Free Republic

As newly minted princess Kate Middleton greeted Michelle Obama in the ornate surroundings of Buckingham Palace Tuesday, it was hard to believe she was wearing a $340 dress from British retailer Reiss — a frock any commoner could buy. (snip) While Michelle Obama has also been applauded for wearing clothes from affordable stores such as J.Crew and H&M, she also favors big-name designers such as Jason Wu and Isabel Toledo. The floral Barbara Tfank dress she wore to meet Middleton this week cost at least $2,000.

If my house were on fire and I had to take one thing (aside from my kids, dog and photographs, of course), I would have to say it would definitely be my cosmetics bag. I love all things fashion and beauty and just purchased the brand new lipstick and eyeliner I'm wearing in this photo. But there are radical groups out there that want us all to believe that wearing cosmetics will kill us. The anti-cosmetics movement is the latest cause du jour for junk science activists, and just like other scare campaigns before it, it's based on greed, profit...

For people that disagree with her views, it’s often hard to understand what could possibly be Sarah Palin’s appeal to so many people. Well, here is clear proof of why: When Vietnam veteran Dave Roever found himself in Wasilla, Alaska with no TV equipment to make his appearance with Glenn Beck, Palin offered both her studio and her personal make-up artist services free of charge. Think of it as the political opposite of the John Edwards hair-fiddling tape: here is Palin, a global superstar at this point, doing the makeup of a minor Glenn Beck guest and proffering her studio...

Toxic Makeup Draws Congressional AttentionLawmakers Debating Whether FDA Should Step Up Regulation of Makeup By JOYCE FRIEDEN July 22, 2010 Congress and the cosmetics industry are both calling for tighter regulation of the chemicals used in cosmetics and other personal care products due to concerns over possible carcinogens and other toxic ingredients. In Congress, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) introduced a bill on Tuesday calling for cosmetics makers to register with the federal government and for larger cosmetics firms to pay user fees to enforce the regulation. The Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 also would require all ingredients in a cosmetic...

For Rebekah Testar, selling Avon products door-to-door started as a part-time hobby to earn a little extra cash for Christmas. However, the mother-of-three is now one of the company's top sales consultants - having sold more than £4million of beauty products. The mother-of-three agreed to work after her husband, Tony, was forced to give up his job as a financial consultant because of ill health.

Bookmark and ShareShare Send Save Print [ Wednesday, 02 December 2009 ] State TV chief says it goes against sharia Iran bans make-up for women on TV The Islamic republic's state television has eight TV channels (File) The Islamic republic's state television has eight TV channels (File) TEHRAN (AFP) Women appearing in television programs will not be allowed to wear make-up because it is against Islamic law, or sharia, media on Wednesday quoted the head of Iran’s state television as saying. "Make-up by women during television programs is illegal and against Islamic sharia law ... There should not be a...

She's America's top "model." Michelle Obama is the nation's first first lady to add a full-time makeup artist to her traveling entourage, according to stylists who have worked with presidential wives over the past 16 years. Makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, helped create Obama's signature look on her inaugural trip to Europe last week. Grimes-Miles, who has been working with the first lady for six years, now splits her time between DC and Chicago, where she dolls up morning-news anchors for WGN TV.

Neanderthals wore make-up and liked to chat 09:24 27 March 2008 NewScientist.com news service Dan Jones Could Neanderthals speak? The answer may depend on whether they used make-up. Francesco d'Errico, an archaeologist from the University of Bordeaux, France, has found crafted lumps of pigment – essentially crayons – left behind by Neanderthals across Europe. He says that Neanderthals, who most likely had pale skin, used these dark pigments to mark their own as well as animal skins. And, since body art is a form of communication, this implies that the Neanderthals could speak, d'Errico says. Working with Marie Soressi of...

Jewelry and makeup in ancient Persia Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:12:00 By Hedieh Ghavidel, Press TV, Tehran Archaeological finds in Iran show that women and men applied makeup and arrayed themselves with ornaments approximately 10,000 years ago, a trend which began from religious convictions rather than mere beautification motivations. Archaeologists have discovered various instruments of make-up and ornamental items in the Burnt City, which date back to the third millennium BCE. The caves of the Bakhtiari region, where the first hunter-gatherers settled at the end of the ice age, have yielded not only stone tools, daggers and grindstones but also...

