About

Beauty Schooled.

American consumers spent almost $85 billion on beauty products and services in 2008 — an awful lot of lipsticks and manicures — yet the average salon worker earned just $8 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.

beautyschoolproject [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.

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