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Historical Background of Perfume & Perfume Manufacturing in Iran

The following excerpt is from the website, Pars Times

Iranians are regarded as the first manufacturers of perfume and discoverers of decorative and cosmetic powders and sweet smelling oils or beauty creams.

Plants and flowers, perfumes and aromas always attracted the attention of Iranian since the most remote times. In ancient sources, including the stone inscriptions of Achaemenian periods, as well as the Greek and Roman sources and Pahlavi texts, clear indications can be found about the Iranian's attention to, and interest in, various kinds of perfumes, incenses and sweet aromas.

In stone images of Persepolis Darius is shown while sitting on a nice chair with two scent bottles or incense bones in front of him, and Xerxes is standing behind him while holding the same kind of flowers in the left hand. These flowers are probably Lily of the Valley or narcissus which were peculiar to the Fars province, and which were mentioned in Islamic sources.

In another image the Iranian monarch is shown holding a beautiful flower in his left hand (and a protruded umbrella is kept over his head).

In another image an Iranian lady is holding a sweet smelling blower or apple in front of her face or nose. Without any doubt, these flowers had beautiful colors and aroma which attracted the attention of Iranian men and women. In addition to that, there is a wealth of sources and documentary evidence in support of Iranians' deep attachment to various kinds of plants, sweet smelling flowers, preparation of perfumes, fragrant materials and a variety of incenses. According to Will Durant and some western sources, Iranians were the first manufacturers of various kinds of perfumes, discoverers of decorative and cosmetic powders. Invention of sweet smelling essences or cosmetic creams is also attributed to Iranians.

The entire article, Historical Background of Perfume & Perfume Manufacturing in Iran, can be viewed at the Pars Times site.

Cosmetics and Regulation

From the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics website:

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a coalition of public health, educational, religious, labor, womens, environmental and consumer groups. Our goal is to protect the health of consumers and workers by requiring the health and beauty industry to phase out the use of chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects and other health problems and replace them with safer alternatives.

The Safe Cosmetics Campaign began in 2002 with the release of a report, Not Too Pretty: Phthalates, Beauty Products and the FDA.  For the report, environmental and public health groups contracted with a laboratory to test 72 name-brand, off-the-shelf beauty products for the presence of phthalates, a family of industrial chemicals linked to permanent birth defects in the male reproductive system.

The lab found phthalates in nearly three quarters of the products tested, though the chemicals were not listed on any of the labels. A second report, Pretty Nasty, documented similar product test results in Europe.

In February 2003, the European Union passed a new amendment to their Cosmetics Directive that prohibits the use of known or suspected carcinogens, mutagens and reproductive toxins (a.k.a. CMRs) from cosmetics. This amendment went into force in September 2004.

The site also includes the signers of the Compact for Global Production of Safe Health and Beauty Products.

PR Watch, part of the Center for Media and Democracy, generated an article, Cosmetic Solutions: The Makeup Industry Gives Itself a Health Hazard Makeover, written by Diane Farsetta:

An important underlying issue is that the industry is largely self-regulated. While interstate trade in "adulterated or misbranded cosmetics" is prohibited, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not review new cosmetics before they are marketed and cannot order recalls of hazardous cosmetics. "Cosmetic firms are responsible for substantiating the safety of their products and ingredients," reads the FDA's own explanation.

Dental hygiene and mouthwash products

This website by Jennifer A. Heise references information from a variety of medieval and Renaissance sources and includes the following recipes:

• Water Rinse, Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century
• Wine rinse and herb chewing, Trotula, 11th century
• Mint mouthwash, Banckes Herbal, 16th century
• Wine washes and tooth rubbing, Gilbertus Anglicus, 15th century
• Rosemary Charcoal Rub, Banckes Herbal, 16th century
• Sage Tooth Scrub, Gervase Markham, early 17th century
• Breath freshening powder,  Gilbertus Anglicus, 15th century
• Spice balls, Gilbertus Anglicus, 15th century
• Women's Breath treatment, Trotula, 11th century
• Tooth Whitening Wash, Gervase Markham, early 17th century
• Comfits, Rumpolt/Plat, 16th century

Jennifer Heise makes notes that:

To emphasize that many medieval health care prescriptions are not harmful, the selection  has been limited to largely non-toxic products. Also, only one mild abrasive has been included, and only one caustic, the alum combination, is included.

