• Twelve Hour Work Days (and sometimes, as little as $8/day in take-home pay) are the price for Romanian immigrants selling department store cosmetics in the UK.

• A Tax on Tanning is under discussion in the Senate. As in at salons, not from the sun. PS. Hey, BellaSugar, were we really only just “suspecting” that tanning was bad for us before the WHO said so this past July? You weren’t clear on that already?

• Cost Unclear: I would have preferred Burt’s Bees to answer the provocative questions it poses in its new series of art installations/advertisements (like this lotion-filled torso that wants to know how many litres of body lotion we’ll absorb during our lifetime). As is, it looks a bit like fear-mongering to move product. Which we frown upon, here on Beauty Schooled.

Tonight we’re summoned over to the cosmetology classroom to find out exactly what Simon Scott was up to the other night when he promised that we could earn $100,000 a year — if only we had the necessary business skills. It was this:

Starting in January, Beauty U will be offering the 16-week Scott Beauty Business Sense Program to all Beauty U students. We’ll tackle it 90 minutes at a time on Wednesday nights, in between working on clients and studying the rest of the Beauty U. curriculum. All we have to do is sign up by the end of the week and agree to pay $100 for the Scott’s Beauty Business Sense textbook.

It’s clear that Beauty U’s president, Mr. G (which stands for Gary) is expecting merriment and rejoicing as he stands before us, smile bright with hope for our starry, well-compensated futures. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think it was necessary,” he says, reminding us that he used to be an auto mechanic. “Girls, I worked as a shampoo boy for two years when I started out in beauty. I lived at home with my mother. Eventually, as you know, I became successful. But it took a long time and it could have happened a lot faster if I had the Scott’s Beauty Business Sense knowledge.”

It’s a ringing endorsement, and I think an honest one at that, but it goes over like a lead balloon. Loretta wants to know what we’ll do during those 90 minutes if we don’t sign up.

“You won’t be sitting by yourself in an empty classroom, I promise!” Mr. G. doesn’t want this to look like extortion, after all. “You’ll work on all the people skills and business skills we already teach here. That’s the funny thing about Mr. Scott’s program — when I was reading through it, I kept thinking, hey, we already teach that. It’s just that the information is presented in a bit better of a way.”

Oops. $100 more for information we would have learned anyway? Side conversations spring up around the room. The general student consensus is that $100 may not sound like a lot, but you try coming up with an extra $100 at the holidays, and anyway, aren’t we paying Beauty U. a lot of money already? We are, in case you’re wondering. The esthetics program I’m taking costs $8500 and cosmetology is over $12,000. Recent high school grads can qualify for education grants, but most of the older students are doing it on a mix of loans and out-of-pocket spending.

Mr. G understands all of that. He’s standing next to one of the cosmetology student’s plastic mannequin heads, which is speared on a pole to make it the height of a seated client. He starts nervously stroking the mannequin’s shiny locks as he reasons with us. “Look, I don’t want you to give me $100 if you need to buy your kid a Christmas present,” he says. “Pay us in installments. Pay us just $5 a week if you want, I don’t care.” He also tells us that the Scott’s Beauty Business Sense book costs over $350 retail and Beauty U is picking up the difference. “I wouldn’t even charge you the hundred bucks, but I’ve got over 200 students here and I can’t afford to pay for everyone.”

There’s an awkward silence. “Thank you Mr. G,” says one of the cosmetology girls after a minute. “That’s a lot of money.”

“It is a lot of money,” Mr. G. agrees, patting the mannequin’s head with more authority now. “And I’ll be honest with you, tuition is going up next year and those students are going to pay the $350. You’re getting a big discount here.”

“And it’s not just one book you’re getting,” Miss Jessica, director of all the evening classes, jumps in. “It’s actually four textbooks, one for each cornerstone of the program, plus four CDs.”

