Nancy Redd is a former Miss Virginia, a former cheerleading captain--and also a Women's Studies Harvard graduate and author of the uplifting and hilarious book Body Drama: Real Girls, Real Bodies, Real Issues, Real Answers. (See? We told you not to judge ex-cheerleaders.) The book features a vulva centerfold that would make Hugh Hefner turn in his grave (oh wait, that's right, he's not dead yet, just irrelevant), and is pretty much guaranteed to make you feel better about your least favorite body part, whichever part that may be. We decided to chat to Nancy about one of her favorite crusading topics, pubic hair. (Actually, it's one of ours, too...come on, Nair for pre-teens?!)

E&L: New York mag accused your book of having a bit of an anti-waxing slant, though we actually thought you presented all the pubic hair styling options fairly evenly. Why do you think we're so obsessed with manicuring our hair down there these days?

NR: First and foremost, I don't care what you do as long as you do it for you and not because you think future sexual partners will think you're gross if you don't get rid of your body hair. 

Bikini waxing is big business with a huge profit margin.  A few marketing geniuses in the 1990s started touting it as the newest, coolest, modern and sexy thing to do, and we believed them. In 1999, as I struggled to fit in with my classmates my frosh year at Harvard, getting my first Brazilian was like a rite of passage, right up there with buying a pair of Tiffany earrings, a Bobbi Brown lipstick, and a Coach handbag. Having only ever wielded a razor down there with not-so-hot results, the smooth feeling afterwards, as well as the powerful feeling of maturity, got me hooked. That Christmas break, when I asked an esthetician in my hometown in southern Virginia for a "touch up," she looked at me like I was crazy. No one outside of big cities was doing them then. Today, bikini waxing has become popular everywhere, even in tiny southern towns. 

What started as an interesting whim for a few women has now, sadly, become mandated by many sexual partners (and bathing suit cuts) across the country. American guys, while sporting full bushes down there themselves, often have the gall to proclaim women unclean to their face if there's hair down there, which is ridiculous and hypocritical.

Reading an article titled "Beauty Blogs Come of Age: Swag Please!" in the Times today inspired me to address some of the oh-so-tender dilemmas and landmines that beauty editors, and now beauty bloggers, evidently, face when testing and reviewing products, and instead of keeping you in the dark, here's our full disclosure.

Image via RevaléSkin

Coffee has been being incorporated into beauty products for some time now, but according to the February Allure with SJP on the cover, coffeeberry, (not the actual bean) is the new all-the-rage ingredient.

Allure asked a team of beauty experts to share their sources on how they get new ideas for products, and what the next big trends will be in the coming year. The surprising results, after the jump!