Update

Just in case anyone is wondering, Esther and I haven't forgotten our Beauty Road Trip exploits. We just both happened to end up going to Grad School to get MFA's and put this project aside for a bit. I graduated last year and Esther is about to graduate in May. Stay tuned....

Copy cat

OK I was reading jezebel.com today and came across this little item:

"Jessica Simpson is pitching a reality show about society's scrutiny of women's bodies. Wait, we'd watch that! The premise of The Price Of Beauty is this: Jess and a friend set out on a road trip around the world in search of what people find beautiful and why. The bad news? It's gonna have a Fear Factor element to it, as Jess tries some of the "shocking" things women do to make themselves attractive."

Um hello.

Promising Soaps

Martha has stacks of old magazines from the 70's in her studio space. She has this great Noxema advertisement in which a young woman with perfectly styled hair and tons of make-up is gently touching her cheek with bubbles.

I can laugh at how obvious advertisements try to manipulate me. But there are times when my guard is down and I find my 35-year-old self wanting something that I will never have; a 15 year-old's skin, styled by a professional make-up artist, then Photoshopped once the picture's taken.

Mitch Nash from Blue Q makes a bath care line who's humor lies in it's honest product. He said, "A lot of soaps promise perfection, but that is so ridiculous on a certain level. So we go in a complete opposite direction. We have this soap called 'Total Bitch' and it's like 'For those who demand the very best.' And it's about empowerment and being yourself, rather than letting any one item make you more beautiful or pretty."

So for now, I'll stick with Blue Balls Soap. After all "It's not what you got, it's how you wash it."

Words of Wisdom

I saw this on the Jezebel blog and thought it was worth repeating. I will have some more interviews in the next week or so. Also Esther Pearl Watson is working on some really cool things right now. More on that later too!!

The quote below was in response to an article about Doctors recommending Botox to a 26-year-old woman.

"I'm going to tell a story. It's about biscuits. Please bear with me. A Buddhist priest told me this story, about how he used to be the chief baker in his monastery. He tried to make the best biscuits he could make - fluffy, buttery, warm, delicious biscuits. But no matter what he did, the biscuits were never good enough. Too dry, or too moist, never quite right. He was getting very dissatisfied and upset with himself. Then, he realized that he was trying to capture the essence of the biscuits that he had as a child and that the biscuits he remembered were an idealized, unreal version. The reason his biscuits never tasted good enough is because they never could be, but only so long as he tried to capture the essence of an unreal, imagined perfect biscuit. When he realized this, he decided to make the 'biscuit of today' not the biscuit of the past. It was imperfect, unlike anything he remembered as a young child, but the most delicious biscuit he had ever had, because it simply WAS. It was not idealized or perfected, it was just itself. And it was perfect in its imperfections, because there was nothing else it could be. Ladies, I think it is high time we all start being the biscuit of today. Love yourself as you are, perfectly 'imperfect.' And do not put a knife (or botulism) anywhere near your cooter."

New York Interviews

I am going to be in NYC next week from 11/11 to 11/15. I'd like to do some more interviews. Email me at martha@martharich.com or give me a buzz at 626-399-4394 if you'd like to be interviewed. Cool beans!



Leslie from Greenville, SC sent me this picture and I had to share. I think it is golden! Here is what she says.

"I found this metal sign at the smokiest bar in Spartanburg County. The bar is called the NuWay and the carpet is as sticky and mushy as mud and everyone (accept me of course) in the entire bar chain smokes and they cook fried food all day and night long! What better place to speak of beauty my dear?"

Here is Leslie's Etsy site. www.thegreenwardrobe.etsy.com

Pittsburgh Beauty Treatments

Here is a short clip of our Pittsburgh beauty treatments. Esther and I both got fancy nails and Esther got her hair did.

Yikes the grinding drill sounds of the nail tool makes my hair stand on end. The nails were nice and ladylike at first, but soon I felt like my fingers couldn't breath and I couldn't pick things up or do art stuff. SO not good. I had to get them OFF!!

It turns out the only way to get the dang things off is by soaking your fingers in acetone for 30 minutes. HORRIBLE!!! While I was soaking all I could think about is the bad chemicals seaping into my skin and growing cancer nuggets. Beauty shouldn't be dangerous right? What other stuff do we do that is soaking chemicals into our system? Does anyone care? What about all that hair spray? That can't be good to breath in. Oh my! I never really though about it before.

My nails still aren't the same. You can see the little dent in my nail bed where the fake nails were adhered. Esther said her nails are fragile and thin and breaking too. Just a little more growth and my nails will be fresh and not damaged. Beauty is a bitch!

Kansas City Symmetry

Below is an interview with two women we met while visiting Kansas City.

The ladies of Design Ranch gave us the best tour of this unexpectedly groovy city! I am so bad! I haven't properly thanked them yet (special thank yous are going out to all the people we met soon). Haven't had a moment since we got back. I need to organize myself better. TANGENT. OK back to the job at hand.

For me Kansas City turned out to be one of my favorite places on our trip. The people there were generous and kind and AWESOME! I had the best BBQ of the whole trip there too, visited Hammer Press and we were treated to a private tasting of crazy good snow cones by Fresher Than Fresh the best snow cones on either side of the Mississippi! On top of all that we met a bunch of cool people at Hallmark Cards and they let us look at the archives which was incredible. I could have stayed there for hours.

Anyway while we were on the tour we saw a little sign in the shape of panties and discovered this charming little panty and bra shop called Birdies. Of course we had to meet these women and interview them. Here is what they have to say about beauty. Interesting!



Please excuse the choppiness of the video. I am still learning about editing. Weeee!

Martha