For the uninitiated, The Makeup Show is a trade show for makeup artists and really, anyone who likes makeup. (They aren’t overly picky about who can buy tickets because Stephanie got in last year without being a licensed anything or even enrolled at Beauty U.) It happens every year in New York and California, in giant convention center type places. As Amber over on Beauty Blogging Junkie explains it: “It is to beauty gals what a convention is to Trekkies.”

There are special workshops and demonstrations and halfway decent chocolate croissants, but the real deal is you’re paying $40 to shop. And look at advertisements. Which is cool. I like shopping and when I’m in trade show mode, I have a sort of OCD thing about needing to take every flyer they give me because surely I’m going to need to learn all about the The Arbonne Opportunity or Makeup Mania’s Summer Promotion, in case there’s a quiz later.

Of course, since you paid $40 (and that’s the student rate) to get in, expectations for bargain basement prices are high.

And quickly dashed.

Because while $56 is a great price for a Smashbox eyeshadow palette that usually costs $112… it’s still about two inches worth of eye shadow for over $50.

We did have a few coups. Stephanie — who has already started booking makeup application gigs doing up local prom-goers — stocked up on some airbrush tanning equipment and a glitter tattoo kit. Meg invested in a great set of makeup brushes. Campbell gets a medley of little shimmery creams.

And even though y’all know I almost never wear makeup, I was smitten with this adorable little six-pack of Naked Cosmetics:

I mean, don’t you just want to eat them with a spoon?

Okay, so this is not a product endorsement, because that would conflict with the official Beauty Schooled Product Policy around here. But I will say that I personally like that these guys are made solely with “100% oxidized mica,” because I find super short ingredient lists comforting in this age of secret fragrance toxins and almost zero chemical safety regulation.

And I also like that Naked products are multifunctional; this set promises that I can use them as eyeshadow, eyeliner, nail polish (mix with clear), lip gloss, bronzer, and temporary hair highlights. But I haven’t gotten around to testing any of that out, so don’t take my word for it ‘kay? That’s just what it says on the back of the box.

Anyway, I pay $20 for the set, which usually retails for $60, which is, obviously, a deal… until you remember that $40 ticket (plus the $26 I spent on Metro North to get there), and then it’s a bit more of a wash.

Which gets us all talking about how expensive all these “professional products” really are. (I use quotes because so many of these brands are also sold in Sephora at this point.) A freelance makeup artist visited Beauty U a few weeks ago and told us that she invested around $500 in her professional foundation palette (which is like a big artist’s palette with about twenty different shades of foundation, so she can mix exactly the right shade for each client) and the same again in all of her eyeshadows. That’s some serious overhead, especially when you figure how often you have to replace makeup, either because you run out or it goes bad. Plus the pressure to keep up with trends (glitter tattoos, anyone?) and have brands customers will recognize and covet and maybe even want to purchase from you at their suggested retail prices.

It reminds me yet again that when you work in the beauty industry, you’re always Also A Client.

Of course, I haven’t done all the math here, and maybe the money you make, especially as a freelance makeup artist, quickly outpaces your product costs. Would love to hear from any makeup artists out there on this; how much do you invest in your makeup kit (all at once or per year or however you track it) and how long does it take you to see a profit?

(And PS. if you went to the Makeup Show, curious to hear what you thought!)

• 14: The average number of secret toxic chemicals found in each bottle of perfume tested in a new study by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (via Stacy Malkan’s HuffPo take on things). What do I mean by “secret toxic chemicals”? Those are the kind that aren’t listed on the label (because manufacturers can hide these “proprietary formulas” behind the word “fragrance”) and they either haven’t been evaluated for safety, or have been — and so we know they’ve got carcinogenic or endocrine disrupting properties. It’s cool though, because the risks are most serious for kids. And little girls hate Hannah Montana (Her “Secret Celebrity” scent has 13 sensitizing chemicals), Britney Spears (Her “Curious” fragrance has 4 endocrine-disrupting chemicals), and American Eagle (Their “Seventy Seven” perfume has a whopping 24 secret ingredients). Download the full report and tell these celebrities to take a stand against toxic chemicals here.

• Size 12-14: The dress size of a 5’8, 115-lb fashion model in the 1930s, reports Sadie over on Jezebel. I think the only optimistic way to read this is to say this is why it really doesn’t matter what size jeans you’re wearing. In another seventy years, the whole system will probably be alphabetized instead.

• $21.4 billion: What the personal care product packaging market is expected to be worth in 2014, says Packaging Digest. Yup, just the packaging. Not any of the junk inside.

