One troubling aspect of this "one color fits all" tint for nipples is that the color seems to imply a standard of beauty which excludes non-Caucasian nipples--which cover a much broader and often non-pink color palette--from its ideal.

Don't blame this one on the patriarchy, OK? It's all you.

I think they should make stuff like this for men. I know a lot of white guys that have wished they had the equipment of a black man. There's a market here just waiting to get tapped.

She was saying that this nipple stuff is occupying women's attention - to the detriment of more important women's issues. She was not equating or insinuating a causal connection between nipple blush and reproductive rights. And she was totally right.

This is a topic of crucial importance for Americans to be discussing. Also, I'd like to strongly recommend that adding pictures would be immensely helpful to the discussion.

reading up on the history of benefit cosmetics, one finds that, when they had a single store in San Francisco, local strippers came in and asked them to make something that would do precisely this. While benetint has become a popular cheek stain, its origin was a nipple tint, requested specifically by strippers

Cosmetic vaginoplasty is on a sharp increase and heavily promoted and advertised.

I don't get it. If a guy (or gal if that's what she's into) has gotten to the point where there's close inspection of the nipples and Girl Parts in question their appearance is not really important any more. There are much more, hmm, pressing matters at hand and their degree of pinkness, perkiness or perfect symmetry really isn't an issue.

Do men ever get on each others cases for Rogaine use when the situation in Darfar is still so dire? If they do I’ve sure never head it.

It’s woman who are constantly judging each other. A woman apparently can’t stand in front of the mirror and carefully groom herself without someone asking what she’s done for the pro-choice movement lately.

No wonder ‘feminist’ has become a dirty word.

Newsflash: I can straighten my hair and groom my pubes and obsess over my denim situation AND I can be a good feminist.

and thank god I'm not behind the counter now.

That trick I learned about in HIGH SCHOOL. In the 80's. I read about it in an old sex manual, and it was supposed to make us somehow even hotter. Whores did it so they would look better in the lineup.

It's remarketing and packaging of an old product. It's probably liquid blush. I used both liquid blush and lipstick. I don't know why I did it. I guess in my college years I really wanted to be hotter every day. (Repeat after me. In every way and in every way I am getting hotter and hotter...) Let's face it. When a man has got your nipple in his mouth, you usually have his undivided attention. So it wasn't something I kept doing.

Do guys really notice this stuff? "Wow! You really have pink areolas!" Then again, I married a man who, bless him, says his favorite kind of underwear is "off."

I think they should make stuff like this for men. I know a lot of white guys that have wished they had the equipment of a black man. There's a market here just waiting to get tapped.

Yeah, but black genitalia on an otherwise pasty* white body might look a bit weird, don't you think?

On a more serious note, Anne is absolutely right. What is wrong with a little personal grooming? The only concern I'd have about this is a practical one -- I don't really like the taste of cosmetics, but that's really my problem, isn't it?

And, yes, it sure seems to be somewhat, um, racially exclusive.

*See what I did there?

It's called 'marketing.' Old products are re-marketed as a new product, thus reviving interest and sales. My favorite marketing ploy is the genius who came up with the idea of putting a diamond wedding ring on the other hand and calling it the righthand ring.

The nipple tint/lipstic thing reminds me of a joke my dad, a research chemist who worked with cosmetics, told about lipstick. What is the difference between lipstick and a suppository? The color.

How much time do women spend on personal grooming every day? A lot more than men, I'm sure. I consider myself pretty low maintenance, I wear almost no makeup, wash and brush my hair without doing anything else to it, and even so, it can take a long time to get ready for a date, what will all the plucking and shaving and so on.

So adding yet another (completely ridiculous) task to the list so that we'll be presentable according to the totally unnatural standards of female beauty of our society is just not the same as men using Rogaine.

When I was in grad school I once had a conversation with a colleague who told us she spent over an hour in the morning straightening her curly hair...we were shocked because the rest of us barely had time to shower and eat, we were so busy studying, writing papers, teaching, etc. She dropped out after less than a semester...and I can't say I was surprised (although, to be fair, she was also out bar hopping 2-3 nights a week, which probably had a lot more to do with it. :))

If we're going to start a feminist revolution about anything grooming-related, can it be about the prohibition against all hair except on the head? That stuff's a bitch and way more of a time waster than tinting your nipples!

Yeah!! =]

I think you mean "areolae". And yes, I prefer British punctuation.

I remember reading it in a beach beauty issue or something. I like and use Benetint as blush and lip color, but it honestly never occured to me that it had alternate uses like this until I read that "hint" in Cosmo.

FYI, they also recommended using Benefit's liquid bronzer product (I think it's called Glamazon and has the same consistency as Benetint) for darker skintones.