Blog Posts by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

Instant facelifts! Slimmer necklines! If you're up late, and in the market for the fountain of youth, infomercials about anti-aging 'miracles' can be downright hypnotizing. While the words 'paid spokesperson' should snap you out of the spell, those before and after photos are pretty convincing. They're cheaper than Botox, yes, but do as-seen-on-TV products work as well? Here's a look at some of small-screen anti-aging stars and their off-screen reputations.

Product: Neckline Slimmer
Price: $20
Targets: waddle
How it works: It's basically a pogo stick for your neck muscles, the jaw workout comes with three different taut springs and an "accelerator" cream.
The good: ConsumerSearch writer Sage McHugh points to at least one happy customer, who used the product for 30 days and noticed a definite difference.
The bad: A running list of online complaints about results, hidden charges and the occasional jaw pain hover around the product. And according to Consumer Reports' ShopSmart research,

Whoops. Designer Jonathan Adler said something in needlepoint he should probably take back. His granny-inspired pillow for Kirna Zabete is under fire for embroidering a pro-anorexic saying. While diet jokes are a dime a dozen on cheeky throw pillows, his went too far for some critics.He's in good co

Annie Lobert will tell you how much she could make in one night as a Las Vegas escort: $10,000. How long she survived in the industry: 16 years. How she escaped: in a trunk. And how she kept coming back. But she won't talk about certain requests from clients, especially the ones she agreed to. Several years ago, after what she calls a religious epiphany, she gave up the practice and formed an organization called Hookers 4 Jesus. It's the kind of name that gets attention, which is the point. Lobert began infiltrating casinos, strip clubs, and detention centers trying to convince prostitutes to get out of the business. With the help of a local church, she founded Destiny House, a six-month boarding home and rehabilitation center for women escaping the business. Now Lobert and her organization are the subject of a new Investigation Discovery series, "Hookers: Saved on the Strip". (Watch a Shine exclusive preview of tonight's episode above.) She talked to Shine about her new

Would you pay $42,000 for a lifetime of good hair? A new survey suggests many women already do. The research, which was conducted by OnePoll, gathered information from over 3,000 female Brits and the results showed that they spent an average of over 26,000 pounds (or about $42,000) throughout their lives. They also lost a year of their lives, collectively, styling it.

Stylist Nicky Clarke, who commissioned the survey, marveled at a "how well and truly obsessed the nation really is with hair." That's good news for a hair stylist, but bad news for our bank accounts. But are Americans as obsessed as Brits? Not if you look at a recent study from Consumer Reports.

According to their research published in May, the average American woman spends about $195 a year on haircuts and $260 on color. If this average American woman starts paying for cuts (around $39 a pop) and color ($65 a pop) from age 25 to about 80 years of age, that would mean she spends only about $20,000. Factor in

Nominees Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in the critically panned film,
This morning marked the real start of the Oscar race. The announcement of the Golden Globe nominees is the tip off for potential Academy Award contenders. It's also an opportunity to bring the biggest names in the business together for a ratings bonanza. That may be one reason this year's Golden Globe's list is chock full of A-Listers. Already critics are crying foul over Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp's nominations for the panned film "The Tourist". Could it be a ploy for their attendance at the January 16 televised event or an earnest nod to their misunderstood performances? Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal are also garnering mutters for landing on a line-up alongside more acclaimed performers. (According to Yahoo voters at OMG, Annette Bening and Depp are the shoe-ins in their categories.) I'm personally surprised-slash-disapointed to see Tracy Morgan didn't get nominated for Best Supporting Actor on "30 Rock." This was his year!

Here's the entire list of nominees. Who are you

Katy Perry in what's now considered a standard Santa costume for women. (Photo by Larry Marano/Getty Images) When we look to pop culture to explain why young girls feel pressure to dress sexy, we blame people like Miley Cyrus. Never Santa. But Christmas has been consistently dishing out the same mixed messages as Miley since the '50s.

First Santa's jolly ("Jingle Bells"), then he's sexual prey ("Santa Baby"). "Naughty or nice" is meant to keep kids behaved or it's meant as innuendo. "Santa's Little Helpers" are mythical elves- no, wait, they're strippers delivering toys to kids in a moving pole-dancing bus in Las Vegas. No really, that just happened.

Like everything in tween-centric pop culture, subliminal messages for adults always get in the way and cross wires. Look to greedy marketers using sex to get consumers as excited about the holidays as their children. From Katy Perry in her scantily Santa mini-dress at the Jingle Ball, to the burlesque-inspired Holiday windows, the season is looking more and more like Halloween everyday. Costume sites that hawked sexy devil outfits only two

It's that time of year when Christmas movies from days of yore illuminate the TV screen. Last night, I watched "A Nanny For Christmas" and was reminded of the major problems people have in movies about the holidays. While real live humans worry about whether to get their boss a gift, and how they'll afford their plane ticket home, movie characters have bigger concerns: like how to save the local orphanage, what to do about that escaped convict they've hired to play Santa and how on earth they'll tell the man of their dreams they're not really a high-powered ad exec but a nanny- before the big ad agency Christmas party. The last dilemma is one that was tackled efficiently in last night's made-for-TV movie thanks to the help of "the spirit of Christmas." That spirit, it can fix anything!

With that in mind, I took a trip to Wikipedia in search of synopses of some of the best-worst holiday films ever. Here's a round-up of the dilemmas and resolutions in holiday films, courtesy of old St.