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Beaut.ie rant on Lush Stunt
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Sittingpretty wrote: »This morning's "fanny face wash" was a new low for me
I've stopped reading it altogether, so I missed that...but is that using 'feminine' wash on your face? I did hear about someone doing that before. Sounds like it'd upset the pH balance..."Blather" threads, colour swatches on the backs of hands, other random opinion posts, not what I'm looking for in a beauty blog
Me neither, although I find swatches can be helpful sometimes.The tone has totally changed since Kirstie's departure, it has always been a daily must read for me over the last few years but there has been a noticable change in the content in the last few weeks.
I'm reluctant to say a decline in quality but there have been a few posts I've read going 'wtf?' at.
Was she the one that always came up as 'Admin' when commenting on posts?tiny_penguin wrote: »I agree that the issue is one that needs light being shed on - but there are better ways than this of doing it than using shock tactics like this.
I personally think extreme campaign and shock tactics are not the best way to shed light on an issue - as now people are too busy arguing the right and wrong of what they did to really focus on why they did.
Shock tactics are proven to work, and that's probably why they used them. Some people might be arguing the right and wrong but it's probably what Lush wanted. I said much earlier on in the thread that it's successful as an advertisement because people are talking about it. Win all round for Lush as far as they're concerned, I'd imagine.0 -
The fact that it’s a fanny cleanser is a bit off-putting, isn’t it?
Why? I would think that it would be more appealing to use, there's so much crap put into general face washes these days, I would assume a wash for that area of your body would cut out all the crap making it better and safer to use for the more intimate areas.it doesn’t contain essence of muff, va-jay-jay extract
I actually cringed reading the above sentence from the post! I'm not saying that beauty blogs have to be professional, I know my own one is far from it but this just screams out "Seriously" It was the same as using the word "rapey" when posting the other post.Going to do a fanny facial again? Nope. I think there are too many other ways of scrubbing up without removing every ounce of dignity at the same time.
I have Avon's Simply Delicate Feminine Wash at home that I use in the shower, there has been times when I have left my face wash on the sink and forgot to bring it with me into the shower with me, I've often used the feminine wash on my face to avoid having to jump out and get the the face wash and it hasn't removed my dignity yet.
Okay fair enough if you used the feminine wash on your face and you didn't like it but, saying that it did the job (even better than a lot of face washes) but you'd be too embarressed to use it because it's made for that region of the body
This is what turns me off Beaut!
Saying that I have to say I do really enjoy Emma's posts, they are uplifting, interesting and useful, exactly the right information I'm looking for.
Sorry for the rant
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Your hypothetical woman is doing it for her own benefit, while Lush is doing it for profit and to draw attention to an unrelated issue. What I actually said was that the fact that Jacqueline Traide consented to being "tortured" in the Lush campaign does not in any way make that campaign less misogynistic. I said that because some people were offering her consent as a valid reason why the campaign was not misogynistic or exploitative.I realise my question was a bit off topic, but I acknowledged that. I asked anyway because you specifically said that her consent didn't matter, that the act was still exploitative. Now, if a woman consents to engage in a bdsm relationship with a male, then she is agreeing to be treated in a sexually aggressive, and a potentially violent, manner. You say that the display was exploitative precisely because it imitated sexual torture. If a woman in a bdsm relationship is being treated the same way in private, is it ok? There is no difference in the treatment of the woman in either scenario except that the Lush display occurred in public.
That's certainly one of the problems; in my opinion, it speaks to a certain insensitivity on Lush's part, and a willingness to deliberately upset people for their own ends, when it was not necessary to do so. Their "apology" where they say they're sorry if abuse survivors were hurt but then claim that it was necessary to do so (a lie) compounds this insensitivity, and "Sorry if you felt that way" is a very poor and insincere way to apologise, particularly when they've already said that their actions were deliberate and thoroughly thought-out.Is the problem then the fact that a graphic display occurred in public without an adequate warning? Is it in fact the thought that some people who were distressed by this display could have had the choice not to view it? In this case, the graphic nature of the display itself is not to be condemned, but rather the decision to perform this at a questionable hour in a questionable location.
