I AM SO CONFUSED!!!!

Ladies, put down those razors, or else you’ll think you’re a dude. Marie Claire’s Beauty Director Ying Chu explains on MSN…

Q: Do models shave their faces? Their skin always looks so smooth!
A: Absolutely not, and you shouldn’t either. Face shaving is such a masculine act that it can be psychologically confusing to do as a woman. If you feel like you have excess hair on your face, try waxing, plucking, using depilatories, or laser hair removal. You can also ask your doctor for Vaniqa, a prescription cream that slows hair growth in about four to six weeks. But you shouldn’t obsess over a little peach fuzz. I’ve definitely seen my share of it on models’ faces. The reason you haven’t is because facial hair is pretty much always retouched out of photos.

She’s right about the plucking/waxing/nairing stuff. You shouldn’t shave your face, because it will grow back cut at the surface, thereby giving your facial hair a nice, stubbly look, exactly what you want. However, I know I’m not the only one who picks up a razor to take a few swipes between my eyebrows when I’m half out the door and I don’t have 10 minutes to Nair my face. I’m pretty sure I know I’m female.

via Feministing

The Slackers Guide: Being a Bridesmaid

Photo by Legalsec

There comes a point in your 20s when your friends start getting married for the right reasons, as opposed to the majority of your friends who were getting married early on because they’re unstable/dumb/weird. Eventually, those friends will ask you to be bridesmaids. A lot of those times, you’re going to have to say yes, especially if it’s your cousin who doesn’t have any actual friends and your mom makes you.

Your job as a maid of honor or bridesmaid may differ, depending on the wedding. Some brides will expect you to just show up in your expensive-ass dress the day of the wedding and look pretty, but not so pretty that you’ll outshine her. Other brides will want you there every step of the way, through thick and thin, to be there for her tantrums, and to down Jose Cuervo through the night on those days where she’s having cold feet.

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Countering the Obama Bashing

Just in time for a whole lot of stupid over the next few months (and potentially 4-8 years) Gina from What About Our Daughters? has launched MichelleObamaWatch.com. This presidential election will thrust an African-American woman into the spotlight in a way unparalleled to anything we’ve seen in recent history.

Just in the past 2 days, we’ve seen some pretty shocking (and not-so-shocking stuff at the same time) stuff go down:

- Yazmany Arboleda’s exhibition, “The Assassination of Barack Obama” drew enough uproar to warrant NYPD and the Secret Service. You can check the images, here, but it’s more or less some artist’s poor attempt at being avant garde. Apparently the exhibition is about the media’s portrayal of Barack Obama (there’s another one of Sen. Hillary Clinton). Arboleda tried to put it all together in an empty storefront in Midtown Manhattan for a 24 hour guerrilla show. Both shows had previously been in galleries, only open to people by appointment. The Barack Obama exhibit features nooses, a gigantic black penis, and a photo of his kids, Malia and Shasha with the words “nappy headed hos” written above them. Secret Service shuts that shit dowwwwn, and the guy is detained for a few hours.

He cries “artistic freedom.” I say, he’s a sucky artist. I was offended looking at it; I’m all about First Amendment rights, but the exhibit is really kinda dumb. It’s more provocative than something that sends a message… And, dammit, I’m very, very scared of Obama getting shot, like many other people are, too.

- Those fools at Fox “News” referred to Michelle Obama not as Barack’s wife, but his “Baby Mama.”

Now I KNOW the Obamas are probably the most idyllic black family in the country, but according to Fox News, all black people have illegitimate children and aren’t responsible to their families. Eventually, Fox apologized in a statement sent to Politico.

“A producer on the program exercised poor judgment in using this chyron during the segment,” Fox’s Senior Vice President of Programming Bill Shine said in a statement to Politico.

Classsssss.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of people who are basically pissed about the treatment of the Obamas and the Clintons for that matter. But this is not the last that we’re going to see (ahem, cough cough, Faux News cough hack blecccch)

Linkage: Tech-tonic edition

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Don’t Flub Your BFF’s Wedding

(photo by Zoonbar)

Monica over at TwentySet relaunched her other project, Styled For Success. Probably her most enterprising post so far is 88 Things You Need to Know Before Attending a Wedding.

Here are a few of my faves:

- Your name “and guest” means you and ONE guest.
- Don’t get the couple something they didn’t ask for! It’s not clever and/or original, it’s annoying.
-Do not call your friends to see what they are wearing! Unless you know for a fact they were invited.
-Do not call the bride and groom for at least a month, unless you are family or a member of the bridal party. A new marriage requires a lot of transition, and that takes time past the honeymoon.

Urban Outfitters Square Secret

Love it for its cheeky, interesting apparel or hate it for its overly hipster gear, we all know about Urban Outfitters. You can walk out of there with a sweet peasant top, skin-tight magenta jeans, the freshest kicks, a few counter-culture books, and an overpriced couch… as long as mummy and daddy are regularly pumping into your trust fund…

But what we didn’t know is that UO’s CEO, Richard Hayne basically has been compared to the conservativeness of Dick Cheney. According to This Is Money, Hayne started the UO in the 1970s, taking it public in 1993, but he still has a controlling share in the company. He doesn’t give interviews because he know he can’t be the perceived face of the company — once people learn that he’s bff with George Bush (meaning he funnels cash to the GOP like it’s no body’s business), they’ll basically abandon the stock and the store.

Shopping in Urban makes you feel like you are somewhere radically Left-wing, an antidote to the corporate blandness of The Gap. But Hayne is a stanch conservative who donates money to Republican politicians, not least Rick Santorum, a now failed Senator whose views on homosexuality are both bizarre and old-fashioned.

{This is Money; scroll down for full story}