Posts Tagged ‘Cosmo’

Cosmo’s Bad Advice: Blueberry Yogurt Hair

You probably think making fun of Cosmo is taking the easy path to a blog post, and you’d be right. Everyone knows that their 1950s-era stereotypes of men and women are ridiculous and offensive. Their idea of gender relations is women changing themselves and working to “decode” men, who mostly just want to watch football and belch. Their language usage is almost its own pidgin–no word for “lesbian”, but 5000 strange euphemisms for “penis”. I’ve complained about all this before.

But I’ve decided to give Cosmo another chance. True, we may never agree on gender equality, body image, and what constitutes a good time, but that doesn’t mean everything they advise is complete crap. Right?

While moving recently I found myself using my bountiful collection of old Cosmos to pad things like dishes and picture frames, and there was something so satisfying about ripping out those photoshopped images and vapid articles, crumpling them up, and sticking them around all my tea sets. But, in the process, I actually ended up glancing at some of their brightly colored, bullet-pointed lists, where one piece of advice in particular caught my eye. It seemed kind of weird, so I thought I would try it. Here was the advice, from a list of beauty tips:

“Feed your (blond) hair–Fair-haired chicks can temporarily tweak their look with organic blueberry yogurt. Its violet-red juice makes blond hair look more Nicole Kidman-esque blush. Comb the yogurt through damp hair from roots to tips, then rinse after five minutes, says Knight. You’ll be a strawberry sexpot for a week and–bonus!–the nourishing yogurt will soften your strands.”–March 2010, Vol. 248, issue 3, pg 114

You know I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dump something weird on my head! Even if I do trust Cosmo about as much as any other robot programmed with makeup knowledge and barely-concealed misogyny. I’m not sure if my hair is blonde enough for this experiment, being already an indecisive mix of blonde/dark blonde/red, but I tried anyway. Here’s a before shot:

Steven was home when I took these, but his caffeine tremors make it impossible to operate a camera, so they’re all self-shots

So after taking a normal shower and toweling off my hair a little so it was just damp instead of sopping, it was time to get to work with my yogurt and comb:

They didn’t specify how much you would need, so I went for this larger individual sized cup.

Combing it through was messier than you would think. I did it twice around, but had so much yogurt left over, I eventually just stood in the bathtub and spooned dollops onto my head, massaging it in like you would conditioner.

It was really cold.

This particular yogurt had actual blueberries in it, so I tried to smash those a little to release the juices onto my hair. Probably this was the weirdest sensation my scalp has ever felt, and picking squished blueberries out of my bathtub was definitely a new experience. Anyway, I eventually rinsed it out and waited for it to dry. Cosmo didn’t say anything about the drying process, although in hindsight I suspect they probably just assumed I would blow dry since what “fun, fearless female” doesn’t? Me, Cosmo, sorry. I know there’s a trick to it, but I always feel like I don’t have enough hands to accomplish this seemingly simple beauty feat, so air drying it was. Here’s the after shot:

Results… inconclusive?

This may have worked. Steven and I both studied my hair for awhile, unable to make a decision. Like I said, my hair’s already kind of darker and reddish, so it’s possible that this only works for lighter blondes who can use a blow dryer without hurting themselves. They were right that it did feel a little softer though! Although Steven complained that it smelled a lot like cheese. So, if you have some yogurt lying around and want your head to feel super weird, you might as well give this a shot. But if you’re actually banking on a noticeable change, I would recommend something else.

13 Adventures: #5 Homemade Christmas Tree

So Steven buys so much Coke that we have more Coke points than those polar bears. If only we could pay rent in Coke points. If only Coke points gave you anything I actually want. Alas.

In the category of things I don’t actually need, but now have because of Coke points, is a subscription to Cosmo. I have something of a sick fascination with Cosmo because I can’t believe they’re getting away with pretending to be “fun and fearless” while the underlying message of every single thing in their magazine is “Change yourself to be like everyone else.” Change yourself because you’ll never be happy with that haircut/makeup/boyfriend. Change yourself, because your irrational and underlying fears about your life are TRUE. Change yourself, because it’s your job as the woman to “decode” the men in your life, who, by the way, are always strange 1950s/Cave Men archetypes. I’m always surprised at the new angles they find to make women feel bad about themselves.

For instance, my personal favorite part of the January 2011 issue is a chart titled “What Your Ex’s Next Girlfriend Reveals About You”, which lists categories of women he might choose, and then explains what that reveals about you and, most importantly, what about yourself and your dating style it shows you need to improve. From this chart I also realized that Cosmo would categorize me “The Plain Jane” which is defined as someone who wears jeans and a t-shirt and “her idea of a beauty routine is a quick shampoo”. What does that say about the people who choose to date me after Cosmo’s apparent target audience? “His bland choice means that your beauty (and brains) intimidated the hell out of him.” I love how they worked that parenthetical implication that not wearing make up is for stupid girls in there. Anything to sell more sparkely eyeliner.

Anyway, since I am the bland choice, I do not actually want to keep these copies of Cosmo around to cherish for all time so lately I’ve been coming up with ways to recycle them in an artistic manner. I’m used pictures/words from them for collages and things before, but I wanted to do something that would knock a good chunk out of the stack. Unfortunately, a lot of the ideas I want to try involve a glue gun, but then I found this tutorial on how to make a tabletop Christmas tree by folding pages. Yay! Easy enough to accomplish while watching Arrested Development!

Okay, so it's more like a Christmas cone, whatever

This did require folding every page, so it took awhile, but other than that it was super easy.

The covers were a little harder, that's why there's a slight gap in the back

Just in time for my book club’s holiday party tomorrow!

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