Beware Toxic Beauty Products

'Designer lipstick' a growing trend: NYT

(NEWSER) - Sure, you can still buy lipstick for a few bucks at the local drugstore—but why would you? The New York Times reports today on the growing trend of designer lipstick, one tube of which will cost you up to $60. “I heard and read repeatedly in many of the magazines I go through and devour that his red is the red to be wearing,” said one woman who waited in a long line at Bergdorf Goodman recently to meet designer Tom Ford, whose new cosmetics line is being sold there. She went home with Scarlet Rouge for a whopping $48, before tax. More»

Mold, mildew cleaner particularly worrisome

(NEWSER) - As if anyone needed another reason to stop scrubbing, here's another: cleaning products have been linked to breast cancer in a new study. Scientists also found a link between an increased risk of developing the cancer to air fresheners and insect repellents. Women who regularly used a combination of cleaning products were twice as likely to have breast cancer, with the strongest link emerging between cancer and mold and mildew removers, and air freshener, the Independent reports. More»

Find suggests they were just as advanced as early humans

(NEWSER) - Our Neanderthal cousins apparently picked their knuckles off the ground long enough to dabble in makeup and baubles, leading researchers to suggest they were no less intelligent than our direct ancestors at the same time in history. Newly unearthed evidence of 50,000-year-old jewelry and even makeup in a cave in Spain along with earlier, similar finds shows that European Neanderthals were just as a creative as early modern humans in Africa. “It shows a symbolic dimension in behavior,” the lead researcher tells the Guardian . More»

Effect of digital retouching on real women's body issues is now creepily tangible

(NEWSER) - As if the fake beauty of those Photoshopped magazine covers wasn’t enough, enter Temptu, a home “airbrush system” that can give anyone that flat, plastic look in the flesh. Chloe Angyal is appalled. One really needs to focus in order “to think about just how incredibly screwed up this concept is,” she writes. It’s not like we don’t know what happens on magazine covers—“Women have never been more media-literate”—but they still want a home airbrush? More»

It is, after all, the new red

(NEWSER) - Hot pink lipstick is “younger, hipper, and definitely a little more edgy” than red, says a makeup artist to the stars. How best to copy the look of Kim Kardashian, Leighton Meester, and other pink-pouted celebs? Makeup artist Mally Roncal offers USA Today some tips:

• A matte look might be too intense—tone it down with a more flattering sheer lipstick or gloss.