It’s been well over a year ago now since we held the No-Makeup Challenge, and got these inspiring results from readers who dared to go barefaced in public and snap a pic for us. The point of the challenge was never to get down on makeup—we’re both huge fans of the transformative power of lipsticks, eye liners, concealers and blushes—but to call into question our dependance on the stuff, and just to re-introduce everyone to their face without it. If only for a few hours.
But now the Globe and Mail is reporting that a poll conducted of 1,292 adult American women has found that most of us feel either unnactractive (16%), naked (14%), or selfconscious (14%) when we don’t wear makeup. Guh. Do you fall into one of these categories?
I, for one, used to go to sleep with my mascara and eye liner on—only to wake up and reapply. Setting aside the fact that that is a disgusting, bacteria-filled nightmare, for many years the only time I saw my face free of makeup was for those few moments after a shower and before I left for work. If I had a boy over, I’d usually apply a little something-something in secret before he could see me in my true form. God forbid.
A lot has changed since then. While I still live for makeup (really I love the stuff) I have gotten accustomed to what I look like without it. Just yesterday I noticed that by 11am, the bright lipstick I’d applied to go into public had all but disappeared and I didn’t think much of spending the rest of the day with nothing on. I wasn’t thrilled when I looked in the mirror or anything, but I felt OK, and I was busy, and I pretty much forgot about it.
What about you: Do you ever go barefaced? Is it maybe time for another challenge?
As it happens, we got a wonderful email just this morning from a teenager who came across our the No-Makeup Challenge and, for a class project, is going to hold a No-Makeup Day at her high school. She promised to send us pics, and we couldn’t be more touched. We can only hope these younger girls will feel a little more freedom when it comes to their faces.
We’re gonna guess even supermodels feel weird barefaced. Image via
Well whad’ya know, even though they say it’s not a concern on their website, the FDA has done another study on lead in lipstick. You may recall that back in 2007 they found lead in 23 of the 23 lipsticks they tested—this time they found it in 400.
From TIME:
The worst offenders on the list were Maybelline’s Color Sensation in Pink Petal, which had 7.19 parts per million of lead, and L’Oreal Colour Riche in Volcanic, which had 7 parts per million. Several other brands, including Cover Girl and Nars had products hovering in the 4-to-5-parts-per-million range. (The average lead concentration found across the 400 lipsticks was 1.11 parts per million; click here to see the products ranked.)
The big news is that levels are now higher than the last time they tested. In the 2007 study, none of the lipsticks exceeded 3 parts per million. Never mind that the acceptable level for lead in water is ZERO, that lead accumulates in the body, that women and their boyfriends and their kids end up eating it off their lips, that lead is absorbed through the skin, and last but not least, that any toxicologist worth their salt will tell you that no level of lead is acceptable, because it’s a neurotoxin and proven to wreak havoc even in small amounts.
We’d be lying if this study doesn’t make us want to throw our hands in the air, flip a few birds, and then maybe throw something at a wall. Really, it’s gotten worse? Oh, and hey Maybelline: we meet again! Who wants to guess how many PPMs are in the new 14 hour? Who else is pissed?
Nearly one percent of children in the U.S. are diagnosed with autism, but the cause of the disease’s staggering growth rate these past decades has been hotly debated. Up until recently, research on twins seemed to put the blame largely on genetics. A new study out of UCSF, though—the largest twin study of its kind—appears to be undermining this theory. From a piece in the San Francisco Gate:
The study, published in Monday’s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, looked at 192 pairs of twins in California and, using a mathematical model, found that genetics account for about 38 percent of the risk of autism, and environmental factors account for about 62 percent.
Other recent research out of the Kaiser Permanente Northern California system found an increased risk when mothers had taken anti-depressants in the year before or during pregnancy. This does not mean that the drugs caused the autism, but everyone seems to agree that more research needs to be done on potential environmental factors.
Have you had any experience with autism?
The quick answer? If you’re a rodent it can.
Studies around exercise must be some of the most well-funded out there. In the last few months, we’ve reported on several: From how exercise may prevent the common cold to why it’s more effective in the morning. Other recent research has focused on bone density and weight management for women after menopause, and now the New York Times is reporting that it may play a very significant role in slowing the signs of aging. Or, excuse me, stopping them altogether. From the article:
Indeed, in heartening new research published last week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exercise reduced or eliminated almost every detrimental effect of aging in mice that had been genetically programmed to grow old at an accelerated pace.
