A User Guide to Jane Pratt's New Beauty Site, xoVain

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Jane Pratt's motto should be "if ain't broke, don't fix it." But instead it's probably more along the lines of "This is a judgement-free zone where 'expert' means someone who's lived it." Yup, those are Pratt's own words and they're referring to the new beauty site under the xo umbrella, xoVain. For anyone familiar with xoJane, you'll be expecting headlines like "You, Too, Can Date A Foot Fetishist Even If You Have Horrifying Toenails" and "I Don't Shoot Up; I Just Have Eczema." And you'll be dead right to expect them. Oh, the irresistible allure of the overshare!

The ever-candid Pratt herself welcomes readers to the new site with a tell-some(thing gruesome) editor's letter:

I use to wear so much bright bright almost-neon blue eyeliner on my lower inner eyelids back in college that my snot was blue. True fact! It took me a while to figure out why. This was pre-Adderall (not mine, but anyone's), which I know has the same sweet effect on snot when crushed and snorted.

So. As usual when Pratt is involved, the site reads like you're learning tips 'n tricks from your BFFs—all 30 of them—and you have the most ethnically diverse and diversely plagued group of friends ever. Which means whatever ails you beautywise, from managing natural hair to ugly bathrooms (the beauty dilemma we didn't know we had!), there's sure to be answer in this pool of oddballs. Or at least you'll get a good story out of it (like that time your best friend Annie stopped wearing perfume because science said it's akin to wanting to bone your brother. Neat!)
· xoVain [Official Site]
· They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore: 6 Things We Learned About Helen Gurley Brown From Today's Tributes [Racked]
· What the Staffers at xoJane.com Wear to Work [Racked]