Leonard Lauder, Estee Lauder's chairman of the board, came up with the term "lipstick index" during the early-2000s recession to describe increased sales of the product during hard financial times. (Granted, it hasn't held true for this recession, but moving on.) Now, do we need to talk about the BS index? Maybe. And that stands for "beauty school", of course.

Beauty schools are reporting increases in applications, according to the New York Daily News, and the "personal appearance field" is expected to expand by 14 percent between now and 2016. Perhaps that's because cosmetology schools tend to charge less than graduate schools, and top-level hairstylists can rake in about $100,000 annually.

Would you start a new career like this during the recession?