• Retailers in Soho who were expecting to see a boost in sales thanks to the opening of Topshop were greatly disappointed this week. [Crains, photo via Flickr]
• Some fashion insiders are a bit miffed that Michelle Obama has shown "zero interest in the big guns of American fashion" in favor of the "new and niche." [WWD]
• Daisy Lowe is getting her own show on MTV. [Pipeline]
• Victoria's Secret has signed up Christian Siriano to do makeup. [Fashionista]
• Nina Ricci's new designer will probably be Peter Copping. [FWD]
• A day in the life of Thakoon Panichgul. In Hong Kong. [Style.com]
• The beauty brand Stila may have gone bankrupt. [Fashionista]

Sign of the apocalypse number 567: It's not only teenage girls who are joining adult women in spending vast sums on make-up, hair products, and beauty treatments. Nor is it only tweens. According to research by Experian, 43 percent of 6- to 9-year-olds use lipstick or lip gloss, 38 percent use hairstyling products, and of course there's the now-notorious Dimples Kids' Spa in Brooklyn Heights (run, natch, by a Russian woman), where girls from 0-12 can get expensive mani-pedis and facials. So who or what is to blame for turning the nation's girl children into monstrous little patsies of the beauty industry? It's the internet, like you even needed to ask!

With all the upheaval in the world, it's good to see that some people aren't losing sight of the bigger picture, like one benevolent genius who's so eager to provide blondes with an alternative to ravaging their hair with peroxide, that he's dedicated his entire career to creating a non-damaging bleach—and he's nearly there. Kenzo Koike, a Tokyo scientist, has discovered a fungus-based enzyme that "naturally degrades melanin and has the added benefit of fighting the effects of free radicals." Sounds like Japan's greatest technological innovation yet! [Green Right Now]

Dr. Drew Pinsky may say that America's obsession with vanity is waning, but for some women the lure of cosmetic transformation is impossible to resist: so much so, in fact, that a beautification-related crime wave has broken out! In one daring stunt, a 24-year-old British woman conned a makeover show into paying $50,000 for laser skin treatments, new teeth, clothes, and hair-styling, then disappeared before they could finish filming. We know: It's upsetting to see this most classy and wholesome of TV genres, the only purpose of which is to help people, be exploited so heartlessly.

• Barneys is trimming staff: The company cut 76 jobs today. [Crains]
• Topshop's signage is here! And a whole bunch of people will be on hand for the big opening on April 1, naturally. [Racked, NYP]
• Sign o' the times: The old New York sign in Midtown has been replaced by one for Burberry. [Racked]
• The Valentino doc did pretty well for itself its opening weekend. [FWD]
• Tiffany posted a sharp drop in fourth quarter profit. [NYT]
• Remember those fish pedicures that generated so much press a few months back? You may want to note the practice is now banned in 14 states. [WSJ]

Life is filled with so many difficult decisions. Take, for example, the question that the Oxygen network posed to a group of women as part of a recent survey: Would you rather win America's Next Top Model or the Nobel Peace Prize? Not surprisingly, 25 percent of respondents said they'd take the modeling industry's most coveted title over the one that celebrates people who, like, make the world a better place, which may have something to do with the fact that winning ANTM brings with it a possible fast food contract and an In Touch cover, while joining the ranks of Muhammad Yunus, Wangari Muta Maathai, and Shirin Ebadi doesn't sound all that sexy. When have any of them been featured on the cover of a magazine, huh? (Foreign Affairs doesn't count; it doesn't even have pictures on the cover!)

Remember how New Jersey's Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling was thinking about banning Brazilian waxes for health reasons? Jersey girls no longer have to worry about having to pass through the Lincoln Tunnel to prepare for the summer season. The state reversed course today after salon owners "complained about losing business ahead of swimsuit season." Take the good news where you can get it, folks. [NYP, previously]

Some very unfortunate goings-on in New Jersey are threatening one of the basic human rights—to have hair ripped out of one's cooch with hot wax—of everyone in the state. Following Brazilian-related infections that left two women hospitalized (yes, crossing your legs right now is an entirely natural reaction), leading one of them to sue, the state Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling may ban "genital waxing" altogether—creating a situation where desperate Jersey residents, like red state teens seeking abortions, will have to cross state lines if they want to maintain their landing strip. Which, on the bright side, is great news for waxers in Manhattan—not that spatula-wielding Russians need the extra PR!

It looks like being Gwyneth Paltrow's bikini waxer has its benefits. Beautician Janea Padilha, who counts Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker, Uma Thurman and Lindsay Lohan as clients of her J Sisters salon on 57th Street, has signed a five-figure book deal with Perigree, an imprint of Penguin Books. Brazilian Sexy will give readers advice on "love, life, and being sexy," and Padilha says she'll "talk about what happens in the room where I work." Everything you wanted to know about Gwynnie's pubic hair situation: coming to a bookstore near you in 2010! [NYO]

Açaí berries: From the sexy diacritical marks and uncertain pronunciation to the Amazonian rainforest provenance to the claims that açaí will make you skinny, beautiful, healthy, and basically immortal, it's hard to believe that the shiny purple fruit wasn't actually dreamt up by a major corporation's PR team in order to exploit our gullibility as consumers. More than $106 million was spent on açaí last year, Nicholas Perricone sells an açaí supplement, Mehmet Oz endorses açaí, and Oprah, Sumner Redstone, and Rachael Ray have all been reported to be fans at one time or another. Is it any surprise to learn that there's scarcely any scientific evidence for the multitudinous benefits that have been touted?

