When one very famous blonde news anchor cut her hair, “it was empowering; it was so powerful,” says Vincenza Carovillano, a makeup artist who has worked at Fox News, NBC, ABC, and CBS and whose skills are admired by competitors and anchorwomen alike. She applauded the anchorwoman’s decision to chop off many layers of blonde.

“It almost feels like you’re cutting off layers of bullshit,” Carovillano explains. It was an important personal statement, she continues: “Like, here I am!”

The journalist had evolved: With one swift snip, she had gone from a lengthy tousled hairstyle she privately described to close friends as “fuck me” — meaning the frenzied piles of tresses were intended to seduce viewers — to the short, severe cut she described as “fuck you.” Within months she had muted her lip color to a nude, highlighted with just a touch of champagne gloss. All around TV news, there’s a quiet revolution taking place. Not necessarily a successful revolution, but then most revolts start small.

“It’s disconcerting that there should be so much pressure to be überglamorous,” says Katie Couric, a veteran anchor of CBS, NBC, ABC, and Yahoo! News, who’s currently partnering with National Geographic on a documentary series about pressing social issues. “I just don’t think turning everyone into a Barbie doll is a good thing. It’s very objectifying to women. I want to look more like the people watching me.” For example, she adds, “I didn’t want to wear a hugely expensive couture Dolce & Gabbana suit because a) I’m frugal and b) I don’t like the message it sends — it wasn’t me.”

Mind you, she adds, “I don’t want people vomiting while watching me. I want to look normal.”

“Normal” is not exactly what many network executives have in mind for their female on-air news stars, however — and these days the news queens they hire and promote are highly attuned to what is expected. As any stylist will tell you, beautifying the beauties is no easy task, partly because the work itself requires so much more than mere surface enhancement. Into the hands of their embellishers, anchors pour their doubts, fears, and desires: above all, the desire to look not simply better than their competitors but a lot better than nature made them. And to achieve this, they will try almost anything.