The dentifrices and mouthwashes come from all over Europe and from a variety of periods. Dental care prescriptions seem to center around rinsing the mouth, often with an acidic substance (wine or vinegar), though sometimes with a caustic. Teeth were rubbed with a cloth, and/or with mixtures of herbs and/or abrasives. Toothsticks, toothpicks, and rubbers of various kinds are documented in books and archeological sites. Some products, such as the bay leaf/musk combination and the pills of spices, provide a good smell; though spices also were used to heal infection.
The common and repeated ingredients include wine, salt and mint; alum and abrasive materials are included frequently in other recipes. I would say that for SCA use, the sage/salt tooth powder and the mint-vinegar rinse, along with rinsing with clear cold water, would be the best and easiest to use.

Beauty, Desire & Anxiety

A few excerpts from an Genders Online Journal article, Beauty, Desire, and Anxiety; The Economy of Sameness in ABC's Extreme Makeover:

Let me begin by saying that Extreme Makeover is a show very easy to dislike (and thus to dismiss).  With its rigidly formulaic structure, its heavy-handed and melodramatic male voiceover, its insistence on physical beauty as the only standard for self worth, its deification of plastic surgery and surgeons, its encouragement of voyeuristic indulgence, its almost exclusive fixation on female bodies, its perpetual overwriting of race and class signifiers, and its relentless endorsement of heterosexual relationships, Extreme Makeover seems like just another one of television-land's productions that pander to the latest fad.  And make no mistake, it is. Extreme Makeover is also a resonant text that speaks volumes about media culture, the signification of beauty, desire, social power, modes of gender, and pleasurable narratives.

The story it tells — one of suffering and transformation, of desperation and joy — is as old as narrative itself.  We can see elements of Extreme Makeover's story played out in myth cycles of death and renewal, in fairytales that depict the heart's desire and the body's change, in operas, novels, films, and television where suffering is interrupted by a benevolent spirit (be it fairy godmother, good witch, or plastic surgeon) who brings hope, revitalization, and opportunity for a newly lived life.  In terms of provenance, we might as easily point to Dracula as to Now Voyager! (two very different sorts of makeover narratives) to understand the fascination of the changing and changeable body's relation to the psyche.   The fact that Extreme Makeover is a televised text, of course, links it to important forbears, such as Queen for a Day, which searched for sad stories, put them on display and rewarded each Queen's long-suffering. Yet, there is a significant difference between a new washing machine and a new nose, and if we are to look to television antecedents to better understand Extreme Makeover, I believe we'd be more likely to find them in an amalgam of soap opera and game show, say General Hospital and The Price is Right, where sad stories are the only sorts of stories worth telling, where consumer knowledge is assessed and rewarded, where benevolent hosts select from a pool of candidates to "come on down," and where audiences vicariously participate in the tension and celebrate the outcome — be it love in the afternoon or winning the grand showcase.

Read the rest of Brenda Weber's article at Genders Online. Weber is an assistant professor of Gender Studies and adjunct assistant professor of English at Indiana University.

Ta Moko: A History On Skin & The Eternal Thread

Traditional Maori tattooing is on display at a San Francisco exhibit, Toi Maori, Art From the Maori People of New Zealand. The Eternal Thread, the other section of the exhibit, highlights Maori weaving skills that creates cloaks and other practical objects such as kete (baskets).

Ta Moko is worn as a symbol of identity and origin. With lines, shapes and patterns, it tells the story of the person within the skin.

