It still is about money and inflated advertising budgets. The industry has a long way to go. Change is slow.

Considering the restrictions within which they work, I still enjoyed this issue. The skin care section is indeed a little silly but anyone who picks up a magazine these days and thinks they’re reading gospel has fallen out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down. Anyone is free to inform and educate themselves before making good buying decisions.

What I like is the exposure to makeup brands and colors that I might never look at. I live in a small town so http://www.sephora.com is often the closest I’ll get to a lot of this stuff. At least I would say that Allure does the best Best-of-Beauty of any publication out there. I sure wish they had included a creme-to-powder foundation, some lipgloss colors (though they’re right on about Clinique Glosswear being among the best), and just more makeup overall.