No, I say that the campaign used a woman deliberately in order to draw associations with the exploitation of women when the issue of animal testing is not actually related to exploiting women - and is not even a single-sex issue.The consent issue is an important one. You said that if a woman consents to be in porn that doesn't make it feminist. Agreed. However, the campaign cannot be classified under the same criteria. It is not porn. The primary intent of the campaign was to raise awareness, not to sexually arouse anybody or to provoke any kind of derogatory thinking through the objectification of women. So while you say that it is similar to porn in nature, I strongly disagree. Not everybody who viewed it saw it in this light.
Men are at least as complicit.
I agree that not everybody saw a sexual or 'traditionally' pornographic element in the performance, but a lot of people have been saying that "I didn't see that, therefore everyone who did is wrong", and I wanted to challenge that, because to an abuser, the act of asserting power over a woman is sexually arousing. Tamsin Omond said that it wasn't pornographic because "The bodysuit was not attractive (however the mainstream media may have presented or written about it). The costume made her an anonymous test subject and stripped her of the accoutrements of sexuality or eroticism."
My issues with this line of argument are: the bodysuit still made it easily discernible that she was a female test subject; it doesn't have to be "traditionally" sexy for there to be a sexual element; it did not, therefore, "strip her of the acoutrements of sexuality". Even if it had, well, ojectification is part of abuse.
I think that you were able to see the performance in that light because when you look at it, it taps into the belief you already have that violence against women is wrong. Unfortunately not everyone has that belief.If the campaign used a woman deliberately in order to draw associations with the exploitation of women, I don't see how that makes Lush guilty of perpetuating the exploitation any further. It was a performance. Performances aren't real. Often, performances imitate reality in order to criticise it. This is what I believe was happening here. As I already said, I think that using a woman is more effective as it deliberately draws a comparison between the exploitation of women and the exploitation of animals. Therefore, the campaign is condemnatory of violence against women. Lush does not support the exploitation of women. I don't see how utilising it in performance makes it wrong. I concede that it should have carried a warning. However, if it had, then I don't see any ethical problem with the nature of the display. Lush is not perpetuating the exploitation of women. Lush is criticising this very concept.
I don't think criticism of violence against women really comes across in the piece. It illustrates the cruelty of animal testing by using a human stand-in for an animal, but not all depictions of violence against women are automatically critical of that violence. This campaign, according to Tamsin Omond, did use a woman deliberately in order to draw associations with the exploitation of women, but for the purpose of publicising an entirely unrelated issue, not for the purpose of criticising violence against women. Rather, it plays into a larger cultural narrative about violence perpetrated by men upon women.
Tamsin Omond's piece is actually quite self-contradictory on this point.
"It was a performance of violence (not violence against women) where – unsurprisingly – the oppressor was male and the abused was vulnerable and scared."
"We felt it was important, strong, well and thoroughly considered that the test subject was a woman....in the context [of] Jacqui’s performance practice: a public art intervention about the nature of power and abuse. It would have been disingenuous at best to have pretended that a male subject could represent such systemic abuse."
So it's not about violence against women, just violence by men, in general, but it had to be a woman..It's really very poorly explained.If the campaign used a woman deliberately in order to draw associations with the exploitation of women, I don't see how that makes Lush guilty of perpetuating the exploitation any further. It was a performance. Performances aren't real. Often, performances imitate reality in order to criticise it. This is what I believe was happening here. As I already said, I think that using a woman is more effective as it deliberately draws a comparison between the exploitation of women and the exploitation of animals. Therefore, the campaign is condemnatory of violence against women. Lush does not support the exploitation of women. I don't see how utilising it in performance makes it wrong. I concede that it should have carried a warning. However, if it had, then I don't see any ethical problem with the nature of the display. Lush is not perpetuating the exploitation of women. Lush is criticising this very concept.
I don't see it as sexist to utilise a sexist ideology in performance in order to criticise it. The woman's safety was obviously a priority and her consent was given. It's not like Lush is saying it's ok to treat women in this way. They're highlighting the problem with animal testing by comparing it to the exploitation of women and saying "Look, it's wrong to exploit women - well, exploiting animals is just as bad". It's the same as depicting racist behaviour in a film. That does not make the film racist.