"Before the arrival of European settlers, the complex designs of ta moko were literally carved into the skin. A rake-like instrument (uhi matarau), usually made of teeth or bone, was used to break the skin; then a flat edged blade (uhi) was used to tap in the dye, creating a tattoo with a scarred, chiselled appearance."

"The modern tool of ta moko is the tattoo machine, (mihini moko), although some ta moko artists alternate between traditional and modern methods. While the needle is faster and more precise, hand tools bring the ritual more in line with how it was done traditionally."

"As New Zealand's Maori people are rediscovering their heritage, many are turning towards the art of moko. Ta moko continues to mean what it has always meant; it is a symbol of integrity, Maori identity and prestige, as well as a reflection of Whakapapa (ancestry) and personal history.

"A national collective of ta moko artists — Te Uhi a Mataora — was formed in 2000 to preserve, enhance and develop ta moko as a living art form. Many of these highly skilled artists come from a carving background; others specialise in design. All of them share a deep understanding of traditional forms and designs. The collective strives to uphold ancient traditions while also looking to the future, as the art of ta moko continues to evolve. "

A gallery of images demonstrate the art of tattooing.

The Eternal Thread represents the weaving portion of the exhibit:

"The most widely used weaving material for cloaks was (and still is) harakeke - otherwise known as New Zealand flax. Rituals were associated with the sourcing and preparation of the harakeke, from the planting of bushes through to harvesting and stripping of the fibre to create muka. Other materials, including feathers and dog skin, were added for warmth and ornamentation.

"Traditionally, cloaks were created without a loom. The work was suspended between two upright weaving pegs and woven by hand. Feathers or decorative threads were integrated into the fabric of the garment as the weaving progressed. Natural dyes were used to achieve a variety of colours; paru (swamp mud) was used to achieve a black tone and tanekaha (bark) produced brown.

"The earliest style of cloak was the rain cape. This cloak was primarily for protection from the elements and was relatively quick to produce. More decorative cloaks, made for leaders and chiefs, incorporated fine muka surfaces, taniko borders and feathers."

Images from the weaving exhibit are available at the site.

New Link

International Perfume Museum - The museum is located in three sites which symbolize Grasse's history : the entry pavilion of the former Hugues-Aîné perfumery built in the 19th century, as well as the vestiges of the Dominicans' convent, built in the 14th century, backing the city walls dating from the end of the 16th century.

Some of the sections of the site include perfume creation and an extensive history covering antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance as well as 18th, 19th and 20th centuries:

The development of aromacologie and perfumes exalting positives, soothing, invigorating, and bracing mind and body while maintaining the power of seduction. Some examples are Green Tea by Elisabeth Arden, Aromatic Tonic by Lancôme, Energizing Fragrance by Shisheido ...

Today more than ever, perfume is a luxury item subject to economic concerns. However, its magical power remains intact: it beckons the imagination, invites escape reverie. From one shore to another, it has adapted itself throughout the 20th century to the cultures, traditions, and olfactory sensibilities of every continent, all the while transmitting its typically French heritage, and its undisputed savoir-faire the world over.

Odoriferous molecules are breathed in and dissolve on the mucus-lined walls of the nose. Sensory cells located in the nasal cavities pick up from there and transmit the information to the brain's olfactory bulbs by way of the sensory nerves. The whole process takes place in one/thousandth of a second.

Excerpt

"In Europe, Diaghilev's London ballet production of Shéhérazade in 1909 sent sales of mascara and eye shadow rocketing upward. The Russian dancers' dramatic eye makeup stepped up the demand for kohl — at least for the privileged classes — and also started the fad of colored and gilded eye shadows that color-coordinated with daring evening dresses designed by the likes of Paul Poiret, an eccentric French dressmaker who, according to beauty entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein in her autobiography, used to receive his guests with 'live panthers chained in the entrance hall, each one attended by a six-foot Negro stripped to the waist, a bejeweled turban wound around his head, and his bare torso oiled and gleaming to resemble statuary.' "

