Mariah Carey - Allure 4/2008

Because I am a beauty product junkie, I have a subscription to Allure. Let's just get that out of the way. Month after month, I am treated to the same boring excessively airbrushed covers. This month's issue features Mariah Carey wearing someone else's nose and an accompanying article that was as full of air as marshmallow fluff.*

If you are just emerging from a coma and find this issue next to the call button you will learn that Mariah a)is mixed race, b) was married unhappily to the head of her old record label, c) suffered a very public meltdown, d) and is very chaste in spite of her tramp on acid presence.

I wonder if an actual person wrote this dreck or if it was just spit out of some random rainbow word generator. I also wonder if the editor of Allure secretly hates Mariah because the accompanying red carpet pictures of the singer taken over the years are truly hideous.

Source: designer<3er/lsa>

The rest of the issue, on the other hand is surprisingly okay. It contains, not one but two multi-page spreads featuring black models, Ubah and Chanel Iman. Actually there are three if you count the photo of model Israela in a makeup editorial. There's also a brief piece on Rashida Jones and her mother Peggy Lipton that really has nothing to do with the beauty treatment article that follows it.

You know what bugs me about sample inserts? Unless it is lotion or perfume, the insert is completely useless. I have only ever seen one shade of foundation on those sample cards and it is always in "ivory." That shade doesn't even match most of the white women I know. Of course, this hardly matters because I can never resist trying the sample anyway which winds up making me look like I have some kind of skin pigment disorder.

The rest of the magazine is typical Allure: anti-aging articles, the "body makeover" section, a rundown of skin treatments like serums, overpriced creams and micro-dermabrasion (this one used an black woman as the tester.)

All in all, I'd say the April issue is one of the better ones to come out in recent months and worth a look the next time you're in line at the grocer.

*Does anyone else remember that stuff? I don't even want to think about what it was made of. When I was a kid I remember spreading it and peanut butter on sandwiches. If I caught my husband feeding that crap to my kid I might just strangle him.