A front-page story in Wednesday's Free Press said "[Bob] Nardelli, Chrysler's new chief executive office and chairman, addressed more than 300 senior executives at an all-day meeting Tuesday at Hyatt Regency Dearborn." Actually, Nardelli was sick on Tuesday and didn't deliver the speech -- until Wednesday. Corrections in the print edition and online story don't explain to readers how the mistake was made.

What kinds of things do you think of when you hear "communications consulting"? Speechwriting? Message strategy? Well, "communications consulting" is how presidential candidate Mitt Romney recorded $300 in payments to a California company that describes itself as "a mobile beauty team for hair, makeup and men's grooming and spa services."

Chris Matthews bushwacks Ann Coulter by setting up a call from Elizabeth Edwards during his full hour with Coulter on Hardball last night.Video Here Mrs. Edwards gets owned by Ann Coulter when it is brought up the sleezy tactics that Edwards (A Democrat candidate for President of the United States of America) has used in his profession as an Attorney that exploits doctors and children for his own enrichment.

"We have no idea what these chemicals do when they are mixed together, the effect could be much greater than the sum of the individual parts." Mr Bence, an advocate of organic beauty products, believes that absorbing chemicals through the skin in more dangerous than swallowing them. He said: "If lipstick gets into your mouth it is broken down by the enzymes in saliva and in the stomach. But chemicals get straight into your bloodstream, there is no protection." Warnings over using out-of-date lipstick and mascara have also been issued by the Royal College of Optometrists which believes such items...

INNSBRUCK, Austria -- It's been suspected for centuries, but a team of world-renowned scientists has finally confirmed it: Lawyers and leeches have identical genetic makeup. Dr. Andreas Volkenweiler of Austria's famed Innsbruck Institute of Genetic Research confirms that, "While studying the DNA sequences of many genes that control body patterns in various occupations, our research team observed that each lawyer gene contains a stretch of 180 nucleotides -- or structural components of DNA -- which exactly match the structure of those found in leeches. "Once we made that basic match, other similarities between the two species were fairly easy to...

68-Year-Old Jane Fonda Is New Face of L'Oreal Jane Fonda is the surprise new face of L'Oreal, heading a lucrative advertising campaign at the age of 68. The star joins a glittering list of celebrity spokesmodels including Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz after signing to front L'Oreal Paris anti-ageing treatment. The $700,000 contract will see Fonda endorse the face cream on billboards and magazines, and the actress - who is a vocal critic of cosmetic surgery - insists she is perfect for the role. She says, "Somebody's got to give a face to getting old. I'm going to try and...

Employers can set different dress codes and grooming standards for women than for men, as long as the rules aren't burdensome or based on sex stereotypes, a federal appeals court decided Friday in the case of a female casino bartender who was fired for refusing to wear makeup. "Grooming standards that appropriately discriminate between the genders are not facially discriminatory,'' the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 7-4 ruling. The court said some sex-differentiated workplace rules may be discriminatory -- for example, weight rules imposed only on female flight attendants, which the court struck...

LONDON (Reuters) - North Wales police couldn't believe their eyes when a camera at a notorious accident spot caught a driver using both hands to put on her make-up. Donna Maddock, 22, was filmed as she drove along the A499, one of Britain's most dangerous roads. She held a mirror in her left hand and an eye pencil in her right, leaving the steering wheel to itself. Wednesday, she was fined 200 pounds ($350) with 55 pounds costs and had six penalty points added to her driving license after admitting careless driving at Pwllheli magistrates court. "A car is a...

"We won. They lost. Could you just write that once?" That was Democratic/Labor strategist Gale Kaufman's one request this morning from those of us in the Capitol press corps. The finality of her sentiment-- her side as winners, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's camp as the losers on Election Day-- is one that seems to contrast with an often repeated thought in recent days: that everyone now simply needs to find a way to get along and get to work on the state's problems. Interestingly enough, the need to "get along" is exactly what it sounds like the governor has decided to...

Previous studies have suggested that men who are fertile have more attractive faces. In the latest research, scientists at St Andrews University established a similar pattern in women - and then looked further to examine the effect cosmetics have on this gift of nature. They found that make-up could improve the appearance of the less attractive woman, thus confusing the instincts of the male into thinking she was more fertile than she actually was. But on the good-looking woman, it did not improve her chances of attracting a partner. She would be just as successful relying on her natural beauty....