A History of Cosmetics, Part 3

The cosmetics craze continued throughout the centuries into the 1900's and began to see the earliest of the cosmetics industry being formed. Mrs. Henning's House of Cyclax in London sold many products that you can still buy today from world famous companies like Avon. Another beauty salon owner found herself expanding her products to meet the demands of her upper class clientele from a facial cream that protects women's skin from the sun to lipstick and face powder. Today, you can find a whole line of cosmetics from Helena Rubenstein. As the years went on, the popularity of beauty salons continued to increase. In 1909, a salon called Selfridges began to sell cosmetics out in the open ver the counter. Women's attitudes began to change and confidence grew. When the Russian ballet came to London, the influence of high art was apparent on many designers. A man named Paul Poiret was one of the first to come out with a much more vibrant and colorful look. It was also the first time that permanent cosmetics was seen. Women could tattoo their lipstick and eye shadow permanently on their faces. During the 1930's the fashion of lipstick went to a darker shade with a variety of shades. Around the time of WW II, ingredients for cosmetics was at a severe shortage and women underwent a kind of make-down. This ended right when the war did and demand for cosmetics increased more than ever. Competitors began manufacturing a number of products to meet the demands of the female consumer. Today's woman is the benefactor of all these years of trial and error with a virtually unlimited choice of products for any look they want to achieve. There are literally thousands of companies who have products in this now billion dollar yearly industry. Cosmetic products sell year round and even in times of recession. So ladies, thank your ancestors and their concern for their own appearance for your own that you have today. There were probably days when they woke up and didn't really feel like going through the hassle of putting on their face either.

About the Author

Michael Usry is the author of the online instructional articles "Beauty and Health in Plain English" and a top affiliate of skin care one of the premier women's health websites.

Why did Britney Spears shave her head

After Spears shaved her own head at a San Fernando Valley salon it's the question being asked by public and fans why Britney decide to became bald?

Why?

Because....

... she wanted the media to pay attention to her ?

... she was totally wasted ?

... she want to become ugly ?

... she was tired to anyone touches her locks ?

...to avoid a drug test ?

...of nervous breakdown ?

... she maybe did have lice ?

... to sell her hair on internet auction ?

... she maybe had a hormonal moment ?

...of a new trend ?

...she has a nice-shaped head ?

...she want to Kevin Federline shave his head ?

...of some religious reason ?

... to proof something?

... she is desperate for attention ?

Anyway. Britney Spears is bald now, and no one knows what is reason why did Britney shave her head...

First Britney showed up in Esther's Haircutting Studio , and there she shaved off all her hair, with electric clipper Omega (that clipper Britney use to shave her head is included in the purchase price with Britney­'s shaved hair in eBay sale for 1.000.000$, and also included are can of Red Bull energy drink and lighter that Britney left in salon )

Bold Britney appeared in a tattoo parlor without notice and stay about 90 minutes. In first she had a hood on. Britney Spears now have new tatoo - little red lips on her wrist.

About the Author

http://www.britneyspears.66ghz.com http://www.dating.220kg.com

Customers are Not as Gullible as They Once Were

Consumer confidence in media has declined dramatically. Only 12% of consumers trust Television news, down from 55% 3 years ago. People who believe organizations are also down from 28% to 12%.

The simple and ugly fact is they don't believe you as much as they used to. What makes these people so sceptical?

I believe there are two primary reasons:

1. North Americans are exposed to 4 times the amount of advertising Europeans are exposed to. One study shows the average North American decision maker receives upwards of 30,000 commercial messages per day. This mostly means messages get lost in the clutter.

2. Many college graduates have done at least one marketing course and so have a much better feel for hype and what's going on. Too much marketing is simply hype and knowledgeable people see right through it.

So what can the average business owner do to combat this?

1. Generate word-of-mouth marketing. Referrals are still the most powerful method of marketing because people trust their friends as credible sources of data. Referrals are free and close at 5 times the rate of leads from all other sources. 85% of all buying decisions are made on the recommendations of others.