"Dancers had a big influence on American doyennes of beauty like Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. Both women recall in their memoirs having been struck by the eye makeup used by the Russian ballerinas and other dancers. Arden and Rubinstein persuaded their wealthy clientele to play with these bold eye cosmetics. "I experimented privately and learned many valuable lessons from stage personalities, which in turn I taught to a few of my more daring clients," Rubinstein wrote in her autobiography. "They spread the word, and I knew that another beauty barrier would soon be toppled." By the end of World War I, "mascaro," the hair dye, had evolved into "mascara," a cosmetic used specifically and routinely by many women — at least in the big metropolises."

From an excerpt from Inventing Beauty by Teresa Riordan, published by Random House

Museums

The Barcelona Perfume Museum which began in 1963 traces the evolution of perfumes through a selection of some nine thousand pieces: perfume bottles, advertising documents and boxes.

One of the unusual items in the collection is a pair of perfume earrings consisting of two filigree silver pendent arcs. Small pigeons hang from the lower spheres and these earrings were considered to be effective against spells or maladies which could penetrate through the ears. Another type of container is a blown glass almorratxa with four spouts in a floral and fish decoration.

A history traces the contributions of various countries and civilizations to perfume lore. One custom "introduced by the women of the high society of Egypt, to put underneath the wigs that habitually they carry, called 'cones,' made of fat mixed with perfumes, which they were fused with the corporal heat and with the atmosphere, at the same time that they perfumed the body that took them." (As you might have gathered, the translation from the Spanish is a bit odd at times.)

The advent of commercial perfumes is outlined on the site with emphasis on the contributions of the European countries.

In fact, if you're interested in collecting perfume bottles and other containers for the precious fluids, an "International Encounter of Perfume Collectors" takes place on October 3rd, 2004, in Sant Cugat del Valles, Barcelona, Spain.

In 2005, a movie based on the book, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind is due on movie screens starring Orlando Bloom, an aptly chosen name for the actor in this film.

Los Angeles Magazine ran a lengthy article entitled The vapor chase: in the quest to build and sell a mechanical nose, experts have created technologies almost as versatile and complex as the human sense of smell—almost on the mechanisms of odor perception and computerized sensors, an interesting read.

Best Beauty Buys

Once a year InStyle magazine presents its best beauty buys and it's worth a look. As opposed to most of what you see advertised (unless it's a drugstore flyer), these products range through the price spectrum, including many that can be purchased at the drugstore.

Many favorites that older women have found over the years still prove reliable, priced right and favored by makeup artists for the reliability. Face, skin, eyes, body, lips, hair and celebrity favorites are the categories covered.

I used to just tear this section out and file it for reference but now you can find it online:

InStyle Ninth Annual Best Beauty Buys

Ancient Rome, Older Women & Hair

Part of the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts' site is a feature called Object in Focus, a teacher's resource. A recent selection is entitled, Portrait of an Older Woman, Roman, 60–70 A.D., done in marble. She's described thusly:

Let your eyes wander over this sculpture. Folds of fabric cross the woman’s chest, drop off her shoulder, swing across her belly, fall to her ankles — only to swoop back up towards her head. But the action stops there. Curls of hair cling tightly to her scalp in orderly rows. They frame a stern face, with firm jaw and tight lips.

Cover her head with your hand. Beneath the folds of fabric we sense a body that is active, strong, and young. Her shoulders are almost dainty, and her breasts are firm. Now take your hand away. Does the head surprise you? Perhaps a bit large for the body, it bears the steady gaze of an older, more mature woman than the body suggests.

The contradiction between the head and body of this sculpture may seem odd at first. But the puzzle reveals important aspects of this woman's character and role in life.

The role that women did play in Roman Society is explored at the Feminae Romanae site: The Women of Ancient Rome.

Another exhibit devoted to ancient Roman women was I, Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome, organized by the Yale University Art Gallery and "the first attempt to study the lives of Roman women as revealed in Roman art."

