Category: Beauty
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Wigs and Hairpieces
Wigs have been worn by both men and women since ancient times. Wigs are worn for a variety of different reasons, including protection, adornment, disguise, ritual, social or professional status, health or hygiene, and religious strictures. Wigs can be used to change hair color as well as make dramatic shifts in hairstyle from short to…
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Naomi Wolf
Naomi Wolf is an influential feminist and is considered a founder of third-wave feminism. Wolf was born in San Francisco and attended Yale University, earning a bachelor of arts degree in English literature (1984); she then spent a term as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford (1985 to 1987). She garnered international acclaim in 1991 with …
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Whitening, Brightening, and Bleaching
The obsession with all things bright and shiny, from hair to teeth, from face to body, inspired the beauty industry to take on the vintage, sepia tones associated with age and ripeness and offer beauty products and treatments that could offer a clear, blank, and often brightened slate to celebrities and regular consumers alike. Although…
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What Not to Wear
What Not to Wear (WNTW) on The Learning Channel (TLC) is a personal makeover television show that teaches unstylish individuals how to dress and style themselves according to middle-class norms. The original WNTW is British and began airing on the BBC Two in 2001. The American version of WNTW began airing on TLC in 2003 …
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Tween Market
Although young girls have long played dress up, paraded around at home in their mother’s high heels, and nagged for sweets in grocery store check-out lines, only in the last couple of decades have they constituted a new marketing niche known as tweens. No longer defined in the advertising world as a child, yet not …
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Waxing
Waxing is a semi-permanent hair removal process that pulls hair out by the root. A solution of wax is applied to the skin over the hair and removed in the direction of the hair growth. Hair does not grow back for 2–8 weeks, depending on the area of the body being waxed and the individual’s…
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Madam C. J. Walker
African American beauty entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, originally named Sarah Breedlove, was born in 1867 in Delta, Louisiana, to sharecropper parents who had recently been freed from slavery. Walker experienced considerable hardship in the early years of her life. Orphaned at the age of seven and obliged to live with her older sister and …
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Vogue
Vogue is the world’s preeminent fashion periodical, functioning as an authoritative voice on all things fashion related. Throughout its history, Vogue has set the standard for fashion coverage, innovating and changing with the times in a way that has managed to ensure its continued relevance. Over the years, this has meant the inclusion of varying…
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Vitamins and Beauty Supplements
Vitamins are organic compounds essential for growth and activity in small amounts. Dietary supplements are minerals, herbs, and vitamins taken to help increase nutritional intake and daily food consumption. Today, American consumers spend millions of dollars each year on vitamins and supplements that promise everything from sexual vigor and increased body mass to clear complexions…
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U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a scientific and regulatory agency of the federal government charged with protecting public health through overseeing the safety of consumer products. The FDA has various departments that serve to regulate the beauty industry: Office of Cosmetics and Colors, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Devices Branch, and Center for…