Of course we’ve long-discussed the anti-aging, beauty-amplifying benefits of breaking a sweat—but every sign? Come again, now. According to the article, here’s how the research was conducted:
In the experiment, Dr. Tarnopolsky and his colleagues used lab rodents that carry a genetic mutation affecting how well their bodies repair malfunctioning mitochondria, which are tiny organelles within cells. Mitochondria combine oxygen and nutrients to create fuel for the cells — they are microscopic power generators.
This malfunctioning mitochondria would ensure that the subjects age prematurely. And that’s exactly what they did: By the time they hit their 8-month birthdays, which in this study represented about 60 human years, they were decrepid and dying. None of them reached their first birthdays. That is, except the ones that exercised.
Those rodents, who got to run on the wheel for 45 minutes, three times a week, had none of the signs of aging—despite possessing the same predisposition for early aging as the other poor things. Their fur was shiny and didn’t turn gray, their little hearts thumped on beat, their muscle and brain mass remained healthy, and they exhibited amazing coordination. In short, they stayed young—and they all celebrated their first birthdays.
While these epic effects aren’t fully understood (more funding to come!), the results are astounding. Our first three burning questions: 1. Could exercise really put hair dye out of business? 2. How applicable are these results to us bigger mammals? 3. Will a study like this change your exercise habits?
This one’s already gotten a lot of air time, but we’re going to weigh in nonetheless. A study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and published in Environmental Health Perspectives, found a multitude of chemicals in the urine and blood samples of pregnant women.
While this in itself is not surprising, some of the findings are. From this San Francisco Chronicle article:
Of the 163 chemicals studied, 43 of them were found in virtually all 268 pregnant women in the study. They included polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, a prohibited chemical linked to cancer and other health problems; organochlorine pesticides; polybrominated diphenyl ethers, banned compounds used as flame retardants; and phthalates, which are shown to cause hormone disruption.
Some of these chemicals were banned before many of the women were even born.
Nobody knows for sure if these chemicals have ill effects on fetuses and, as Andrew Revkin at the New York Times points out, there are inherent problems when writing about this kind of research. As a rule we try not to incite panic, but we also think that it’s important to spread this type of information even when studies aren’t conclusive (which they never are), or only explore one part of an issue (which they often do). There are also worse things to panic about, especially when our exposure to certain questionable chemicals—like the ones in your body lotion—can be significantly reduced by making better choices as consumers. But I digress…
What’s most disturbing about this study is how some of these chemicals have been passed on mother-to-child generations after they’ve been discontinued from use. That’s creepy, even if it isn’t “proven” to be dangerous.
Are you freaked out by this research? And do you think journalists need to be more careful when they’re reporting on science?
Thanks to Trudi for posting a link to this BBC article in the comments just now. It turns out many of us we’re right about this.
According to research done by Dr. Ian Stephen at the University of Nottingham, eating more veggies means you will look better. And yes, these no-real-science studies are kind of silly but hey, this one is the truth. Cause veggies make you glow! From the article:
Dr Stephen explained: “Eating five more portions [of fruit and veg] ups your carotenoid levels giving your skin golden tones.”
Carotenoids are antioxidants which soak up damaging compounds that the skin encounters in daily life.
Students at the University’s Malaysian campus, where Dr Stephen is based, ate five extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day for two months.
Afterwards students examined a variety of pictures where their skin had different pigmentations and deemed themselves more attractive when they had increased their vegetable intake.
Dr Stephen explained: “In humans, the more red and yellow tones found in the skin, the more attractive the people were found to be.”
The middle shot is the subject’s regular skin tone, whereas the left is a suntan, and the right a vegetable tan. Of course, I’m wondering about the racial diversity of the subjects and if effects are as visible on darker skin. Perhaps some readers can weigh in on that. I definitely see a difference in my skin tone and quality (or so I imagine) since I’ve started throwing back the green smoothies.
Have any of you seen a relationship between vegetable intake and your skin?
Sorry, gingers! We have bad news. According to this new rundown of stress research, redheads have higher levels of anxiety than people with other hair colors. How’s that for a fun fact? Of course it’s not quite so straightforward. Natural redheads, it turns out, may have lower thresholds for some kinds of pain, which could explain the elevated stress. Other factors that seem to correlate with higher stress are being married (?!), being overweight, being unemployed, being a baby in a forward-facing stroller, being a Chinese businessman, being a firefighter and…being a woman.
