Topless Robot

Yes, feminists can still shave their legs

Posted at 1:00 PM Apr 16, 2010

By Andrea Grimes

​Get enough feminists together in a room enough times, and at some point, the question of hair removal is bound to come up. I can't tell you guys how many times I've argued about beauty, body issues, the beauty myth and gender roles when it comes to the subject of leg-shaving. I have seen women who otherwise respect and admire each others' feminist beliefs absolutely lose their shit over the idea that a feminist dares to shave.

But we are feminists! All experiences are valuable! Right? We choose our choice!

Well, I choose to shave my legs.

Read more Yes, feminists can... >>

Here, try this exfoliating rub--on your vagina!

Posted at 8:30 AM Feb 11, 2010

By Andrea Grimes

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Sometimes, when you are doing your morning beauty regimen, do you accidentally get your face and your vagina confused? Do you exfoliate your vagina and put a tampon in your mouth? If so, the Vajacial is for you! It's a facial for your vagina! Your smelly, ugly, dark, acne-ridden vagina that needs all the hourlong, $60 help it can get to look presentable. Available now at Stript in San Francisco.

Courtesy of the ladies at BellaSugar, who are appropriately horrified:

I know the Vajacial is supposed to be a fun girly thing, but it is unnecessary. Ingrown hairs are annoying, yes, but a little Tend Skin can help with that. Every ob-gyn I've known has said that gentle soap and water are all you need for proper hygiene, and the vagina naturally creates its own pH balance. Plus, I'm not crazy about the idea of applying so many products. Exfoliating enzyme peels are tingly on the face, so I can only imagine how they might feel on the most sensitive skin -- and there's no way a lightening cream is getting near my business.
If I told my gyno I had gone near my vagina with anything other than unscented soap and a loofah, she would kick my ass 10 ways to the beginning of my last period.

But here's where I disagree with the Bella gals, who write:

Read more Here, try this exfoliating... >>

Finally, you can poke toxic needles in your face--at home!

Posted at 11:21 AM Oct 29, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

Crank up the Magic Bullet, put on your Snuggie and get on the Gazelle, because mail-order Botox is coming to a your face near you. Here, a Texas woman (represent!) teaches you how to stick needles full of toxic muscle-freezing serum into your face ... at home! Without a doctor's supervision! Finally, a dangerous medical procedure with potentially lifelong negative side effects you can do in your own bathroom. And here I thought I was destined to just sit on the side of the bathtub and pop toe blisters for the rest of my life.


Oh man, I hope at-home endoscopic surgery is next. I don't need no damn appendix.


[Via Buzzfeed]

Lauren Luke is my new favorite thing ever ever ever ever ever

Posted at 2:08 PM Aug 06, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

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Why people--and by "people" I mean "people who write things and produce things for media outlets"--continue to be surprised when average folks become beloved and popular, I don't know. I mean, my best friends are average folks, and I'm guessing yours are, too. And of course, I mean "average" as in they're not rock stars or supermodels or Nobel Prize winners. I love them dearly all the same. As Jezebel notes today, this is shocking, according to the New York Times. The paper can barely believe that "average" girl Lauren Luke is so beloved by YouTube watchers the world over who adore her easy makeup tutorials:

Not all the viewers tuning in to YouTube to watch Ms. Luke cheerily layer rainbow-tinted shadow on her eyes or paint a pneumatic pout on her lips view her as an alter-Angelina. But in their eyes she is an icon -- a self-made celebrity they have embraced as their own. A 27-year-old single mother from South Shields near Newcastle in England, Ms. Luke is nothing if not approachable. She is the kind of open-faced, plain-spoken Englishwoman you might expect to encounter at the butcher shop or corner pub. With her plump proportions and pretty if nondescript features, she seems an unlikely candidate to shake up the beauty world.
So, let me get this straight: she's an approachable, likable, honest woman who knows what she's talking about when it comes to makeup, and she's an "unlikely candidate" to shake up the beauty world? Because she's not Scarlett Johansson or Agyness Deyn? Sounds to me like Luke is a downright fantastic businesswoman--an ideal candidate to "shake up" the beauty world.

And let's talk about "shaking up" for a sec. A real beauty world shake-up would mean including non-models, non-rock stars, non-actors in advertising and an overall expansion of the limited beauty standards currently available. (Not white, not thin, not blessed with mountainous cheekbones? Well, you can be "quirky," I guess.) What Luke is doing is not shaking up much of anything, which is not to say that what she's doing isn't awesome and fun. But a shake-up, it ain't.

I'm sorry that I've only just now discovered Luke, her fantastic YouTube channel and her personal line of makeup available at Sephora, but I guess that means I'm going to have to play a lot of dress-up to catch up. Here's Luke's guide to Dita Von Teese-ing yourself, which I always screw up and have to re-do the eyeliner like 10 times.

Ellen puts on her pretty face, sells it and nails it

Posted at 12:00 PM Jul 01, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

Ironic selling of makeup is still selling of makeup, CoverGirl. So yeah, I get it, and I'm totally falling or not falling for the new Ellen Degeneres "Simply Ageless" ad, depending on whatever attitude is supposed to make me want to buy the makeup in the first place. Is that confusing? It should be, a little, because as Sociological Images notes, Ellen's ad is a little confusing:



This is certainly a CoverGirl attempt at self-deprecating irony, which is a pretty good way to sell something when you're a giant conglomerate beauty company looking for new ways to hawk your wares in an increasingly self-referential, irony based media sphere.

Ellen is pretty and funny, and like butch news superstar Rachel Maddow, (who is also pretty! HOW CAN IT BE!?!? THEREISONLYONEWAYTOBEPRETTY BRAINSPLODEOMGOMGOMGOG) she has to wear makeup on television. (Just like, as Maddow has noted in interviews, dudes do as well.) So I think it's neat that, if she wants to, she can have a pass to sell cheap, non-obnoxious foundation to people who are probably interested in cheap, non-obnoxious foundation. I happily place myself in this category as my makeup interests lie mainly in eyeliner, so foundation is almost always an afterthought.

As far as the whole gay issue, it's surely not an accident that they chose a lovable lesbian to make fun of beauty culture, particularly in our Maddow moment. I do think it would be more satirical--if perhaps not quite as haha funny--if they'd gotten a gal like Jessica Alba to do it. Still, the commercial reveals to a larger public that there's more to being a gay woman than wearing Birkenstocks and carrying messenger bags, that there can be makeup and dancing and pretty and smart and gay and silly and whatever-you-like, all in one package. Still, that package is selling makeup, so ...
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