Beauty Schooled.
American consumers spent over $200 billion on beauty products and services in 2009 — an awful lot of lipsticks and manicures — yet the average salon worker earned just $9 to $15 per hour. But these numbers don’t tell us the human costs. Like, what happens when these products aren’t subjected to pre-market safety testing. And how a 13-year-old feels when her mom takes her for a bikini wax. Or why many of us would rather not make eye contact with the woman we’re paying to scrub our feet.
I’m spending 600 hours* learning to excavate pores, apply makeup and wax, well, you know where, with the hope of finding some answers.
Virginia.
A writer by day, beauty school student by night. I own 14 tubes of pink lip-gloss and I (almost) never brush my hair.
Say hi.
beautyschooledproject [at] gmail [dot] com.
Also.
The names and identifying details of other people have been changed unless otherwise noted.
*600 hours is the amount of training my state requires you to have in order to sit for the state board esthetician licensing exam.
20 Comments
November 18, 2009 at 12:12 PM
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by healthytomorrow: RT @nontoxicissexy: Beauty Schooled journalist goes undercover to beauty school, dishes on toxins, technique and more: http://bit.ly/tYkQ7...
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