January 16, 2009

The Betty Boop Eyelash Drug vs. the Recession

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It wasn’t nearly as jarring as it should have been to see these two headlines ‘above the fold’ in the NYTimes earlier this week: “Banks in Need of Even More Bailout Money” and “Love the Long Eyelashes. Who’s Your Doctor?”

Yup. As America crumbles, we’re performing plastic surgery on the dead and gearing up to pay $120 a month for stupid eyelashes. First it was frozen foreheads. Now it’s Betty Boop eyelashes.

Allergan, the company that turned an obscure muscle paralyzer for eyelid spasms, Botox, into a blockbuster wrinkle smoother, hopes to perform cosmetic alchemy yet again. At the end of the month, the company plans to introduce Latisse, the first federally approved prescription drug for growing longer, lusher lashes.

So what if an already overburdened doctor will have to make time for the hordes of Barbie-obsessed women who’ll need a prescription? So what if the medication (cuz that’s what it is; it’s intended for glaucoma patients) has nasty side effects like changing your eye color, darkening your eye lids,and causing red eye and eye itch? Isn’t that worth a possible 25 percent increase in your lashes?

So what, when this nirvana awaits you:

“People would say to me ‘Are you wearing false eyelashes?’—even my own mother asked,” said Cindy Ross, vice president for sales at Young Pharmaceuticals in Wethersfield, Conn., who participated in the Latisse clinical trial.

Ms. Ross said she liked the effect so much that she had a doctor prescribe the glaucoma drug to use on her lashes until Latisse becomes commercially available. “I wouldn’t stop,” Ms. Ross said. “I found a way to get it.”

So what if it makes you a criminal?

So what, as long as you look marvelous?

Hopefully, there’s a way to cross reference patient numbers (and I think there’ll be more than a few metrosexuals slavering this stuff on their eyes) with bankruptcy filings, or numbers of people demanding help with the mortgages they could never afford.

Am I living in the same America as everyone else? The one where we need to resume the frugality of our grandparents?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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