“That’s right, it comes with CDS!” Mr. G. is thrilled about the CDs and begins to twirl a curl on the mannequin’s head. “You can listen to those in your car, you can download them to your computer, you can put them on your iPod what’s-it, whatever you want.”

Four textbooks, four CDs, 16 weeks of classes (over $350 in value) — all ours for 20 easy payments of just $5? “If they throw in a free ShamWow, we’ll all be sold,” murmurs Meg.

For me, a more profound endorsement comes from Miss Stacy, after we’ve dispersed back to the esthetics classroom. She graduated from Beauty U two years ago and now works at a local spa when she’s not teaching here at night. “I’m only booking maybe three appointments a week because I still haven’t built up a clientele,” she says. “They didn’t teach us how to do that here at all.” She doesn’t offer specifics, but since estheticians work on commission (and tips), this most likely means Miss Stacy is clearing less than $200 a week there.

“I don’t know if this new program will really be any better,” she adds. “But it can’t be worse.” It’s the first time I’ve heard one of the instructors admit that her post-beauty-school career isn’t everything she hoped it would be.

So what do you guys think? Should I cough up the extra $100 so I can report back on whether Scott’s Beauty Business Sense makes any sense at all?

[Photo: As Seen On TV]

(Well, except Chandler who pointed out that it’s ultimately just medical waste. Estrogen-containing — and thus most likely breast cancer contributing — medical waste.)

Chickens, that was just the beginning.

And now that we’ve started down this rich-people-will-put-anything-on-their-faces road, I feel more or less honor-bound to tell you that Mom Logic rounded up some other choice options, like NYC’s Townhouse Spa‘s Baby Face Treatment, which contains spermine, an antioxidant present in our “skin, liver, and yes, seminal fluid,” according to Townhouse Spa’s official description of the 75-minute, $250 facial. Just so we’re all on the same page here: Seminal fluid is the $250 way of saying semen. (Because sometimes the facial jokes write themselves.)

The list also includes TNS Recovery Complex by Skin Medica, a product line that retails for $150. MomLogic reported that it contains “foreskin from a circumcised baby.” I called the company to check on this one and was referred to publicist Stephanie Boccuzza. Stephanie emailed me that TNS stands for “Tissue Nutrient Solution,” and that this line is the “only in the world containing a professional concentration of patented NouriCel-MD^®. NouriCel-MD^® is a proprietary cocktail of growth factors, soluble collagen, matrix proteins, anti-oxidants and other elements essential to diminish the visible signs of aging WITHOUT IRRITATION.” (Emphasis hers. I hadn’t actually asked.)

Okay, but do they have baby parts? Despite the acronym, Stephanie says TNS Recovery Complex “does not contain any human tissue at all.” So that’s one more urban legend we can help keep in check, though I do have questions about these mystery “growth factors,” since they sound suspiciously like hormone-based ingredients to me. And we generally don’t like hormones on our face for the same reason we avoid them in our milk. (Everyone see the Nicholas Kristof op-ed about how estrogenic chemicals contribute to cancer risk on Sunday? Well, okay, good then.)

In related news, a Glamour beauty editor is “feeling traumatized” because she just discovered that her most beloved skin cream contains an ingredient derived from an aborted human fetus. Oh dear. Right-to-Lifers are in a commenting frenzy. I’m pro-choice, but when we talk about exercising your right to choose, we don’t mean “choosing so the beauty industrial complex can profit off one of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face.”

So dear readers, please tell me what I’m missing here. It seems so patently obvious that we don’t want these things in our beauty products  — and yet, the high-end skin care market is swamped with this kind of stuff. Is it some kind of holdover from the pre-downturn days of hedonistic yuppie excess? Does anyone want to make a case for this being an extension of the growing natural beauty products market and a wise rejection of cheap synthetic products? (Oh, except for that pesky potential breast cancer thing. Dang.)

Pictured above: The $300 24-karat gold facial at Veronica Spa and Skin Care in Malibu, CA (via LA Times Magazine), which almost sounds reasonable now. Jeepers.

