[Beauty Overheard] Seth Rogen Wants to Be Fat Again

Seth Rogen communes with his Comic-Con fan base, in 2007 and post-weight-loss in 2010.

After losing 30 pounds to play “The Green Hornet,” Seth Rogen has this to say:

I think for chubby guys, I was their guy so they were like, ‘I can be chubby. Seth Rogen’s chubby, so who cares.’ But now I’m not so chubby anymore. So now they’re like, ‘I have to lose weight.’ I’ve let them down. I’ve blatantly sold out. It’s only for money.

Now y’all know that I am all about people being happy with their bodies and think you can be healthy at any size. And sure, it’s great how Seth was out there as a role model for schlubby guys everywhere, in a “hey, it’s okay, have another buffalo wing, you can totally still find love” kind of way.

But I am super irritated about this.

Pretty Price Check (01.28.11)

The Pretty Price Check: Your Friday round-up of what we paid for beauty last week.

• $180: The price of this bird poop facial, available only in New York and London. Or anywhere else with a healthy pigeon population, for you DIY lovers. For more on wacky facial ingredients, check out what I wrote here. Also this. (Via TheHairpin)

• 1152: The number of times Self Magazine has told you how to get skinny, according to Dances With Fat’s latest count. Jeez, you’d think it would have worked by now.

• 6: The number of boob jobs performed on German porn star Carolin Berger, who died during her last augmentation surgery a few weeks ago. She was 23. This is really, really not okay. (Via Jezebel)

• $9.99: The price tag on Bioglo Cherry Pink Lip Nipple Cream Sexy Kissy Lighten (no I don’t get the use of weird baby talk adjectives either), spotted in this alarming round-up over on Sociological Images. See above. Your breasts are fine.

• 1: The number of meals you eat per day on the SlimFast Diet. New tagline: “Who has time to slim slowly?” Um… maybe anyone who wants to lose weight while also eating at appropriate intervals? (Via About-Face)

• $175,000: What a Long Island man paid to recreate Carrie Bradshaw’s Heaven on Fifth closet for his wife. I’m only a little bit jealous.

But what’s with the crazy infographic up top? Find out at Bundle.com where they’ve dug up price check stats galore in order to rank the fitness of American cities based on their personal care spending. Spoiler alert: Austin, TX takes top billing, with a whopping $143 per month on cosmetic stores, spas, gyms, salons, and drugstores. Detroit, MI comes in last, with a paltry $18 per month. Fascinating. (More great analysis over at TheHairpin.)

 

Michelle Obama and McQueenGate

Oscar de la Renta, Diane von Furstenberg and the entire Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) are wicked mad at the First Lady Fashionista In Chief, because she wore this unbelievable Alexander McQueen dress to the state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao. de la Renta told WWD: “My understanding is that the visit was to promote American-Chinese trade — American products in China and Chinese products in America. Why do you wear European clothes?” And CFDA backed him up with this official statement (via Fashionista):

CFDA believes in promoting American fashion. Our First Lady Michelle Obama has been wonderful at promoting our designers, so we were surprised and a little disappointed not to be represented for this major state dinner.

Color me conflicted. On the one hand, I see their point: The Cut reports that “a study published in the Harvard Business Review placed an estimated value on the public appearances Michelle made wearing clothing from November 2008 to December 2009 at $2.7 billion.” J. Crew is basically ready to submit her for sainthood because she and her daughters look so gosh-darn adorable in their twinsets and frilly blouses. And with Obama’s State of the Union revolving around how Americans need to out-innovate everyone else to build our future, wearing American-made clothes does seem like a great way to stay on message.

But. Two things.

[Beauty Overheard] Just So Raven.

Former Cosby Show prodigy/Disney Channel princess Raven-Symoné is all grown up and dealing with the classic teen-star-loses-baby-fat drama (as faced by Hillary Duff, Sarah Michelle Gellar and so many others before her). But I am loving her very atypical reaction, as reported by About-Face.

[Six Items or Less] One Dress That Makes You Feel Good.

We’re halfway through SIOL now, and I admit to feeling some serious ruffled cardigan fatigue. I am really loving how quickly I can get dressed, and there’s no question that I’m starting to obsess less because there’s so much less to obsess over. I packed for two overnight trips last week at what felt like the speed of light.

But, as you’ll recall, I started this whole business to find some balance in my love/hate relationship with the closet. And now I’m missing the love.

[Back to Beauty U] Test Time

Excuse the super short post today — in a few short hours, I’ll be sitting in the nearest official Department of State testing center, number two pencil in hand, poised to multiple choice my way through 100 randomly generated questions about makeup, facials, waxing, and a motley assortment of anatomy, skin histology, chemistry, and electricity that you’re supposed to know in order to become a licensed esthetician. (Even though we are not doctors.)