Sigh. Those of you who have read the book know that we talk a bunch about stress and the lifestyle factors that mitigate it—and exacerbate it. Stress, it’s true, is unavoidable for a lot of us. There are also some interesting upsides to anxiety. It’s all about keeping it in balance.
As we say in the book “Your outlook is your look”—bit corny, sure, but we think these are words to live by. No moisturizer or blush can do for you what happiness, sleep, exercise and—perhaps most important—relaxation can.
So we want to know: How stressed out are you? And how do you keep it in check?
I’ll go first: I totally get stressed out. To try to counter it, I practice yoga, I do some version of prayer-meditation every night before bed, I spend time with people I love, and I try to get as many really good hugs as a I can. Your turn.
Image via
Over the weekend I read an enlightening, if disturbing, article in the New York Times about cheese. Everyone can agree that cheese tastes delicious, but with its high concentration of saturated fat and close to 100 calories per square inch (and really who stops at a square inch of cheese?), it’s a treat best consumed in moderation.
However, it turns out we eat about three times more cheese than we did in 1970—we also weigh an average of 30 pounds more than we did back then too. And while the United States Agriculture Department—a government agency—is fighting obesity with one hand, it turns out it’s using the other to shove cheese down our throats.
You see, through an organization called Dairy Management, the government is actually funding large-scale campaigns to get Americans to eat more cheese. Dairy Management is a marketing creation of the Agriculture Department that does things like pay $12 million to promote Domino’s Pizza’s new cheesier pie: with 40 percent more cheese, a slice of this stuff contains over two thirds of the daily recommendation for saturated fat.
So why is the government pushing Domino’s on us? Some explanations:
Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.
Then there’s this:
In 2007, the department highlighted Pizza Hut’s Cheesy Bites pizza, Wendy’s “dual Double Melt sandwich concept,” and Burger King’s Cheesy Angus Bacon cheeseburger and TenderCrisp chicken sandwich. “Both featured two slices of American cheese, a slice of pepper jack and a cheesy sauce,” the department said.
These efforts, the department reported, helped generate a “cheese sales growth of nearly 30 million pounds.”
So once again we are faced with an insurmountable irony, not dissimilar from the one we find in the beauty industry: The very people who are supposedly policing consumer health are also playing ad agency to the crappy food that’s making us sick. Conflict of interest much?
What’s more is that they also seem to be actively deceiving consumers—sounds familiar again—with false health claims. Dairy Management mounted a major campaign around the idea that cheese actually helps with weight loss, despite the fact that research they funded couldn’t even support such claims.
I highly suggest reading the whole article, but suffice to say this stuff seriously pisses me off. I’m not mad at cheese, but how do you think kids growing up on Domino’s new “Wisconsin” pizza—the super-cheesy slice that Dairy Management helped conceived and promote—are going to turn out? With obesity rates already through the roof, and the cost of treating it as daunting, it’s not hard to guess.
Before you set your alarm to squeeze in that two-hour morning workout, consider the latest findings on sleep and weight:
According to a new study, dieters who sleep less than 6 hours lose 55% less fat and 60% more muscle than those who get more than 8 hours.
Of course, we’re not telling you to skimp on exercise (and we don’t believe in “dieting”), but we’re always looking for more reasons to encourage sleep. And finding after finding indicates an inextricable relationship between sleep and weight.
Like many Americans, if you struggle to maintain a healthy body weight, not enough sleep could be part of the problem.
Have any of you noticed a relationship between your sleep and weight changes?
If you grew up in Canada like we did, you probably grew up loving David Suzuki. The environmentalist and educator has been ahead of so many issues for so long, so we were quite delighted to see that the foundation that bears his name has taken on cosmetics. Yesterday they announced the findings of their months-long research into cosmetics, and they’ve unveiled their own Dirty Dozen, which has a lot in common with the ingredients we warn about in the book (where we show you how to actually find these mysterious things on product labels, and in which products they appear). We like their list!
We’d love to see Canada pave the way for reform, but considering the head of the cosmetics industry in Canada is also a former government health official, we won’t be holding our breath.
You can download the complete PDF here. And read on to see what made their list:
1. BHA and BHT
2. Coal tar dyes
3. DEA
4. Dibutyl phthalate
5. Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives
6. Parabens
7. Parfum (a.k.a. fragrance)
8. PEG compounds
9. Petrolatum
10. Siloxanes
11. Sodium laureth sulfate
12. Triclosan
