Beauty isn’t easy. Ask any peacock who has to lug around all that heavy and extravagant plumage. In Laurel Roth’s series Peacocks, their plumage is borrowed from our own human adornments.

About the work:

These peacocks borrow human mating plumage, anthropomorphically showcasing our adaptations and natural orders as their own. They are made of fake fingernails, barrettes, nail polish, false eyelashes, and jewelry to represent the choices involved in biological processes that are unique to humankind.

Retronaut has assembled these unbelievable vintage ads for Radioactive Beauty Products, 1930s

The ad copy is definitely worth a read:

Intuition: Everything must change by Carsten Witte

Witte on his work:

One main idea behind my work is the belief that everything is constantly changing but photography can preserve the moment. Beauty is almost nothing without the knowledge of how fast it will fade…

Warning: Both his Behance page and website are probably NSFW due to some (tasteful) nudity. 

Rorschach Test by Yulia Gorbachenko

Every year men’s skin and hair product maker Aesop chooses a new theme for their holiday gift kits. This year the theme is Daring Cases in Favour of Science:

This year our sought-after gift kits have been created around the theme of science. This is a topic about which Aesop is passionate and which has daily significance for our company. Since our inception, we have worked with talented scientists from many disciplines, and listened with respect as our understanding of their expertise grew.

Every product that Aesop offers has benefited from the discoveries of agronomists, botanists, chemical scientists and biophysicists. Each of our 2011–2012 science-themed kits is dedicated to a particular theory that captivates our imagination and has laid the foundations for countless achievements that have followed. From the Theory of Special Relativity to the Laws of Motion, we pay homage to the men and many unacknowledged women who have applied themselves to disciplined inquiry.

Best of all, the sturdy zipped cases can be reused well after all the products inside have been used up. This begs the question: Would it be wrong to give this to my husband as a gift and then steal the bag later? Just asking.

These strangely compelling/disturbing images are the creations of Lucy & Bart, a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess.

About their work:

An instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement.

It’s not often that the American Medical Association and art galleries tackle the same topic, but that’s exactly what’s happening now with the current exhibition at the Annenberg Space for Photography called “Beauty CULTure”. 

About the exhibit:

The exhibition illustrates the power of the still image in shaping cultural ideals and expectations of feminine beauty – and photography’s undeniable influence on conceptions of the Self.

The exhibit features 170 photographs in the print gallery, hundreds of digital images in vivid detail on high-resolution screens in the Digital Gallery, a short documentary film featuring interviews with well-known photographers, models, historians and beauty experts “who guide visitors on a fascinating photographic exploration of the culture – and cult – of beauty”. The exhibit runs through November 27.