That’s right. It’s time for the written portion of my esthetics licensing exam. Some of you might remember bold plans to study a Milady’s chapter per week in preparation for this event. Most of you are probably like, “what plans?” Because that sort of petered out by Chapter 3. (Of 21. Oops.) Life and what not.

So I’ve spent a significant portion of the past 48 hours firmly attached to Milady’s and an ever-growing pile of flashcards. And I’m pleased to report that I seem to remember more of that book learning than I expected I would after four months off. But I would not describe my confidence level as bubbling over. It’s basically impossible to insert an entire 600-page textbook (plus a twenty page packet on licensing laws) into your brain on short notice.

Plus, skin lesions all boil down to being red, itchy and probably filled with pus. Which makes it really hard to tell a macule from a papule from a tubercle. And also kind of gross.

So, cross your fingers for me, and all of my Beauty U classmates taking the test today.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a Six Items update. In the meantime, why don’t you go read about Elle bleaching its cover models, the pink princess evolution, and this excellent slideshow about my girl Buffy — vampire slayer/feminist icon/beauty standard redefiner/yes really!  — who turns 30 this week.

Because I have to get back to my flashcards. These skin lesions aren’t going to memorize themselves.

 

Pretty Price Check (01.21.11)

The Pretty Price Check: Your Friday round-up of what we paid for beauty last week.

Some weeks I go for nuance. Or considered analysis.

But I’m just going to say it: Today’s entire Price Check is brought to you by the Department of We’ve Lost the Plot. Because it’s a nail polish economy, kittens. And we’re just living in it.

• $35: What it costs to smell like Liquid Money, as in, this new perfume that smells like cash. “But money usually smells like BO!” writes The Hairpin’s Liz Colville. “WTF! And other exclamations about how silly this is.” Except I’m kinda digging a fragrance that doesn’t pretend to smell like your favorite celebrity’s butterfly kisses or kittens in a rainstorm or whatever the f*ck else they come up with for these beauty products that don’t even attempt to do anything to alter your physical appearance. And nevertheless market themselves as an indispensable part of your beauty routine. Fragrance is profit in a (toxic) bottle. ‘Nuff said. (Via AOL News)

• $3,606.50: How much Gwyneth Paltrow thinks it’s reasonable to spend on a fancy coffee maker, personal trainer, a stylist and more, all to help you balance work and motherhood with grace and aplomb. Okay so only a few of her must-haves are beauty-related, but I had to work this in because of how everything Gwyneth says is Just. Bananas. (Via Jezebel.)

• $7,000: The price tag on the HD Diamond and Ruby Peel that Mila Kunis received from aesthetician (the “a” means he’s the fancy kind) Scott Vincent Borba as part of her Golden Globes beauty prep. Reports InStyle: “This treatment actually uses the gemstones in its name; the rubies act as the antioxidant and the diamonds provide a topical sheen, and he tops it off with a peraffin silk fiber facial. Borba also has her suck on an ice cube during the process, a trick that helps decrease puffiness.” Emphasis and misspelling of “paraffin” all theirs. (Via Beauty Counter.)

[Fun with Press Releases] Plastic Surgery Predictions for 2011

Fun with Press Releases: Because sometimes the beauty industry just goes there.

January is a month of uncertainty. And it’s not just diets. We’re all filled with hope and excitement and burning questions about what the coming year will bring in terms of plastic surgery trends. Fortunately, this press release landed in my inbox just before the holidays to provide some answers.

It’s pretty in-depth, so I’ve bolded the best parts. I don’t want you to miss any gems.

[Beauty Overheard] Jennifer Aniston Hated The Rachel. (But That’s Not What This Post Is About.)

You might expect me to be weighing in on The Rachel Debate, because it’s all over the interweb that Jennifer Aniston told Allure, “How do I say this? I think it was the ugliest haircut I’ve ever seen.”

Not so interested. I’ve always like Aniston, and I’m sympathetic (especially in the midst of my Six Items challenge) to how being restricted to One Key Look can get old, but she sounds a wee bit childish complaining about the hairstyle that made her an international celebrity. I think there are plenty of folks out there who would be willing to sport a trend-blazing, if awkwardly layered haircut in exchange for $1 million per week or whatever insane amount she was earning by the end of “Friends.”

So moving right along. Because the Beauty Overheard quote I really want to share with you today is FAR more awesome. It’s from Regina Benjamin, MD and Surgeon General of the United States, who is pictured above and also famous for founding a health clinic to serve uninsured, poor families in rural Louisiana. And I found it in one of those New York Times Magazine “Questions For…” columns where Deborah Solomon is always mean to everybody for no apparent reason.

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