2. Influence people who are centers of influence. Why do you think firms like Nike and L'Oreal use celebrities like Michael Jordan and Penelope Cruz to endorse their products. Who would be the most likely people to influence your customers?

3. Focus on what's most important to your target audience. Understand their pain and offer solutions to their pain. This kind of educational marketing will always outshine image advertising and marketing. If you don't understand their pain, you've got work to do.

4. Go for share of mind over share of market. It's better to have a small well defined niche of customers so involved with your product or service that they promote your products freely and willingly. Some Harley-Davidson customers tattoo the brand's logo on their bodies and become permanent walking billboards.

5. Expand your advertising with direct marketing and public relations. If people don't believe advertising, they are much more likely to believe what the media tells them or personalised communications that speak to them as individuals. PR and direct response give you the opportunity to put forth personalized and believable messages. StreetSmart Marketers willingly face the reality that consumers are wise to the ways of marketing. It's time to use marketing that looks less like hype and more like news, education and personal communication. As David Ogilvy said; "The consumer is not an idiot, she's your wife."

About the Author

Michael Hepworth is the StreetSmart Marketer and a Toronto marketing consultant, you can receive his free marketing tips newsletter at http://www.streetsmartmarketer.com/.

Boys will be Boys(or 'Why men love to Fight')

I had twenty-five boys at the fight club tonight - twenty-five boys and one girl, and she certainly did stand out.

It's amazing how starkly obvious the gender differences are in a ring environment. In the general flow of life in an industrialised society men and women are mixed and merged together in their daily routines, doing the same sorts of work, taking on the same sorts of responsibilities, etc. - barely distinguishable. But in the environment of the ring something different is going on. Here men are taking off their shirts, flexing their muscles, and getting physical with each other in a very primitive and very heterosexual way. Here we play roughly with each other, in a way that inevitably excludes most women and children.

There is something very basic but very beautiful about the ring. The cries of the combatants echo back to a time when women and men knew who they were and what was expected of them as members of their gender. The fight club is a sort of physical probe into the collective subconscious - giving embodiment to that repressed memory of a culture where women fed and nurtured the community while men fought to defend it.

That is why fighting is such a natural form of initiation rite for young men. We modern Australians are in desperate need of an initiation rite for our young people. Our nation continues to be swept by waves of adolescent boys who never become men. They develop adult male bodies, but they are bodies that have never been nourished with the ideals of a mature community - ideals that are needed if those bodies are to be put to good use.

I do seriously believe that our community would be greatly served if every teenage boy, when he reached the age of say 16 or 17 was obliged to train for a fight.

That fight training would then be conducted by the boy's father and by the older males in the family as well as by other selected men in the community. When the day of the fight came, the men would gather together with all the boys who had been in training and tell them stories - stories of the great Australian men that have gone before them; the men who stormed the beaches at Gallipoli, the men who opened up the land for agriculture and industry, the great Aboriginal warriors who fought and died resisting the white invasion. Then the boys would be dressed in their fight gear and led to the side of the ring where the adult men would push the lads out into the centre. There they would be forced to rely upon their own resources for three rounds, after which they would be welcomed back as men, and then perhaps taken to the tattoo parlor to have etched into their skin the date of their fight and perhaps some emblem of courage and integrity that had been chosen for them.

It's all a dream of course, but it's a great one. We come close to it every time I lead a boy to the ring for the first time, with his dad at my side working his corner. We've had some wonderful moments like that - great fights fought by great boys who show all the signs of going on to become great men.

I claim that we've had a 100% success rate in terms of guys whom I've got involved in amateur contests getting out of the trouble they've been in. By the time we get them to the side of the ring they've stopped using drugs, they're no longer in trouble with the law, they're not causing trouble at school, etc. Of course the difficulty is in getting them that far, and that's where we could do with more support from friends and family and less interference from the politically correct.

I am conscious of the fact that the focus of my work here is with boys rather than with girls, but I do believe that the crisis we are experiencing in our community is with boys. It is mostly boys who are doing drugs. It is boys who are doing the break and enters and rolls. It is boys who are getting into trouble with the law, and boys who are committing suicide. Of course none of this though should undermine the significance of initiation rites for girls, nor the significant effect that ring fighting can have in a girl's life.

