Read Area Woman Blows Gasket for Free Online

I sniff Poison and Eternity.
    So, over the years, I've reduced my cosmetics purchases to two items: Lancome's intencils mascara, which I can dart in, grab,
     and dart out again with, never having asked the price, and M#A#C's Twig lipstick, ditto.
    Another problem women face in the cosmetics bazaar, Underhill points out, is that "manufacturers and retailers want to sell
     the products in as clean and orderly a way as possible." Women, however, "want to try before they buy, which is not always
     a clean and orderly impulse. The interest of seller and buyer shouldn't be at odds, but often, they are."
    Indeed, who wants to hang around being stared at by a Cool Girl while trying to imagine what "hydrating and matifying long-lasting
     treatment oil-free fresh gel" feels like without being able to touch it?
    Not only does the anal-retentive environment remind you of standing in your boyfriend's mother's kitchen during college, noticing
     that the bananas are Saran-wrapped and wondering if you dare have a snack, but the products are mystifying.
    How, without sampling, are you supposed to decide between Lancome's four types of "cleanser with water," two "without water,"
     four toners, two makeup removers, four exfoliators, and three hand creams? Certainly not from their names, which are a ludicrous
     jumble of pseudo-science and quasi-French. What is Hydra Controle? Is it the same thing as Primordiale Nuit? Do I wish to
     ask the Cool Girl? No, I do not.
    Later, I learned from Lancome's Web site that Primordiale Nuit results in "soft and appeased skin" due to the cream's unique
     delivery system of "nanocapsules" of Vitamin A. I did not learn the price.
    Underhill has done a study of women's behavior in drugstore cosmetic aisles and determined that female shoppers like to study
     the information on product packaging before they buy. (And you wonder why.) Perhaps for this reason, more and more cosmetics
     companies are going on-line, where women can ponder the offerings at their leisure.
    Also, according to Underhill, some makeup retailers have been persuaded by market research to switch to an "open sell" strategy,
     in which the lipsticks and shadows are available for handling and sampling, rather than being locked in cases as if women
     were dirty toddlers not to be trusted.
    Cosmetics bazaars are still nowhere near the level of comfort you feel in some record stores now, where you can listen to
     CDs entirely unobserved, potentially for hours. But if they were, you wouldn't be too intimidated to ask the price, now, would
     you? Ah, the beauty myth— exploiting it can be such a tricky job.

Shave and a Haircut
    I had my hair cut in a barber shop the other day. I know that's a bit of a transgression for a female. But I needed to do
     it. I finally just refuse to fork over seventy-five dollars plus tip merely to lose two inches straight off the back.
    I have been envying my husband for years on this count— the way he just strolls home with a spontaneously acquired haircut,
     as casually purchased as batteries from the corner store. He gets his hair cut without thinking about it twice, as if out
     to mow the lawn or sheer a sheep. "Less hair, please. Thank you, here is eleven dollars."
    By contrast, I find haircuts to be a deeply tormenting experience. I never find the right stylist. Every six months I begin
     all over again by carefully scrutinizing the hair of every woman I know, then interrogating them about their stylist until
     I'm satisfied that the stylist in question will actually do something competent to my head in exchange for a great deal of
     money.
    I arrive at the hair salon, which reeks of aromatherapy, and check in with a receptionist who sports a nose jewel and has
     some wholly indefinable way of making me feel as if I do not belong to her club because, well, just look at my dorky hair. Then I have to change out of my clothes and don a cranberry-colored robe, as if I'm about to undergo a CAT scan. Thus stripped
     of