The University of Texas press published I Claudia II, Women in Roman Art and Society edited by Diana Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson, a successor to the book that accompanied the exhibit noted above. The book contains a series of essays dealing with the subject and an excerpt from the introduction follows.

"In Roman antiquity, beauty was physical comeliness but, at the same time, was perceived as a feminine virtue. A woman with an exquisite hairstyle was at once attractive and also virtuous. Empresses and princesses worked with their hairstylists to create new coiffures because they wanted to be perceived as fashionable, on the cutting edge, and prosperous, but, at the same time, these hairstyles proclaimed that their wearer possessed all the traits desirable in the ideal Roman woman. In addition, these hairstyles were not chosen haphazardly. Instead, each corkscrew curl, each flowing tress, and each blunt cut bang was carefully arranged to make reference to the political or social agenda of the current dynast and his family. Octavia appears to have invented the new nodus coiffure, but it was Livia who transformed it into a cause célèbre, to be imitated by Roman girls and matrons throughout the empire. Livia's hairstyle was copied in large part because it was hers and she was empress of Rome. But it was also imitated because it literally had bound up with it all the desirable features of ideal Roman womanhood, enumerated in the Augustan marriage and moral legislation. By wearing the hairstyle, the woman took on, almost by magic, all of the trappings of the ideal Roman woman. An additional nuance was that this very coiffure had become associated in the minds of the Romans with the Roman state itself and with a nationalistic fervor. Livia wore the simple hairstyle as a statement that she, unlike Cleopatra, her husband's foe at Actium, was a woman of high moral character, a patrician from a noble Roman family, and not a foreign woman given to what was reported to be ostentatious excess. The simplicity of Livia's hairstyle was not only a striking contrast to the intricacy of Cleopatra's tresses but a reflection of the simple austerity of the Republican values being revived by Augustus in his program of moral reform. When aristocratic women, freedwomen, and even female slaves adopted Livia's hairstyle, they did so in imitation of the current trendsetters but also to indicate that they possessed the same virtues as their imperial counterparts and that they were Romans."

You can also read a commentary on the Roman woman's hairstyle at the Minneapolis site entitled Hairstyle is more than a fashion statement in Roman portraits.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Blonde Hair

Aphrodite was the original model of the blonde beauty, her hair symbolic of her sexual attractions. She set the tone for blondes, providing the role model for Venus and for many subsequent blonde sex goddesses.

Eve and Mary Magdalene were the two bad girl blondes of the Middle Ages. Their blonde hair (as seen in paintings and other images of the medieval period) was singled out as a sign of dangerous sexual allure, evidence of their appetites for pleasure and their lascivious designs on innocent men. Preachers of the period tried to suppress the popularity of blonde hair, threatening hell fire and damnation on those who dyed their hair, and encouraging bonfires of blonde wigs.

In Renaissance Italy, blonde hair became the unquestioned symbol of feminine beauty, openly celebrated in the paintings and poems of the period. Courtesans and wealthy women used to dye their hair using dyes made from vine ashes, chopped liquorice, lime juice and even horse urine.

Only 0.001% of adults are naturally blonde.

By the 1970s, with L’Oreal’s “Because I’m Worth It” campaign, blonde hair had become a symbol of woman’s independence.

Victims of the famous Clairol 1960s ad campaign for a blonde rinse included Betty Friedan and David Hockney, who allegedly rushed out of his apartment in the middle of the night to buy a bottle after seeing the ad on TV.

True Blue, Madonna’s first album as a blonde, sold twenty million copies worldwide. Her previous albums, for which she’d been a brunette, sold five million.

Jean Harlow dyed her hair with a diabolical cocktail of peroxide, household bleach, soap flakes and ammonia until it fell out and she was forced to wear a wig.

Marilyn Monroe refused to allow other actresses with blonde hair on the same film set with her.

Princess Diana spent almost £4000 a year having her hair bleached.