We do indeed have the occasional fighting woman join us, but she is a special kind of woman - one who is able to go toe to toe with the men, who can take as well as give a solid punch in the nose, and who can thus demand the respect of the men.

In my time as a fight trainer I've had the privilege of training up one of my girls, Wendy, to win the Australian lightweight title in kickboxing. She was a special sort of girl though. You don't get many like Wendy. For the most part, the girls just come and sit near the side of the ring and look on wide-eyed while their men beat their chests and flail away at each other.

What about this girl who's joined us for the first time tonight. Could she be another Wendy? Not likely. She's doesn't look the part at all. She's a slender Vietnamese girl, with a sassy hairstyle and a T-shirt that prominently displays the words 'Too busy to Fuck'.

I told her that if she wanted to train with us at all that she'd have to change into a different shirt. I offered her one of our club T-shirts - the ones with 'Christianity with Punch' displayed on the back. She was predictably reluctant to wear it, but she put it on eventually. Once we had her in a different T-shirt she faded from view as the centre of everybody's attention. Even so, I suspect that the fine performance the boys put on tonight was in part inspired by a desire to impress our visitor. You can't escape the sexual dynamics in this game.

A friend of mine in the army told me that, despite all the talk about equality of the sexes in the forces, the Australian army was still refusing to allow women into the front line, and with good reason. He said that the Israeli experience had been well documented (Israel being one of the only countries to put women in the front line) and that they were experiencing enormous problems. He said that for one thing, the statistics showed that men would always go back for a woman who had been shot, even if she was dead, and even if it put the rest of the squad in serious danger. He also said that the effect on morale of the death of a woman in the front line was far more serious than the effect of the deaths of any number of men (and morale is considered to be a third of any army's fighting strength)! Gender differences just do not seem to be able to be ignored in a war zone.

I'm a great supporter of women in the fighting arts, and indeed I've been in trouble with our state government on more than one occasion because of my role in promoting, training, and officiating in fight contests between females (which is still illegal in NSW). But I don't do this because I think that there's no difference between men and women in the ring. In the office there might not be any relevant difference, and in the pulpit I can't see or hear any, but in the ring - in that most fundamental and most primitive arena of human encounter - women are women, and men better bloody not be.

About the Author

Rev. David B. Smith
(The 'Fighting Father')
Parish priest, community worker Martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three
www.fatherdave.org

Get a free preview copy of Dave's book at, www.fatherdave.org

Lesbians And The Psychology Of Body Art, Piercings & Tattoos

Society, and the pressure it exerts on its members to conform, must not be underestimated. We, as lesbians (and women), know this only too well. Many of us were discouraged from playing with so-called "boys toys", and many of our families still have a problem with the length of our hair, or the way we dress, or both. I recently overheard a woman in a bus queue asking a little girl who can't have been older than four or five, whether she had a boyfriend yet. The subtle (and not so subtle) social pressures are there right from the word go.

Despite changes to the law and also changes in society's general attitude towards us, those of us in the LGBT community are still the butt of jokes in the media and in our everyday lives. Even when this is not the case, our once unacceptable lifestyle is now subject to convention and stereotyping. In order to assert our individuality and our unconventionality, many of us choose to do "unconventional" things to our hair and dress, and we use body art - piercings and tattoos. So, it may come as a surprise to learn that body art began as a way of expressing not your individuality and rebelliousness, but the exact opposite. For example, nostril piercing (a very popular one these days) is thought to have begun in the Middle East, 4000 years ago. In India, in the 16th century, the type of jewellery you wore in your nose was a clear sign of which caste you belonged to. And in the ancient temples of the Aztecs and Mayans, tongues were pierced as part of a ritual to communicate with the gods.

The Victorians were crazy about tattoos and piercings, and women in particular had a craze for having their nipples pierced (gives a whole new dimension to those Victorian period dramas, doesn't it?) Prince Albert famously had a genital piercing so that he could tie his penis to his leg (it made his trousers fit better, apparently!), and the "Prince Albert" piercing is still a great favourite with gay men today.

