Alice Bachini-Smith, a longtime friend of Jack & Hill, joins us as a guest blogger today. Welcome, Alice!
One of the many things I hate about the internet is blogs with a picture of a big grinning ninny in a corporate suit on the top. Glistening helmet-hair and blinding Hollywood Grand-Canyon grins really are outdated now. The only people who should look like newsreaders in 2008 are newsreaders, and possibly not even them. So when you need a portrait for your résumé or profile, please do not pay someone to photoshop away your entire personality- the idea of a potrait is, and always has been, to look impressive, cool and nice. Not lobotomised.
I am a enormous fan of the Brazen Careerist blog by Penelope Trunk. The way Penelope puts opposites together and gets away with it while still running a business is dazzling, and makes me wish I’d watched her beach volleyball skills in action, back in the day. Divorce and entrepreneurism, sex and investors, farming and fear- in Penelope’s hands, all these things are related. She could probably divine career advice from your grandmother’s freshly-knitted dishcloth if she wanted to. The woman has chutzpah!
So I was thrilled to see some new lovely, genuine and gorgeous Penelope pictures on her blog, ones which do true justice to the personality of the writing. And it’s no astonishment to learn that the Yahoo company and photoshopping were both involved with the traditional, more dentally-oriented one we are more used to seeing, on the header. 
Here we have the old Penelope on the left and the new Penelope on the right. One is terrifyingly pale, and the other is either nonchalantly boruddy by the tedious elegance of the entire media hoo-hah or thinking about sex. And I think we all know which looks most utterly fabulous.
Of course, Penelope’s new pics are a highly professional job. But in these digital days, you don’t need a 4-hour studion session to come up with a good portrait. Good light, an outfit you love and a friend with an eye for photography can achieve more than the professionals you can’t afford. This is something that is really worth spending a bit of time on, especially if, like me, nearly all the pictures you have of yourself were taken by a cross-eyed husband.
Original post by Alice Bachini-Smith
My daughter Tafv has been seen in these pages before, as a beauty, as a visitor from planet chic. We love her, yes we do, but I don’t think I have ever stood in such awe as I have the past few weeks, watching this child of mine work late into the night, her sewing room a cyclone of zippers and eyehooks and fabric scraps and
an iPod set on replay and a little blue fish named Sebastian, which
swims in a glass near Tafv’s sewing machine as she creates the clothes she and friend/fellow designer Katie Gargan will show at an Impromptu Fashion Show, invitation below. (Yes, she designed that, too). If you’re in Portland, please do come.
Original post by Nancy Rommelmann
A study has found that some moisturizers boost rates of tumor growth in cancer-prone mice. From Business Week:
The researchers found that mice treated with skin moisturizers
showed an increased rate of tumor formation. In addition, there were
more tumors on the animals treated with moisturizers than on the mice
that were only given UV radiation.
The moisturizers used were Dermabase, made by Patrick Laboratories
in Minneapolis; Dermovan, made by Galderma Laboratory Inc. of Fort
Worth, Texas; Eucerin Original Moisturizing Cream, made by Beiersdorf
of Hamburg Germany; and Vanicream, made by Pharmaceutical Specialties
Inc., in Rochester, Minn.
Conney’s group identified several ingredients in the moisturizers that appear to enhance tumor growth.
"We took out a couple of ingredients and made a cream that turned
out to be non-tumorigenic," Conney said. The resulting lotion did not
increase cancer growth in mice exposed to UV radiation, the researchers
found.
A lot of quoted experts are rapid to point out elsewhere in the article that this proves nothing about what the moisturizers do in humans. But since it’s obviously absolutely unnecessary to slather your face and body with carcinogens, I’m sticking to my single-ingredient moisturizers: jojoba oil, and more recently virgin coconut oil, which has similar properties. My skin is happier by far without all the highly processed mystery ingredients. Putting industrial chemicals on your skin every day is like eating nothing but Spam and Snack Pack–i.e., not exactly a recipe for health, eh?
My mom has become a enormous devotee of squalane oil, which she buys from Dr. Susan Lark’s website. Squalane, naturally found in human sebum, is derived from shark livers. You can also find a vegan version made from olives at Body Moose for a mere $9.99. My mom’s skin looks fantastic, and it seems that this stuff has in fact softened her wrinkles, so I’m going to attempt some.
Original post by Hillary Johnson
A study has found that some moisturizers boost rates of tumor growth in cancer-prone mice. From Business Week:
The researchers found that mice treated with skin moisturizers
showed an increased rate of tumor formation. In addition, there were
more tumors on the animals treated with moisturizers than on the mice
that were only given UV radiation.
The moisturizers used were Dermabase, made by Patrick Laboratories
in Minneapolis; Dermovan, made by Galderma Laboratory Inc. of Fort
Worth, Texas; Eucerin Original Moisturizing Cream, made by Beiersdorf
of Hamburg Germany; and Vanicream, made by Pharmaceutical Specialties
Inc., in Rochester, Minn.
Conney’s group identified several ingredients in the moisturizers that appear to enhance tumor growth.
"We took out a couple of ingredients and made a cream that turned
out to be non-tumorigenic," Conney said. The resulting lotion did not
increase cancer growth in mice exposed to UV radiation, the researchers
found.
A lot of quoted experts are rapid to point out elsewhere in the article that this proves nothing about what the moisturizers do in humans. But since it’s obviously absolutely unnecessary to slather your face and body with carcinogens, I’m sticking to my single-ingredient moisturizers: jojoba oil, and more recently virgin coconut oil, which has similar properties. My skin is happier by far without all the highly processed mystery ingredients. Putting industrial chemicals on your skin every day is like eating nothing but Spam and Snack Pack–i.e., not exactly a recipe for health, eh?
My mom has become a enormous devotee of squalane oil, which she buys from Dr. Susan Lark’s website. Squalane, naturally found in human sebum, is derived from shark livers. You can also find a vegan version made from olives at Body Moose for a mere $9.99. My mom’s skin looks fantastic, and it seems that this stuff has in fact softened her wrinkles, so I’m going to attempt some.
Original post by Hillary Johnson