The Today Show Goes Makeup-Free! If you missed it, check the video at BellaSugar. Kathie Lee, Hoda and the other NBC anchors all went on TV (in hi-def, no less) without a stitch of makeup on yesterday. You know how sometimes I’m skeptical when celebs do the whole “this is me, warts and all, except I don’t have any warts, so ha!” thing (hi, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson). But, especially in light of all our talk about beauty routines this week, I’m giving this business two thumbs up. It sort of broke my heart when Kathie Lee looks at the camera and says “it’s about security, it’s about feeling confident,” and Hoda agrees, “Now I look like myself!” once the makeup goes on. (No, honey, you look like the plastic doll version of  you.) But only because that’s true for so many of us and I wish we could feel as confident looking like our actual selves.

New Favorite Blog: Stupid Polish Names because OMG, hilarious. Just go read about Miso Happy With This Color. You’re welcome. 

Avon CEO Andrea Jung can buy as many ponies as she wants.

• $7.1 million: How much Avon CEO Andrea Jung earned in 2009. It’s down 64 percent from 2008, when, apparently, she was paid all the money in the whole world. (Via Google News.)

• $100: The average weekly pay of your local Mary Kay or Avon lady. (Via ABCNews.)

• 19: The age of UK hair stylist Jenny Mitchell, who died March 9th when she lit a cigarette while driving, and it caused a bottle of hair dye (containing hydrogen peroxide) to explode, engulfing her car in flames. Horrendous is really the only word I’ve got for that. (Via The Guardian.)

• $1.8 billion: How much the state of Michigan expects to bring in each year if they add a proposed “haircut tax.” (Via BellaSugar.)

[Photo: Avon.]

The gist, as you’re probably catching from their “Declaration Cloud,” above, is that beauty has been getting a bad rap, kind of like that cheerleader that everyone says slept with the whole swim team, when really, it was just like, two or three guys, tops. Drew Barrymore and a whole bunch of celebrities and beauty bloggers are on board, “defending beauty’s honor” and claiming lip gloss’s ability to put a smile on your face as an inalienable feminist right. And COVERGIRL is even planning to give $50,000 to whichever Beauty Defender made the best video of why she stands up for beauty.

I guess I’m getting stuck on random segues like “and what’s so authentic about under-eye circles anyway!” (Umm… they are part of my face?). And also the fact that the campaign’s home page invites me to sign the COVERGIRL Beauty Declaration and get COVERGIRL makeup shade matches for my current department store brands at the same time. So when “we declare that starting now — beauty is for all,” what we really mean is “anyone can buy COVERGIRL products — even fat chicks, honest!”

So, can you rock that? Or am I being a curmudgeon when I should be giving them points (maybe half a point?) for trying?

Everyone is in a flutter about this new survey by the Daily Mail, which found that 1 in 5 men with their partner would tone down the makeup, while 1 in 10 guys want women to give up the face crack altogether. Oh, how enlightened they must be, celebrating the true warts-and-all beauty of women, right?

Sigh, but so wrong. Sadie over on Jezebel gets it right:

I’ll just say it once: men don’t “hate” makeup. Men don’t know what makeup looks like. Maybe they don’t like Tammy Faye Baker maquillage, but guess what: neither do we. [...] The notion of cosmetics becomes problematic when people feel unworthy without them, when a woman feels a need to hide or disguise or change. But by the same token, it’s a very unfair standard to demand that women be “naturally” beautiful – as beautiful as a youthful princess gifted in the cradle – without their aid.

As I’ve been mulling over where we are with beauty standards these days, I keep coming back to my friend/fellow student Sue, who won’t go to the grocery store without her full face on. Now I’ve seen her without makeup and hand on heart, she’s perfectly lovely. A few more blemishes, sure, some under-eye circles. But you know, lovely. In a human way. Once she puts her makeup on, she’s still lovely, but also a bit plastic. Her skin takes on a golden tone that’s just not found in nature, even though she’s aiming for the “natural” beauty that the men in this survey said they like, without realizing just how much makeup it takes to achieve that kind of natural perfection.

So maybe they don’t get makeup. (And I know I’m generalizing here, but I’ve had more than one guy admit they’ve slacked on reading this very blog because the world of makeup frightens them so. “I still hold that what M. is doing in the bathroom before we go to dinner constitutes some unknowable Girl Magic,” says my friend K. of his girlfriend’s beauty routine.) But —twist! Miss Jenny says that her spa clientele is now 50% dudes coming in for facials, waxing and body treatments. “And they’re from all walks of life,” she reports. “Military men, businessmen, doctors. Not just your metrosexuals and such.”

Miss Jenny says she does modify her services for men: “I’ll do a hand massage, but I don’t really touch their shoulders or upper body. There’s just something about a female working on a male like that, it doesn’t work for me.”

She’s got good reason. And Miss Stacey reports that the Beauty U day students are dealing with a regular male client who comes in for body treatments and requests special attention on his upper thighs, claiming he’s a cyclist and bike shorts cause a lot of chafing. “He ends up sitting frog style on the table without any pants and it’s like, what do you think you’re here for?” says Miss Stacey. She and Miss Lisa insist on standing in the room while the students work on him.