Even more surprisingly, far from wanting to be unconventional, or buck against society, many of the people I questioned when I was researching this article, and also those whose stories I read on the internet, got tattoos or piercings because their friends all had them (i.e. it was fashionable amongst their peers). Many others got them to assert their own individuality and increase their self-confidence. It came across to me that this was not because they wanted to be unconventional, but rather that they saw their tattoos in particular as a semi-private expression of themselves. As one of my correspondents wrote:

"My tattoos are very personal to me and I designed them all myself, so yes.....they are part of my identity. They tell a story, I suppose, of my life."

This "story" is not something she shares with everyone, only she knows the meaning of her tattoos. In a way, they are a message to herself, rather like Guy Pierce's character in the movie "Memento", tattooing his memories onto his body so he doesn't forget who he is.

Of course, there are consequences to having tattoos and piercings. This is particularly true of tattoos, as they are (in most cases) permanent, or at least extremely difficult to get rid of. Many of the women I spoke to said they had tattoos of their ex-girlfriend's name, or a special tattoo which they decided to get together, and now they wish they hadn't done it. One woman even had a tattoo which was supposed to be a dolphin, but ended up looking more like a kipper, and now she's stuck with it! Piercings can often be considered less acceptable, particularly lip and nose piercings, most often in the office environment. One of my correspondents has had to remove several of his piercings for his new job. There is also the more unpleasant medical aspect of piercing in particular. A recent article in "The New Scientist" (5th March 2005), discussing the dangers of piercings in "an intimate place", states that:

"Although only 3 per cent of people with such body piercings ever seek medical advice, about 60 per cent suffer associated health problems, according to a survey of 147 people with nipple or genital piercings, or both."

However, many people seem to take these risks on board, and even describe them as "part of the fun". After all, something which is a bit dangerous can also be exciting.

Leading on from this love of danger, some of my respondents also talked about the pleasure/pain aspect of piercings and tattoos, and the fact that piercings are often used during sex, where that fine line between pleasure and pain can be arousing for some people, particularly when that piercing is in an erogenous zone such as a nipple. Several people also talked about the endorphin rush they got from having their tattoos done, and how this had made them a bit addicted to having them. However, just as many people said they only have one tattoo, as it hurt so much they would never consider having another one! Again, it comes back to personal choice, and it seems it's impossible to say that all of these people have tattoos and piercings simply because they are gay or lesbian. Many of the people I spoke to were actually offended by this suggestion, and didn't want this important aspect of their individuality to be "reduced" to just another part of their sexuality. Some did get tattoos and piercings specifically to celebrate their coming out, but many of these people already had some body art. The new ones simply marked this next important stage of their lives.

It seems that so-called "straight" society also views tattoos and piercings in this way. I got a large amount of the historical information above from an article on the BBC Suffolk website - hardly the place you'd expect to find an article on something considered subversive and wildly unconventional. One quote from the article possibly explains the new fashion for tattooing at least: "

Many celebrities have tattoos. Role models, such as Eminem, David Beckham and Jennifer Aniston have probably raised the status of tattoos."

I feel this is just as true of piercings; so it seems that body art has become very fashionable, and you have to cover yourself from head to toe with holes and ink to be seen as particularly unconventional these days. However, tattoos and piercings can still be very individual, and this is what I think their meaning is for most people today. They are a way of preventing ourselves from becoming faceless, from blending in. Those lesbians who want to wear their sexuality for all to see choose body art which expresses this important part of themselves (labrys tattoos, rainbow earrings or nose rings). At the same time, those of us who want to express our lesbian identity in a less overt way, choose tattoos which mean something to us, but are not obvious to the outside world (one particularly popular one seems to be a string of Chinese characters meaning "woman" or "lesbian", often tattooed in a place which is not immediately visible). It is the versatility of body art which helps it retain its popularity in both the lesbian and gay community and society at large.

About the Author

Sarah Harris is the founder of http://www.PlanetSappho.com - the world's No 1 resource for single lesbian and bisexual females.