I think that "Enigmatic Anon" said this better than I can:
"All art....contains multiple layers of meaning; if the scene presented, as it is here, shows a man enacting violence on a women, regardless of Lush's intent there are certain cultural messages tied up with that - obviously their intention is that the woman represents an animal, but *she is still visibly female* and therefore still visibly belongs to a class of people who are frequently the subject of abuse *enacted by men*. It doesn't matter whether Lush intended to draw parallels to the oppression of women, the point is that if you show male violence against a woman in a public space, one of the ways people will interpret that violence is as *violence against a woman*, not just a 'symbolic animal'. You can't tell people not to interpret it that way because it's too ingrained culturally speaking - they'll read it that way whether you like it or not, and part of planning any marketing stunt (including not-for-profit ones like this) involves trying to figure out how people might interpret it other than in the way you intended. That's how culture works."
Lush were fully aware of all of this when they planned this stunt.I wasn't saying that the outcome of the campaign was positive. I think it's pretty clear that it generated a lot of anger. In your earlier post, you implied that Lush's interest in this issue is problematised because if their campaign were successful, they would increase their profits. I was arguing that the cause is still a good one and that the Lush activism against animal testing is a good outcome in this situation regardless of their vested interest in increasing profits.
I know it's a good cause, they still don't have a right to exploit women to get their point across.I am a believer that common usage is a valid reason for accepting new words, spellings etc. This is how all languages evolve. Languages would stagnate otherwise. Therefore, I think the use of 'btw' is perfectly fine.
However, it does not appear in the Oxford Dictionary and I would contend your assertion that it's an acronym, as acronyms are pronounced as words e.g. NATO. If a word is listed in the dictionary as a verb, and 'impact' is, then I think that makes a definitive enough case for using it as one. 
All this debate over minor grammatical details is silly anyway. I only countered your criticism because I felt it was a bit petty. You knew exactly what I meant when I used it. Anyway, we've cleared it all up now, so let's all be friends
This is actually pretty interesting, that's a good point you make about acronyms. Perhaps I should have differentiated by calling them abbreviations or initialisms, I'm not sure the correct name, but I still see them as being significantly different from text speak or l33t. Also I think you're right in that the OED is a pretty authoritative source when it comes to what is and isn't a word, etc. Anyway, a discussion for another time.:)
So cost is an important factor in people's decisions about what toiletries and cosmetics they buy, for many people "Do I have enough money to buy this?" is the first question they ask and it is disingenuous of Lush to ignore that factor when dicussing why people should choose "cruelty-free" products. It's nice how you dismiss all the people who don't work outside the home, but they are far from being the only ones who can't afford to shop in Lush.Yes thousands of people are on social welfare in this country, so what.I'm sorry but I fail to see where Lush are implying that animal testing is all women's fault. The tester in the display is a man. A man is carrying out the tests. Where did they state that is solely the responsibility of women to stop/prevent animal testing?All of the blame oh I don't think so, not when you consider the men who work in the animal testing labs, and who are the ceos of the companies who use animal testing and the lobbiest who have delayed the changes in EU law which were made in 1993.
"[Using a woman in the piece] is important within the context of Lush's wider Fighting Animal Testing campaign, which challenges consumers of cosmetics (a female market) to feel, to think and to demand that the cosmetics industry is animal-cruelty free."It is also a fact that there are people who can afford to spend what I consider daft money on cosmetics and yes the majority of them are women and who have no idea how much they are being ripped off and funding needless animal testing.
The majority is not all. Lush didn't say "a mainly female market", they said "a female market". They said this as a justification for why the "test subject" had to be a woman. I was pointing out that this is a false premise, because as you yourself pointed out, women are not entiely to blame for animal testing. Men don't get a mention at all in discussion of animal testing for cosmetic purposes and they are specifically not acknowledged as consumers of cosmetics in Tamsin Omond's piece. All of the blame is being put on women. That is sexist.
They could have used a man and written something like "CEO, Big Cosmetics Inc" on him.
Interestingly, when the piece was published on Lush's own blog, Ms. Omond removed the phrase "a female market" entirely.
I'm not getting personal, I'm simply trying to explain why I think thisYou are getting needlessly personal and I refuse to get into and allow it to take the discussion off topic.
IF you want to start a thread about the issues surrounding people who need counseling in this country I will be happy to do so, but I won't derail this one.IF an abuse survivor found that triggering and emotionally upsetting then I would have compassion but point out it's their issue and they need to considered some more counseling.