From the book, On Blondes by Johanna Pitman, published by Bloomsbury. Allison Pearson's article in the London Telegraph reveals this about Pitman herself:

"Fifteen years ago, working in Africa, Pitman felt the primal charge of being blonde for herself. Exposed to the sun all day, her brownish hair turned bright gold. Mistaken for a saint, she was asked to heal a man with a snake bite. After a dash to hospital, the grateful patient shyly tried to touch his saviour's golden halo. A brunette in the same circumstances might have earned profuse thanks, but it is unlikely she would have commanded the 28 goats offered to the blonde. On Blondes shows how every age has restyled blonde hair in its own image, investing it with its particular dreams and anxieties. The subject has taken Joanna Pitman down some unlikely paths ... for purposes of research, Joanna Pitman herself went electric Andy Warhol white at colossal expense and is horrified to report that it was money well spent. She was served first in shops and people smiled at her for no reason at all. 'After a while I wondered whether I could afford not to be blonde.' "

Distance learning and perfumery

The older I become, the more I seem to need my favorite perfume, applied several times a day, in fact. It's a reassuring imprint of my taste and a comfort in itself.

If you'd like to start a new career, why not the art of perfumery? Versailles University in France offers a program entirely delivered in English. The first year, held in Versailles is essentially technical and scientific (perfumery, cosmetic and chemistry), with the second year being spent either to Plymouth (UK) or Padova (Italy) for business administration and marketing applied to the perfumery and cosmetic sector.

Excerpt

"Any destination, any route — into the mall, out to the parking garage, up the escalator — takes you right through cosmetics. Straight into a world where there's always something you can afford. Where one size fits all. Where nobody is stingy with samples and nobody nags if you hang around. Here are thousands of things you can wear. Plus gimmicks like "Plastic Shine" to make your mouth glossy as a magazine cover. One counter's got compacts decorated with the angel of your birthday month - who knew there was such a thing? Then there's all that other stuff they come up with, like chakra nail polish and bubble bath that smells like cinnamon buns. A woman would have to go almost every day to keep track.

Come to the beauty department. Hear what's new. Get out of the house for a while. Dab and sample and swipe the colors. Pour your heart out to someone who will pat soothing creams on your forehead and caress your cheek with pretty powders. Check out the videos. Find out why what's coming will be better than what's past. Change your life. Change your mood."

Read the excerpt from Color Stories: Behind the Scenes of America's Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry by Mary Lisa Gavenas at the WNYC site

New Links

SunnyWindow - This is the fresh lavender season and this site specializes in the herb's products: soaps, sachets, shampoos and linen water. Scented and herbal products are the mainstay with other items made of peppermint. There's a watering can purse and gifts for men and pets. There's an encouraging story about owner Nancy Engel's entrepreneurial spirit on the site, too, as well as some health tips.

Articles

Nose

"Smells, and the memories they inspire, have come back to me in inexplicable ways. On several occasions I've been taken aback by how powerful their effect can be. One hot, miserable morning in Manhattan nearly twenty years after I left my little hometown for good, I was on my way to give a speech to a group of bankers and psychologists. I hadn't prepared what I was going to say, and I began to feel very anxious as I plodded along the sticky streets. I passed a subway station and got a pungent whiff of urine mixed with roasting hot dogs and the sickening sweetness of sugar-roasted peanuts. A woman yammering into her cell phone walked by, leaving gusts of Eternity in her wake. I was really starting to panic when a Dominican woman opened the door to her crowded beauty salon. A waft of familiar odors — dye, acetone, and neutralizer, came my way; inexplicably, I felt better. I forgot about my speech, and wandered back, to those long afternoons in Nana's shop where lunch was a raspberry Pop-Tart and a can of Fresca, as my hair, tethered to curlers, dried."

"One spring day when my older daughters were little, I had them both with me in the supermarket. As we rolled past the cheap floral display — it was decked out for Easter — my eldest daughter stopped to sniff some purple blooms that were nose-high to a three-year-old. "Pretty," she said, and thrust a plastic pot in my face. No sooner had I taken a whiff than tears sprang to my eyes. For more than twenty years I had avoided hyacinths as a painful souvenir of my grandfather's death."

