lady,You are the most beautiful -533A.com

As of today, I'm going to be contributing weekly items on beauty to Miss Mary Rambin's new site, More Than Mary. I'm a big fan of Mary's straight-talking, dry humor, and overall spirit, and very pleased to be contributing to her new project.

Mary did a great job of editing a somewhat lengthy piece I wrote; she pulled out the meat and made a much more concise post out of what I submitted. But I thought I'd post the full item here for you guys; consider this the director's cut or something.

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After almost half a decade of beauty blogging, I've become pretty
jaded about the cosmetics industry. More to the point, being on the
receiving end of so many products over the years – we're talking
hundreds – has made me realize that there really are not that many
stand-out performers in the crowd of overpriced, artfully packaged
merchandise.

One of the recent trends that many brands have recently glommed onto
in an attempt to sell in a way over-populated market is that of being
"ethical". Let's just start with the "organic," and "all natural"
labels usually lumped under this umbrella (which is probably made of
organic, un-dyed hemp).

If the uncritical way that many women spend hundreds and even
thousands of dollars on anti-aging products taught beauty marketers
anything, it's that there are a lot of suckers out there.

Just as many
women want to believe that a cream from Bloomie's can turn back the
clock, there are plenty who ask no questions when told that the
product they're buying is going to help save the planet and stick it
to The Man and his evil chemicals.

Of course, much of this – as with most marketing – is pure bunk.

Let's start with the all-natural and organic claims. As a Times
(London) piece pointed out four years ago, "herbal products can become
toxic when they degrade," and "organic cosmetics are under-researched
on efficacy as well as safety". Not to mention that many formulas
marketed as "organic" may only include a single organic element. The
drawbacks to organic products were summed up thusly: "Less evidence
that they work; less rigorously tested; expensive; don