The Plaid Pladd

You probably think making fun of Cosmo is taking the easy path to a blog post, and you’d be right. Everyone knows that their 1950s-era stereotypes of men and women are ridiculous and offensive. Their idea of gender relations is women changing themselves and working to “decode” men, who mostly just want to watch football and belch. Their language usage is almost its own pidgin–no word for “lesbian”, but 5000 strange euphemisms for “penis”. I’ve complained about all this before.

But I’ve decided to give Cosmo another chance. True, we may never agree on gender equality, body image, and what constitutes a good time, but that doesn’t mean everything they advise is complete crap. Right?

While moving recently I found myself using my bountiful collection of old Cosmos to pad things like dishes and picture frames, and there was something so satisfying about ripping out those photoshopped images and vapid articles, crumpling them up, and sticking them around all my tea sets. But, in the process, I actually ended up glancing at some of their brightly colored, bullet-pointed lists, where one piece of advice in particular caught my eye. It seemed kind of weird, so I thought I would try it. Here was the advice, from a list of beauty tips:

“Feed your (blond) hair–Fair-haired chicks can temporarily tweak their look with organic blueberry yogurt. Its violet-red juice makes blond hair look more Nicole Kidman-esque blush. Comb the yogurt through damp hair from roots to tips, then rinse after five minutes, says Knight. You’ll be a strawberry sexpot for a week and–bonus!–the nourishing yogurt will soften your strands.”–March 2010, Vol. 248, issue 3, pg 114

You know I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dump something weird on my head! Even if I do trust Cosmo about as much as any other robot programmed with makeup knowledge and barely-concealed misogyny. I’m not sure if my hair is blonde enough for this experiment, being already an indecisive mix of blonde/dark blonde/red, but I tried anyway. Here’s a before shot:

Steven was home when I took these, but his caffeine tremors make it impossible to operate a camera, so they’re all self-shots

So after taking a normal shower and toweling off my hair a little so it was just damp instead of sopping, it was time to get to work with my yogurt and comb:

They didn’t specify how much you would need, so I went for this larger individual sized cup.

Combing it through was messier than you would think. I did it twice around, but had so much yogurt left over, I eventually just stood in the bathtub and spooned dollops onto my head, massaging it in like you would conditioner.

It was really cold.

This particular yogurt had actual blueberries in it, so I tried to smash those a little to release the juices onto my hair. Probably this was the weirdest sensation my scalp has ever felt, and picking squished blueberries out of my bathtub was definitely a new experience. Anyway, I eventually rinsed it out and waited for it to dry. Cosmo didn’t say anything about the drying process, although in hindsight I suspect they probably just assumed I would blow dry since what “fun, fearless female” doesn’t? Me, Cosmo, sorry. I know there’s a trick to it, but I always feel like I don’t have enough hands to accomplish this seemingly simple beauty feat, so air drying it was. Here’s the after shot:

Results… inconclusive?

This may have worked. Steven and I both studied my hair for awhile, unable to make a decision. Like I said, my hair’s already kind of darker and reddish, so it’s possible that this only works for lighter blondes who can use a blow dryer without hurting themselves. They were right that it did feel a little softer though! Although Steven complained that it smelled a lot like cheese. So, if you have some yogurt lying around and want your head to feel super weird, you might as well give this a shot. But if you’re actually banking on a noticeable change, I would recommend something else.