I know I have things which trigger me, I take responsibly for myself and my own emotional reactions to things, by either not exposing myself or by taking the time to sort out why I was triggered and finding the right place for my anger instead of lashing out at those who may have triggered me.
is very cold and not particularly helpful;I'm asking you to look at that from another angle by asking you to imagine actually saying that to someone with PTSD. Would you say that to people's faces? Would you say it to your own child? Your comment seemed to imply that the people who were genuinely deeply upset when they came across this stunt were somehow at fault, that they did not have a right to be angry about it, which is unfair. Are you going to explain what you meant by "lashing out"?
Honestly, in an ideal world, when people see a performance that simulates a woman being tortured, would it not be natural to find that upsetting? The world is less than ideal in that women get abused every day, and that people are so desensitised to that.No, it means preparing for when you run into things and behaviors which trigger you and being aware of what may do that and having a plan which can include and exit strategy. In an ideal world no one would have to live with that, but the world is less then ideal and we do our best.
It's just a response to your comment, asking you to explain it isn't a derail.That is a simplified hypothetical and I am not doing to derail the thread with it.I gave up on them when they switched their RSS feed to summary only- you need to click through to get to the post content. No thanks, if I can't get it in my RSS reader I'm not reading.
I hate that too, Lifehacker does it and it really annoys me. I find FulltextRss helpful; it has the odd issue (My lifehacker feed sometimes gets cluttered up with celebrity bull**** from Gawker) but on the other hand, it's free:)
I'm not sure BP would agree with you.there's no such thing as bad publicity!0 -
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Sittingpretty wrote: »This morning's "fanny face wash" was a new low for me
hmmmm yeah i think since Kirstie has gone the others are trying to be funny like her but it ends up being cringy0 -
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Sittingpretty wrote: »This morning's "fanny face wash" was a new low for me
Just had a look at this article.Truly awful0 -
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Sittingpretty wrote: »Also a regular reader and contribute to the Blather most days, very disappointed with what I would consider to be a sharp decline from good quality, amateur beauty journalism to cheap, crass infantile blogging.
The post count on the Blather used to be in the hundreds, these days it's a good day if it hits 50 or 60.
Maybe though they are just responding to what their "market" is looking for? Is this what young women want?
Hi Sittingpretty - can I ask if you felt able to ask Aisling about this? I left a polite comment querying the direction the blog had gone one day when there was actually no beauty posts at all but my comment was deleted. Other comments are strangely disappearing too, on the Samatha Brick post I think it was Cheap&Cheerful left a comment saying some of the comments were a bit too bitchy and it was deleted, very strange.
I did, it was ignored 0 -
Sittingpretty wrote: »I did, it was ignored
Well that's a shame, I think you're right about the site wanting younger readers. I'll just have to follow the exodus and find a site where I can read a beauty post that doesn't keep mentioning Michael Fassbender's penis.
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Hi all.
I wanted to give an example of the bitching on twitter:
Rosemary Mac Cabe@RosemaryMacCabe
@beautie @lorrrrrrrrraine also yer wan Candi is a bint. Also I left a comment but it's a bit late. Best comment ever, I think you'll agree.
25 Apr Lorraine Haigney@Lorrrrrrrrraine
@RosemaryMacCabe @beautie Saw your comment! Perfection. I'm amazed at how many didn't read what I wrote :
Candi had just raised an objection to the 'smelly knicker' type posts.
I just looked at the breastfeeding post there, the criticisms were directed to the tone of the post, no response from the writer when this was queried on the blather. A lot of regular readers seem to have disappeared, I've a feeling a lot more will follow.
I don't understand Twitter at all, can you enlighten me on this? Who is Candi? And Rosemary MacCabe? I'm fairly stupid when it comes to stuff like this I'm afraid 0 -
mysteries1984 wrote: »I don't understand Twitter at all, can you enlighten me on this? Who is Candi? And Rosemary MacCabe? I'm fairly stupid when it comes to stuff like this I'm afraid
Sure, it's probably a bit confusing. Candi (a longtime member) left a comment in the Lush post objecting to the tone of the post and expressed dismay at the direction the blog was going in. Another poster was obviously following the writer on twitter and objected to her and her friends having a bitch about the comments being left (example above). The poster queried why the writer was not addressing the comments on the thread instead of belittling people on twitter. Beaut.ie withdrew the post the next day blaming trolls spamming the post but a lot of people are suspicious that it was withdrawn as it really made them look bad. Normally, they just close the comments if they're not happy with them and it's unusual to withdraw the entire post.0 -
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