It's hard to remember what century I'm in right now. Is the medicine made of turpentine or petrochemicals? Are women striving for equality or are they striving for ... equality? Are certain aspects of healthcare about bleeding people physically or is it about bleeding people financially? Do we feed our children mercury or do we feed them high-fructose corn syrup? Instead of tidily keeping bottles of oxymel of squill and vitriol, we have bottles of cough syrup and antidepressants. Heaven ... Continue Reading
Archives for July 2012
Historic Beauty Days: Snippets From A Magazine Past
I've spent 40 of the last 80 hours immersed in this gosh-darned ladies' magazine from the 1800s. Fascinating, eye-opening, and sometimes a little frightening, Godey's Lady's Book belongs in the annals of history, to be sure. It's not so much that I've received life-changing tips and ideas on beauty, it's more that I've realized how true that frustrating axiom is, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." But we'll talk about that tomorrow. Today, let's just have some ... Continue Reading
Historic Beauty Days: A Cure For Freckles or Rose Complexion Masque
Shoot. I do declare the next few days Historic Beauty Days at Crunchy Betty. The ye olde beauty shoppe bug hit me last week, and I haven't been able to stop reading since. Here's why. For the 4th of July, we did a little something different. My parents and I sweated it out at Rock Ledge Ranch, a historical site about a mile from where I live. There, they reenact the olden days, and, par for the course, they had a special 4th of July shin dig, complete with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, ... Continue Reading
Wrinkle, Wrinkle Little Star
Here's a question for you: Do you ever think about getting older? Or, more particularly, about wrinkling? Or gray hairs? Or super saggy boobs that touch your belly button? THAT kind of getting older. Not the other kind where you start thinking about cashing in IRAs and living out of RVs half the year. You know, the anti-aging industry is a multi-multi-billion dollar industry. I think the last numbers I saw were over $80 billion a year. And as you baby boomers start ... Continue Reading