I am wondering how she chose these women. Most don't seem representative of the population.

unfortunately, though they don't seem as though they would be representative, they are closer than you think...sad, but true

Uh, yeah. I would say (upperclass?) women in NYC are not representative of all women in the US....but no 6 women are, right?

Ha! And I felt guilty for spending $8.00 on a tube of lipstick, the only lipstick I have bought in over a year. I probably spend $20 a month on personal grooming, and that basically includes shampoo, soap, and feminine products. The menstrual stuff is most of my budget.

Sabriel, I was thinking the same thing - $20, $25 per month tops for me.

Usually, these women are paying for poisonous chemicals --
and then putting those chemicals on their own bodies, and into the world around them as well
(e.g. down the bathtub drain)

It would be more informative to see the average amount women spend on maintaining appearances, rather than six people selected by a photographer. I would also like to see how much men spend on similar things, for a more complete picture of the phenomenon.

I am not sure it needs to be representative. There aren't only a few women in the world who do this. In fact, I think if they could, many more women would spend too much money trying to make themselves look perfect.

Cosmetics don't have anything to do with "beauty," they're for covering up one's own perceived flaws, which is why the marketing is so concerned with telling you how many you have.

Obsessing about it to the point of spending as much on "grooming" each month as many people spend on their house payment is (in my ever-so-humble opinion) a sign of some kind of mental illness. The best evidence for that is how ineffective it all is towards achieving the goal of helping people look fabulous. Real beauty is an inner radiance that shines right through a superficial veneer of tinted, scented, hypoallergenic goop, or makes a lack of that goop irrelevant. On second thought, I've seen some cases where a thick enough application of makeup managed to obscure the genuine beauty underneath, so with enough effort it's possible I suppose.

The people who we're told wish to destroy our decadent civilization don't "hate us for our freedom," they hate us for stuff like this. Of course it's everyone's right to spend our income however we choose, but it's rather sad that so many choose to self-indulgently feed their neuroses (men are no different in this respect) instead of, well, doing just about anything else with it. Hell, even saving it would be a lot better; when we're old and wrinkly don't need to bother masking our real appearance anymore, we might regret wasting all that cash on nothing. A few years of saving $600-$1700 a month can really add up (to about $160 billion a year, it seems). It might even be enough for everyone to get a nice facelift, or perhaps act as an economic stimulus package. Either way, at some point many of these people might wish they'd held on to that money, especially if life doesn't quite work out the way they planned.

well if anyone had actually looked at the site link,

http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=311

you'd read the statement, which says lauren greenfield photographed some female new york professionals to investigate what this higher class beauty-budget standard looks like. "does spending more mean looking better"?, she asks...

I don't think I could spend so much money on my appearance each month if I tried. I don't wear makeup (only chapstick to keep my lips soft), I pluck my eyebrows myself, I don't color or process my hair, my skin color is probably the color of a really dark spray tan anyways, and I could never imagine getting Botox. So what does that leave? Really expensive lotions and shower stuff? I could use bi-weekly massages (I assume that would be included in "spa time") but that would be for health reasons and not just because they're fun or whatever.

It amazes me that women spend so much money on their hair cut, color, plastic surgery, etc...... but when it comes cleaning their skin, we are totally ignorant. When I look at some people under the mag. lamp, oh my god...... it is so dirty that is embarrassing. Ladies, facials are not for beauty, it is hygiene. Don't we go to a dentist regularly for deep cleaning even though we brush every night? It is the same with your skin. Our skin is a filter to all the dust and dirt in the environment and therefore holds a lot of junk. It needs to be cleaned regularly.

Most of these subjects don't really represent the population of America acurately... as they are almost all fromt he upper east side or similar

I once asked a dermatologist, how much of all this fancy has any real value. He told me, that i may use cream, if i feel my skin dry, but don't worry about the rest of it. (ok, he was a man, so I will keep on experiemnting with things like sour cream, cucumber, or olive oil. )

Facial lady! The skin is a powerful oran, and cleaning it isn't rocket science. I am convinced, that I can led a happy and fulfilling life without using your services.

"Facial lady! The skin is a powerful oran, and cleaning it isn’t rocket science. I am convinced, that I can led a happy and fulfilling life without using your services."

Indeed. Pretty sad to try to position professional facials as a 'must have'. I can't imagine letting someone else rub my face, either, ick.

There are 'services' which could run the bills up high pretty fast, particularly electrolysis. There are many women for whom some sort of radical hair removal technique is a virtual necessity to avoid social rejection, given our cultural beliefs that women "can't" have beards/mustaches/sideburns (even though many do).

Wow. If I was spending more than $800 a month on looking good, I would at least expect not to be covered with spots...

Judge, judge, judge.

$865 and that last girl still has acne. Its probably the spray tan chems causing it lol Id put that money on clearing my skin up, then I wouldnt need all that expensive beauty regimen stuff!

where can I buy Ginger Luxe lip gloss?

These shots are outtakes from a Marie Claire article; not study by the photographer. Melissa Macron found and interviewed all of the participants, the photographer was assigned to photograph them. You can see the piece that ran in Marie Claire at the writer's site here: http://www.melissamacron.com/Jun04MCpage1.html