Makeover Madness

Trading Spaces is a hot new television show where neighbors redecorate a room in each other’s houses. There are great scenes of amazement and joy at the final revelation. But is everyone happy with the results?

Mirrors. They don’t always reflect well on us.

If you’re like most people, you probably aren’t fully satisfied with what you see in the mirror — hair not quite right, nose a bit “off,” eyebrows, ear hair or nose hair in need of some serious plucking. Your clothes were popular when “Flock of Seagulls” was a hot band and your physique is more Tom Arnold than Gov’nor Arnold. In short, you could use some updating, downsizing, and re-creation. Regime change, as it were.

Well, be careful what you wish for.

Chances are that somewhere in your city a TV producer is combing the streets looking for you. Roving bands of stylishly dressed, pancake-makeupped young hipster hosts are chasing down the plainest of us to give us what we seemingly can’t give ourselves — fashion sense and a good hair day. Welcome to your own personal Ambush Makeover.

With 12 different “reality” makeover shows currently running on the tube, there’s nothing about our lives that can’t be fixed with a tweeze here, a cut there or ...