"And a few winters ago I was walking up the hill to my house in New York on a cold Saturday. The kitchen window was cracked open, and a warm baking smell was drifting onto my suburban street. It was far from the winding gravel driveway of my youth, but the smell was the same, and my jaws tensed immediately. Before I knew it, my gait had quickened to a jog despite the bags I was carrying. I burst through the door, expecting disaster, only to find my husband and daughters giggling as they stole bites of slice-and-bake cookie dough. Only then did I realize why I, who love to cook, never bothered to bake. I had always blamed my indifference on the tedium of having to measure precisely. But the smell of that warm chocolate suddenly made clear why I had always avoided making cookies and cakes."

Read an excerpt from Gabrielle Glaser's book, The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival.

Hair

"I'm having a Bad Hair Day. Well, to be honest, I'm having a Bad Hair Week. I'm due for a haircut and my hair has reached that stage where charmingly tousled becomes downright unkempt. Fortunately, I am not without resources in this battle with my unruly locks. Science is on my side. About a year ago (about the same time I became a blonde), I started doing a little research into hair and makeup for a book that I planned to write. Along the way — through hair color changes and research — I realized that a little bit of understanding could reduce the number of Bad Hair Days I experience. Scientific knowledge and a few chemical concoctions will get me through the week and a half until I get my hair back into acceptable shape...

" In a week and a half, I'll take my unkempt mop of hair to my trustworthy hairdresser and do a little experimenting. I know that blondes have fun, but I've started wondering about redheads, and how much fun they have. I'm still in the research phase on this. I'll get back to you in a few years with definitive results. But I have decided that there's nothing like a little color to improve a Bad Hair situation."

Read Better Hair Through Chemistry by Pat Murphy at the Exploratorium Magazine, Exploring Online

Article

Since InStyle began to run this yearly feature seven years ago (as a publication of Time Inc, my long time former employer, InStyle was a perk of employment), I've kept the pages, compared and taken recommendations made by a poll of 100 makeup artists, hairstylists, dermatologists and celebrities.

Take particular note of those products cited year after year as an indicator of continuing quality; the magazine distinguishes those that are multiple winners of the poll and a 'hall of fame' category is another indicator.

Though you may not want to pay particular note to the items mentioned by the MTV crowd, the reasons for choosing the selections are always interesting. Some of the products may be purchased through Gloss.com

There are some products that I've been finding more important and useful at a senior women's age and we hope to cover those in our own article later on.

In the meantime, read through InStyle's choices, Best Beauty Buys

Skin Care Article

Even if we had known that the sun-drenched look of years past wasn't, in fact, as healthy for us as we perhaps thought, we probably wouldn't have believed it. Just try telling your teenage children or grandchildren to stay out of the sun today and see how well they listen. They may not stoop to the baby oil tactics of the '50s and '60s, but they still throw caution to the wind (and sun).

"Reckoning With Sun Worship: Is it Too Late?"

Makeup Tips Article

Maia Moura continues with the makeup tips she mentioned in her interview. Good quality ingredients, reasonable prices and a plan that works for the individual woman form the basis of Maia's philosophy of looking radiant, healthier and natural. 

Makeup Tips

Beauty Sightings

'Beauty' Treatments/Botox Parties, Cosmetic surgery statistics and average costs and an Anna Magnini quote

Now that the FDA has approved Botox to treat frown lines, the phenomenon of Botox parties is receiving more attention. The Wall Street Journal ran an article on doctors dispensing Botox injections at parties hosted by patients and their invited guests. Dr. Joseph Eviatar, who is an ocular plastic surgeon at New York's Chelsea Eye Center, was one such doctor. The Los Angeles Times titled their article, Botox and the Age of Camaraderie; Culture Injections and chemical peels may be the Tupperware party of the 21st century as women find kinship in plastic-surgery gatherings.

