"Inner beauty is priceless. Outer beauty doesn't have to be." Paula's approach to selecting and using cosmetics is practical and useful. Although this book's key feature is its product reviews and ratings, it's really an all-in-one guide to skin care. She offers short, simple rules and procedures for skin care and cosmetics use that cover all the bases for normal, healthy skin. So why is the book eleven hundred pages long? The problem is with the marketplace: there are over five thousand skin care products to choose from! How can we make sense of all this?

One key to Paula's method is that she has an in-depth knowledge of the ingredients of available beauty products. It makes sense. Let's face it: Once you strip away the commercials, the branding, the marketing, the celebrity endorsements, the beautiful package, the tempting fragrance, the designer price, all the speculation and wishful thinking, all the mystery and magic, and all the promises unfulfilled, all that is left, and all that really matters, are the ingredients. The FDA, consumer reports, manufacturers, and marketers have known this for a long time: for many brands of consumer packaged goods, there is precious little difference once they are stripped down to ingredients. But manufacturers -- and everyone who sells you these products -- aren't going to tell you that. Quite the opposite!

Unfortunately, the market is flooded with thousands of very similar products, with some obviously bad formulations as well. So, how do you decide which ones are right for you? You've got to have some way to make sense of it all. Paula describes her method for reviewing products, which emphasizes an evaluation of the ingredients and the formulation. Then she combs through the thousands and thousands to thin that list down to several hundred products for you to consider. That's still a lot, but it's a big help!

Then you can use your situation (e.g. your skin type), your personal preferences, what you can find at prices you like at the stores you like to shop at, Paula's rules, and other factors to experiment with and choose the set that's right for you. You're often going to find that the highest priced products in a category are ineffective at best, and harmful at worst. So, if you want to look your best, why not save money by buying great products that are value-priced, then use the savings to improve your wardrobe, where you'll really get some results?

Once you've selected a set of products (or, more likely, made some changes to the set of products you're currently using), you can quickly understand her basic rules and procedures, then use the book as both a handbook and a reference. There's a lot of eye-opening skin care advice and myth-busting. We'll let you read about them in the book, but keep in mind that the biggest myths are these two:

• There are important differences between product with essentially the same ingredients. (TOTALLY FALSE)
  
  
• Expensive products work better than inexpensive ones. (TOTALLY FALSE)

"The hair on our heads is one of the first things people notice about us and, whether we like it or not, it reveals to the world where we stand in terms of beauty, fashion, and age."

Paula is consistent. This book uses the same basic method as "Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me". And, as she says, the problem should be a lot easier, because, unlike cosmetics and skin care products, where literally thousands of ingredients can have a positive effect on the skin, there are only a handful of hair-care ingredients that can clean and condition hair. Yet "the number of new product lines emerging every day is sheer madness." So, out of over three thousand products, she helps you to toss out most of them due to bad effects and overly high prices. Then, you still have a long list of products to choose from, many of which are practically identical except for branding and packaging. So you can choose the ones that fit your personal preference.

Of course, we're all currently using products and have our own hair-care regimen. Probably the best way for most of us to use this book is to simply make key adjustments to what we're doing now. You can see how well the products you're using now stack up using Paula's scientific sytem and make adjustments.

Aside from the product reviews and screenings, the book is an excellent handbook of practically everything you need to know about hair care. Also many truths are revealed and myths are busted, for example:

• Expensive hair-care products are no better than inexpensive ones.
• Most all of the more expensive products are made by the same companies that make the less expensive ones using the same ingredients.
• Salon lines and drugstore lines are made by the same companies.
• Hair care products in all price ranges from all types of companies have shockingly similar ingredients. Just read the labels. Unless you believe in magic, there is precious little difference between them.
• According to the FDA, hair-care companies can legally lie to you.
• When a model's hair looks beautiful in an ad or on television, it is never because of the products being used.
• The truth behind "patented secrets"... (hint: it's an oxymoron)