There’s a clear consensus, but nobody wants to say it outright: Performing a spa service on a half-naked man makes you feel a little bit like a prostitute. Is that fair? Maybe not. I’m sure there are plenty of guys who just enjoy a good salt scrub and aren’t thinking about what would happen if they slipped their esthetician a  Benjamin. And saying that these kinds of treatments are for women only just reinforces all the gendered beauty standards that have men so confused about makeup and women like Sue terrified to be seen in public without eyeliner.

But when he leaves your tip on the table beside the facial bed, I’m not sure how you’re supposed to avoid the Pretty Woman comparisons.

So guys: I’d love to hear from you on this. Is the world of makeup still so befuddling in this tell-all information age? What are you afraid of? And what the heck is going through your head when you go to a spa?

[Dating advice photos, circa 1938, from over here.]

*Except for everything, ever.

Instead of “gorging on calories” this holiday season, The Cut encourages you to “satisfy your sweet tooth in a different, fat-free way,” by purchasing Jane Iredale’s Chocoholicks lip gloss gift set for $44.

Oy.

I guess that’s a helpful diet strategy if you’re sad and hungry like Kate Moss (the pithy wordsmith/awesome role model behind the bons mots above) or working on Ralph Lauren’s Body By Gumby look. The Cut was also talking about the perils of Collagen Cheesecake last week, so it’s possible they’ve never tasted actual chocolate.

But I’m feeling just exhausted by all these beauty products that smell and look like the sugary goodness that women, of course, aren’t supposed to let ourselves eat. (Jessica Simpson’s Dessert line, I’m looking at you.) I don’t know if beauty marketers have decided that I’m just dumb enough to think that a chocolate-scented body lotion is as tasty as the real thing, or if I’m honestly supposed to hate my body so much that I’ll prolong the diet torture by covering it in glop that smells like everything I don’t let myself have.

Whatever the method behind their madness, color me not interested. My plan is to go ahead and enjoy eating some damn food over the holidays. And most other days.

Dear readers, do join me.

Airbrushed Twiggy.

Normal Twiggy.

Having worked at fashion magazines (where before/after Photoshop exercises such as this litter photo department walls), I always sort of assume that everyone knows that the pictures you see in such places are all faked up. That is not the case. Last week, we hopped on sephora.com to check out their latest “Express Service” makeup lesson offerings, and the class contemplated this:

I’m no expert, but I’m willing to bet good money that every one of those photos has undergone the Photoshop magic, to ensure the light hits the Perfect Pout just right, to remove any trace of redness from the Smoky Eye, and to smooth out the planes on the High-Definition Makeup model’s face. But Miss Jenny didn’t see it. “Look how flawless that foundation is!” she exclaimed.

Now Miss Jenny is an expert. She knows makeup and knows what it can and can’t do. And of course, she knows about Photoshop and it’s ability to shave away pounds and under-eye circles. But I think there’s something sort of primal about the fact that when we look at a beautiful photo, seeing is believing — and we really, really want to believe.

So it pretty much sucks that beauty advertisers seem so happy to take full advantage of that fact.

[Photos: Salon, BBC, and Sephora]

Why yes, those are some delicious eco-friendly product samples, which just arrived from indie beauty line sumbody (tag lines: “Handmade. Pure. Earth-friendly Skin Care for the Eco-Minded Consumer.”)

And they are all packed up in lovely, landfill-clogging, styrofoam peanuts.

Oops.

This seems like a good time to outline my plan for beauty product coverage here on Beauty Schooled, and I hope I won’t break hearts left and right when I say: You won’t get much in the way of all that.

I’ve been mulling it over the past few days since the above box arrived (Hence the radio silence. Well, that and Thanksgiving — happy belated, by the way!) and this is how things shook out.

On the one hand: I do love beauty products. Um, obviously — I’m dedicating 600 hours of my life to learning as much about them as Beauty U can teach me. In fact, while in the midst of said mull, I made a point to try out most of the sumbody goodies, and I am quite enamored of both the teensy little makeup kit (Helloooo, smoky eyes that stay put!) and the Lucky Lips balm, which you can’t even see in the picture above because it’s all buried in styrofoam peanuts, but trust me, it’s cute. Plus, there’s a general expectation when you tell people you’ve signed up for beauty school and are writing a blog about it that you’ll be sharing a lot of your acquired know-how.