Daniel Benedict is one of the city's most frequently photographed professional party-goers: You don't appear 955 times on Patrick McMullan if you sit at home at night and watch trashy reality TV on VH1. (That's what a DVR is for.) Daniel also has a serious affection for self-tanning lotion, at least judging by the number of people who email us to comment on the shade of Daniel's skin. But have you ever considered how hard it must be to achieve just the right shade? It's a delicate balancing act. Don't put enough on and you look sickly; put on too much and your fellow party guests are wondering aloud if lobster is on the menu. But we're here to help. You can now hold up the Daniel Benedict Self-Tanning Color Swatch while you're looking in the mirror to determine if you're safe, or if you've clearly gone way too far. You're welcome!

Of the many ways Starbucks has had an impact on society—speeding neighborhood gentrification, making us go crazy, killing off independent coffee shops, helping launch the career of Naomi Klein—none is quite as annoying as the constant reminder that the price of a product or service is merely what you spend on lattes.

It sounds like the perfect pastime for anyone obsessed with staying young who also happens to enjoy a little light masochism. "Extreme cryotherapy" is like an anti-sauna: You enter a chamber that's chilled to 216 degrees below freezing, which is "nearly 100 degrees colder than the lowest natural temperature ever recorded on Earth." Immediately, as ABC reporter Nick Watt discovers, you feel like your heart is "about to explode.... mixed with a strange euphoria." While remaining in the chamber longer than two minutes will quite possibly kill you, if you do survive, your skin ought to look a bit younger, which is obviously totally worth the risk of sudden organ failure.

It's a perfectly appropriate trend given the current craze for all things vampiric: staying young by preying on human tissue! Last month's story about baby foreskins eradicating wrinkles has been upstaged by the latest fountain of youth treatment from Tokyo: intravenous placenta extract, which, claim its devotees, makes one's skin "smoother and younger" as well as fights fatigue and treats various other ailments. Sadly, placental transfusions probably won't be offered at your local alternative health clinic anytime soon, but you could always be a brave pioneer and buy some online—and when people ask why you look so rested and glowing, just tell them you've got the contents of various strange women's uteri flowing through your veins.

As if life wasn't challenging enough with the looming threat of grinding poverty, no Gossip Girl until January, and Kate Winslet starring in two holiday movies, now women everywhere are faced with the mother of all conundrums: Get an "edgy pixie haircut," thus obeying the laws of style but repelling all male attention, or ignore the trend and consign yourself to fashion loserdom while remaining a sex object? Short hair, you see, is "like sending a nonverbal message that you're not interested in sex," counsels "dating guru" Matt Titus, author of Why Hasn't He Called? Wow, knowing that, it's all the more admirable how Winona Ryder has still managed to sleep with every single indie musician in North America and a few in Europe.

♦ Mimosa yellow is the color of 2009. [Vogue]
♦ Massive discounts helped lead to a 15 percent boost in sales on Cyber Monday. [WSJ]
♦ Retailers are pulling out all the stops to lure customers to stores this holiday season. [NYT]
♦ Anna on the recession: "I see a lot of people in my industry who are over-reacting. Stores that are over-discounting, designers who are creating collections for the price and what sells rather than to reflect who they are." [Jezebel]
♦ Topshop is "definitely" opening in NYC by the end of March. Ha. [Glamour]
♦ Happy accidents: Lumigan, a drug used to treat glaucoma, makes your eyelashes longer and prettier, too. [MSNBC]

Terrible news for sun-worshippers and tanning salon habitués: Mahogany-hued skin is officially a fashion no-no, so drop that bottle of sunless tanner, pull the blinds down, and be grateful we've brought this breaking news to your attention. Make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury—who confesses to being partially culpable for the bronzed craze after she gave Kate Moss a dark tan for a 2002 Vogue shoot, a look that was replicated in the model's campaigns for Roberto Cavalli (himself a walking cheese doodle) and Louis Vuitton—is deadly serious when she warns: "The backlash is going to be huge." Not convinced? Listen to Simon Doonan, whose word on such matters is not to be trifled with: "What once looked healthy and lush now looks cheesy and has baaad connotations... I associate a tanned look with skin cancer." Say no more, we're canceling our Christmas trip to St. Barts as we type.

Some journalistic exercises just never get old, no matter how many times they're carried out, like the one in which a young woman asks for anti-aging procedures and then becomes mildly outraged when doctors recommend what they're in business to sell. (Slim woman seeking out liposuction works, too.) In today's Daily News, a "baby-faced" 26-year-old reporter named Leah Chernikoff goes undercover at Botox-peddlers and, what a surprise, the doctors are more than happy to inject her.

Unless you have young sons, you might not be aware that circumcision is on a downward trend, and that the anti-circumcision lobby is gaining ground. Not your problem? Well, it turns out that this issue is suddenly of relevance to everyone: Foreskins are the latest tool in the fight against aging, and we're going to need a constant fresh supply!

Here in New York, advertisers will toss up huge billboards on every flat surface, zoning laws be damned (see here for nice chart illustrating how much the police care about illegal advertising). Well that's pretty embarrassing for us, because they're even cracking down on the insane proliferation of billboards in Moscow. In Russia! Is America poised to take back the international "Rampant and Rapacious Uncontrolled Advertising In Service of Almighty Capitalism" title? Well, only if the economic crisis doesn't force Moscow to quit taking down billboards before it starts. It's a nice idea, but we don't want to cut into revenue here!