and a Dream

From Vogue’s “Self-Service,” July, wherein writer Sarah Brown is scorned—and, geez, practically ostracized—when she reveals that she does her own pedicures. Gasp!

The writer Marina Rust, who describes herself as “pretty low-maintenance, but not when it comes to pedicures,” falls into this camp. “It would save so much time and aggravation, but I can’t make my nails look the way they do at Angel Nails, and I don’t use anything more than the wimpiest pale-pink polish,” she lamented. “I hope I’m good at other things.”

We hope you’re good at other things, too, Marina. Those skills may be your ticket out of the strange and cruel world you inhabit, a world where your self-worth would be solely determined by your ability to paint your own toenails—if anyone would even deign to do such a thing.

The article’s author also faces unjustified snippiness for her Sunday-night-at-home ritual:

“You do your own toes?” hissed a dissenter…curling her lip in disgust. “I would never.”

And:

“Do it yourself? No way! My mother taught me that some things are best done by a professional—hair, brows, skin, nails.”

It may not make sense, but at least dividing the world into these two camps—the salon-goers and the home-pedicure practitioners—allows the hissers to instantly ascertain everything they need to know about a person. Salon-goer? You’re in! Scrub your soles at home? Sorry, you’ve drawn the short straw.

Oddly, rather than promoting the luxury and ease of a salon job, Vogue then offers instructions on performing a passable self-pedicure, which we’d thought was as likely as the magazine featuring clothes from Forever 21 in a fashion spread. For the relatively rarified Vogue, this may be the equivalent of fomenting a revolution—albeit a really insignificant one.

It gives us hope.  Close your eyes for a moment and ponder Vogue’s bold move. Imagine a world where wealthy women with too much free time don’t judge people on the status of their toenails, but on the content of their, um, wardrobes. We can only dream.