Nor are these 'parties' just a Stateside phenomenon. An English Medical Center presents a economic rationale for the get-togethers:

Parties are a means of providing Botox Treatments more economically. Botox has to be purchased in bulk and once opened only has a shelf-life of 24 hours. Where a group of clients can book to attend as a party-group the savings on the normal price of treatment can be considerable.

Not surprisingly, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery has at its site further cosmetic uses and expanded applications for their drug. According to ASAPS statistics, Botox injections accounted for 18% of all cosmetic procedures last year (1,600,300), more than any other procedure with chemical peels coming in second (1,361,479). If you're actually considering cosmetic surgery, statistics include those for national dollar averages for specific procedures.

One article from Zinos.com characterizes the appearance of a Botoxed woman as that of a "waxy department store mannequin, who couldn't express surprise, sadness, annoyance or pleasure. It was as though her entire personality had been removed with the quick prod of a needle."

Remember actress Anna Magnani's quote?

Please don't retouch my wrinkles. It took me so long to earn them.

Beauty/A Bounty of Sites

A year or so ago, we heard about major beauty sites collapsing and disappearing. Well, there are more than ever and many based on more natural products than the more commercial outlets. Since going to the department store doesn't bestow any more educational value about new (I've never heard of these products experience) manufacturers and their wares, the Internet affords a wider range of products and some with older women in mind.

The MarioBadescu site offers a featured product simply called the "The Pimple Healer" also known as drying lotion. Even though most of us are past that teenage nightmare, it acknowledges a prime concern of women across several decades. There's a catalog to be ordered, testimonials by both celebs and 'civilians' as well as consultations about individual problems.

Fresh.com carries products that sound good enough to eat: Fleurs de Chocolat with three eau de parfum in the collection named after female opera heroines. Manon is a dreamy, soft fragrance, accented by succulent pear, gentle linden and fig, centered on airy freesia, wild rose and jasmine, balanced on bitter chocolate, rosewood and cloves. Mikado is a rich, exotic fragrance balanced by bergamot, dreamy vanilla and mint leaf, heartened with Darjeeling tea, Moroccan pomegranate and amber, resting on vetiver, bitter chocolate and Tonka bean. Forget the face, get out the spoon.

A venerable 126-year-old Chicago-based shop named SmallFlower highlights a bath of the month club (you can choose 3, 6 or 12 month soaks) offering a choice of over 400 baths. Gad, you could have a different one every day of the year plus....This site also offers a variety of shaving products for men on your list, including brushes, mugs, stones (to stop bleeding) and soaps for purists. There's a reassuring claim that lip balm addiction is not a real concern as well as a recipe for your own lip balm.

Two sites that specialize in soaps are fairly unique: Sag Harbor Soaps specialize in utilizing weeds...yes, you heard correctly. Chickweed, calendula petals, dandelion and plantain leaves - found in Melinda's Weeds - are classic herbs for the skin, so we're told. They're combined with contain pure essential oils of clary sage, rose geranium, lavender and sandalwood. We've used olive oil soaps (Kiss My Face) for years because of the dry skin caused by Northeast winters, but there are other sources for this kind of soap, notably that at Latherup.com.

EzFace.com allows you to submit a digital photo of yourself that can be used with the site's Virtual Mirror setup to experiment with makeup colors.

We've been downcast when a favorite perfume (in this case, Metamorphosis by Jean LaPorte) vanished. When this happens, it's possible to either employ the Perfume Detective to find overlooked sample bottles or think custom and limited edition. Such sites as Parfumelle, a Texas-based firm, and Scentier in Denver, Co. deliver varied inventories. For sheer good looks, though, the shop called Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle is cited, re-creating some scents. And if you find that you can't find just that right color makeup, there's a firm like New York-based Three Custom Color Specialists who can mix and match.

Links continue on Beauty, Page Two>>>>