On the other hand: In case you haven’t already figured it out, this isn’t a “how to” beauty blog. We’re not yet suffering a dearth of blogs or magazines dedicated to reviewing new products and teaching you how to get perfectly smoky eyes or Blake Lively hair, so I’m not stressing about how to fill a void there. There are lots of people who do that well. There are also lots of people who love getting free product samples and writing up breathless reviews of them, borrowing liberally from the marketing copy on the enclosed press release, so as to keep the free products flowing. And it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. You might be very good at reviewing beauty products and love getting free products all at the same time. Who wouldn’t? They are free, first of all, plus generally pretty, sweet-smelling and covered with promises to make you pretty and sweet-smelling too.

I’m not saying you’re a (major) sell-out if you get excited over scoring a free hand cream sample at Sephora. I’m saying that almost everyone — myself firmly included, cue the image of me trying out my new free lip balm while worrying about the ethical implications of my new free lip balm — gets excited about that. And the purpose of Beauty Schooled is to ask why we get so excited. To explore our sometimes awfully complicated relationship with the Beauty Industrial Complex and our ideal of beauty itself. That means, whenever relevant, putting my own beauty addictions under the same microscope we’re using to consider placenta facials or skin lightening.

So we’ll dissect marketing claims and ingredient lists, and we’ll scrutinize Big Beauty (Revlon, Benefit and friends) and indie/eco beauty brands alike. But until I’m more convinced of my ability to be an impartial, Consumer Reports-style judge, it means keeping product test drives (and their not-always-distant cousin, product advertising) off the blog.

PS. Thanks to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics for adding me to their list of recommended blogs.

[Photo: Me]

Sometimes, practicing makeup feels like a middle school sleepover. But when we take our Makeup Practical (that’s Beauty U speak for a test that involves a physical demonstration) there’s no talking allowed. We’re suddenly aware of how warm it is in our windowless classroom, and how six people adds up to twelve eyeballs staring at you.

There’s a lot to remember. The order of the daytime makeup application: Concealer, foundation, powder, blush, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, lip liner and lipstick — yes, that’s all for daytime. You forgot it already. The sanitation procedures (you have to spray your pencil sharpener with alcohol before and after you use it to sharpen your eyeliner or lip liner, and you have to sharpen them every single time). How to keep the foundation from caking and the eyeliner from running jaggedly across your client’s lids. I have yet to master these last steps.

Miss Jenny perches on a revolving stool next to you, clipboard in hand, taking notes, poker-faced. It’s enough to make Stephanie drenched in sweat by the time she’s finished. Meg’s hand shakes as she starts to stipple on the concealer. I apply eye shadow then try to think in a blind panic whether it’s liner or mascara that comes next. We use an entire roll of paper towels wiping alcohol off the sharpener.

We’re getting braver about touching each other. Miss Jenny has demonstrated how it’s okay to stand in between your client’s knees in order to reach their eyes. You balance one hand on your hip when you’re applying lip liner — don’t ask me why, but this works.

When it’s over, we are exhausted. Miss Jenny comes around to give everyone their grades and there’s a lot more debate than when we take our written exams. It’s hard to dispute a wrong multiple choice question, after all, but it’s a little more subjective to say whether Sue blended the eye shadow enough or Loretta chose the right shade of concealer.

“Look, it’s very hard to get 100 on the makeup practical, girls,” says Miss Jenny. “That would mean you were flawless. Nobody is perfect, okay?”

Of course not. That’s what all the makeup is for.

No, it’s not a skin condition or his attempt to woo Twi-hard fans.

Sammy Sosa is stepping up to fill the Michael Jackson void as the latest celeb-of-color to become um, less colorful thanks to skin lightening creams. The Root has a great essay on the cultural ramifications of his progression to pale. And Sammy’s not the only one: NPR is reporting that the skin whitening industry is working hard to expand their male customer base. In fact, trade publication GCI Magazine estimates that sales of male skin-whitening products in India could match the sales of female skin whiteners within five to ten years.

Seems like a good time to mention that many skin whitening treatments contain hydroquinone, which has been restricted for use in cosmetics by Canada and the EU, and is classified as a hazardous air pollutant by the EPA.

Oh, and in October, the FDA busted a shipment of Manning Beauty Cream whiteners because they were 8 percent mercury.

Meanwhile, at the other end of skin spectrum, Tom Delay and other Dancing With the Stars contestants broke the silence and spoke out about their spray tan addiction in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Does the former GOP leader really need a faux six-pack?

At Beauty U, Loretta and Stephanie (two black women with no interest in lightening up) have started bringing their own foundations and concealers because the makeup we’re supplied with ranges only from lily white to beach vacation toasty.

“I never realized that I was so hard to make up because of my skin color,” says Loretta after we’ve all experimented unsuccessfully with mixing shades that leave her chalky and streaked.

“They should have better products!” We all rush to say. “It’s not you, don’t feel bad!”

“Oh don’t worry,” says Loretta. “I know it’s not me that’s the problem.”

What’s your take on the business of skin?

[Photos: The Root and NPR]