Most women tend toward one of two poles when it comes to handling their desire for beauty.  We either become beauty-obsessed or bury the desire under an “I-don’t-care-about-externals” façade.  At one extreme, all the products, the clothes, the accessories, the fitness classes, the highlights, the toned body, and the pursuit of the wrinkle-less face can consume our lives (or at least our thought lives).  At the other extreme, we may give up on beauty either in reaction to an inability to live up to the culture’s preposterous standards or because perhaps we’ve been told...