PS. For those of you still considering the afterbirth experience, here’s a quick product review from Bella Sugar. (Hint: It is not a rave.)

We’re continuing to practice our cleansing and toning, so tonight I work on Meg, who is wrestling with two milia that have erupted on her face.

We’re taught never to say pimple or zit, at Beauty U., mostly because it’s considered unseemly to tell a client that you’re going to pop a pimple for them. It’s classy to ask, “Would you like me to extract your milia?” Milia, because I know you were wondering, are “oil and dead skin cells trapped beneath the surface of the skin,” according to Milady’s. Miss Lisa says they may sometimes also be deposits of calcium or cholesterol, but then again, that could be just a myth.

Whatever they are, you want them gone. Brace yourselves for the illustrative skin shots:

(At least the baby is cute.)

So the mystery gunk hardens over meaning you can’t pop your milia open with your fingers in the bathroom mirror; it has to be extracted by an esthetician or a dermatologist. You can pop your comedones yourself, but that’s a whole other vocab card. (Yes, I made vocab flashcards this weekend at Miss Jenny’s urging, because there are a heck of a lot of technical terms to memorize for our Chapter 10 test.)

But back to Meg. After I finish my cleansing and toning, we call Miss Stacy over to take a look at the milia in question. She turns on the mag lamp, which is a lamp with a big magnifying glass attached and we peer at Meg’s milia together. I tried to come up with a clever metaphor for you on this, but it looks, well, like a magnified pimple.

We’re supposed to be working on our bedside manner, which Miss Stacy demonstrates like so:

Meg: “Do my pores look so huge?”

Miss Stacy: “Yes. I’m looking at them through a giant magnifying glass.”

Miss Stacy puts on some vinyl gloves and prods the milia with a disposable lancet, which is like a little metal needle, though Meg says it doesn’t hurt. She prods and prods while I watch in the magnify glass, and a little bead of blood appears on Meg’s cheek. The gunk remains impervious. “I don’t want to hurt you,” says Miss Stacy. “But Miss Lisa won’t mind. She’s the queen of extractions.”

I fetch Miss Lisa like it’s the bottom of the ninth and we’re bringing in a ringer. She snaps on her own vinyl gloves and takes ahold of the mag lamp. “Now what you want to do with the lancet is just come on in from the side,” she drawls, arrowing in with supreme confidence to land a hit just below the top of the first milia. It pops open without so much as a whimper.

“And here,” says Miss Lisa, plucking something off Meg’s cheek in triumph. “Is your milia!”

Meg and I examine the tiny piece of couscous sitting on Miss Lisa’s finger. “Go on, hold it!” Miss Lisa urges. It’s hard like couscous too. Meg holds it delicately on the pad of her thumb as Miss Lisa attacks the second one. This one doesn’t give up the ghost quite so easily and we determine that it needs another day or two to cook before it’s ready for extraction.

Meanwhile, Stephanie, Loretta, Sue and the other esthetics students swing by for a look at the milia. Us freshman girls are fascinated because we’ve witnessed our first extraction. The senior girls are excited for us because it was but 20 weeks ago that they stood in our shoes. They trade extraction war stories of pimples that wouldn’t stop gushing, smokers who bleed as soon as you prick them because smoking thins your blood.

The weird thing is, nobody is grossed out by any of it. It’s either a fact of life (we all have skin, sometimes stuff oozes out of it) or a judgment on the owner of said skin (that’s what happens when you use the wrong products). We’re like the fighter pilots in The Right Stuff; the only ones who admit to danger are the ones who have the wrong stuff.

Is it a post-feminist way of embracing the body, warts and all, even as we groom it to milia-free perfection? Or is it just a form of self-preservation to buoy us up for the next encrusted pore?

[Photos: Medline Plus, Elle's Esthetic Studio, and Bien-Etre]