Jessica Simpson’s The Price of Beauty Premieres on VH1

Monday night was the premiere episode of the new The Price of Beauty show on VH1. The show follows Jessica Simpson and her friends, Ken Paves and CaCee Cobb, as they travel the world in search of beauty. I had been looking forward to seeing if this would actually be a cool show or if it would be another cheesy JSimps production. The verdict: I’ll be tuning in next week, but don’t expect to be awed by the show’s integrity — it’s still VH1.

In the first episode, the travelers venture to Thailand to get a grasp on what the Thai consider beautiful. They start with a harrowing Thai massage, which seems more like circus practice once Jessica and Ken start hollering and giggling at the vigorous treatment.

Next, they learn about skin whitening, which is popular but very dangerous. They meet a woman who has destroyed her skin by using whitening products, leaving her with splotches all over. Somewhere in between all of this, they make a grand show eating fried cockroaches and Jessica offensively laughs in the middle of meditation with a Buddhist monk. Good job, Jess.

Finally, they visit a tribe that wraps metal rings around womens’ necks in order to elongate them and make them “beautiful.” I wish that they had spent more time on this portion of the show, because it was definitely the most interesting. They showed a young girl having her neck wrapped for the first time, but they never explained the effects that it has on the body or if they ever remove them.

Next week, they’ll be in France where Jessica will have to walk in a fashion show. It doesn’t look terribly interesting to me, but perhaps we’ll learn of a French beauty secret that we never knew before. In the previews, it shows them meeting with a disfigured model who “paid the price of beauty,” so it looks like showcasing beauty-gone-bad will be a common theme.

I just hope that they can contain their laughter enough so as to not offend anyone this time! You can watch The Price of Beauty on VH1, Monday nights at 10pm EST.