With News Like This, Who Can Relax?

Ever since Mr. Inside Out decided premium cable channels weren’t cost effective, we’ve been getting by on infomercials. Our 12-year-old wanted a Hairdini for Hanukkah. Her little sister, of course, needed a Mini Hairdini. We felt the same way about Rio hair relaxer.

So what if our hair’s so relaxed it’s been compared to a board? The personal testimonials sent shivers down our spine: One woman described how an old-fashioned relaxer burned her hair to the scalp, another smelled her own hair melting.

Thank God for Rio--”the secret formula from Brazil”--was the gist of the infomercial.

But this week, the Food and Drug Administration seized tens of thousands of bottles of Rio hair relaxer products in Los Angeles, saying they can cause severe hair loss or turn hair green. FDA scientists determined that while the labels call the relaxants low-acid and chemical-free, they in fact are highly acidic. So much for the secret from Brazil.

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Going, Going, Going, Gone: A serious student of fashion couldn’t do better than to scour the dregs of the January sales racks. Every fashion mistake from the fall ’94 season is hung out to dry--thigh-high stockings, satin blouses cropped unflatteringly at the waist, cheesy microfiber disco dresses, chubby Anna Sui jackets slashed 60% off (and still locked to the rounder).

Yet somewhere--goes the magical thinking--on the next rack, perhaps, hangs the bargain of the century. So we haul armloads of clothes into the dressing room, only to see why the imitation Chanel jacket--marked from $350 to $89--is still overpriced. Or the sea-foam green mohair sweater an impractical bargain. How many hours can a woman waste looking for something that matches a ridiculously cheap pair of beautiful tissue-weight wool, chocolate-brown trousers? Oh, about three. . . .

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Same Old, Same Old: They say the Golden Globe Awards hint at who might score big at the Academy Awards a couple of months away. If the awards show last Saturday night is any predictor of what Hollywood will wear to the Oscars, we can count on very few sartorial surprises. Cybill Shepherd slipped on her trademark look--baggy white tux, comfortable shoes and really bouncy L’Oreal hair. Jane Seymour looked like a refugee from a television costume drama. The rest of the gals mostly played it safe in body-baring Calvin Klein, Richard Tyler and Giorgio Armani. But not all. Comedienne Margaret Cho relished the silly/glamorous moment by wearing a fake-fur-trimmed coat, serious red lips and toting a black vinyl purse, whose designer label was a bubble-gum pink Playboy bunny.

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The Odd Couple: New York and Beverly Hills have so much in common. Like, uh . . . well, it’ll come to us. Anyway, on March 12, a bit of New York will march down Rodeo Drive in the form of a “We Love New York” parade. Donna Guiliani, wife of the New York City mayor, will serve as grand marshal, followed by a 30-foot Statue of Liberty, a phalanx of taxi cabs, and a four-story balloon from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now, anyone taking bets on how soon New York will host a “We Love Beverly Hills” parade?

Inside Out is published Thursdays.