Appearance
Appearance, your interface with the world. Your image as percieved by yourself and the viewer. Your appearance reflects your personal view. Becouse of this dissimilar degree of attention, every one has a personal appeal, look, and taste. We want to look our best yet we limit ourselves to some creative ways of ''ad-ons'' beauty products hoping to make that favourable impact on others . A question is raised: how beauty is defined?
A standard answer may not fit all when it crosses cultures and individual. On that end this has led to so many beauty appeals, claims, products to serve the needs of hopeful consumers.
Tanning products for fairer skin, fairing creams for normal to darker skin, weight loss products for those who want to slim, weight gain for those who want to add size, and many other varities producers tap in to fill the needs that hasn't been served well. Two persons on a diet program, one gain weight and another to lose weight. Who could be looking better? It could be any of the two, the answer will depend on what makes a healthy and in-shape look. Both can be satisfied with how they are looking. And yes you can be who you are and still beautiful.
Your fashion
Contribute here |
All living beings are inherently attracted to it. Every one has a share of it. Who has the most? I bet if anyone can answer this. Beauty has been subject to long and sometimes silly controversies. When it comes to people they are more and more divided with the media release of hundreds of model pictures, movie stars, hottest fashion, cosmetic products, trendy styles, beauty shows, magazines, and dozens of beauty website. The race, especially by women, to beauty ‘’perfection’’ has never been at its highest.
Every obsessesion with making a more 'beautiful' look is never-ending (because this can never be perfect) . Even if you follow the latest appeals in the media you must have regreted your look at some point . And the all-in solution can't found in a bundle of cosmetic products sold to you. If they didn’t work (which many you already know didn’t work) you still have a good day at your cosmetic and reconstructive surgeon- hope you become a satisfied consumer.
If you as a woman want to look like Miss World then you need to think about the cost involved in looking one and the reward you get from committing to it. You are already aware that Miss World is only one woman-tens of other women at contest (let alone those who were dropped in the preparations). What chance every aspiring woman to beauty has to win this kind contest made by a few people's judgement? Why should you stand before judges to prove your beauty? Do you need to be approved by a judge or committee to posses positive slef-image and have a share of 'modern beauty'?
In her article tilted ‘Are you beautiful?’Anastasia Papaionou Editor of BellaOnline, defines beauty as a composite of physical and inner attributes. She describes seeing someone as attractive at first as ‘shallow beauty’. Why? Because it’s a ‘personal opinion’. Someone that looks attractive to your friend might not look attractive to you.
The blurring celebrity looks you see on magazine covers, advertising, and on TV are manipulated ones. Compare their media exposure look with their home look (before and after and also with and without make up). Why after all would they apply so many products ( and maybe hours in salon) to their face, hair and body to get that ‘stunning’ look the camera would like to see? What was wrong with their pre-exposure look? The psychology. Do you agree?
Fashion models made some news when they reportedly died from extreme diet plan in order to loose weight to be within the fashion parameters? 'Another model dies' tells the story of Eliana and Luisel Ramos ,2 sister models who collapsed and died form extreme dieting. Eliana aged 18 suffered from ‘ailementary deficiency’ that lead to her heart attack, while Luisel,22, collapsed on her catwalk show in 2006. She was underweight to starvation according to the World Health Organization.
Every person is gifted with a reflection of beauty. There are some persons who look good to more people(still opinion) than others. But that still doesn’t male a rule. In the 1960s-1970s white skin and blonde hair was considered beautiful. Today tan skin and fit-to-face hair style is considered beautiful. In many western countries today tanned skin is more attractive than white because the tan reflects a person’s ‘outing’ time, work, health, and active lifestyle. You may be aware that some models are actually dark skinned.
The fashion magazines don’t feature black models on their pages because they ‘do not sell’ according to many industry insiders-says the Telegraph. So it’s money and sales that decides one person to be more beautiful or not rather than your real beauty-and beauty is never restricted to media models. Confidence, positive-self image, feeling well, shows up on our beauty profoundly while the media only takes up the measurements and shapes of what makes beauty.
In this year's June edition only images of black models appeard in the Vogue's Italian edition. In Italian Vogue shows black model only' the photographer describes the magazines disapproval of black models exposure as discrimination, prejudices on age, sexuality, race and other kinds-media prejudice. On another front an American coalition called StopBigMedia was formed to stop the dominance of few media conglomerates in the American media industry, which they claim is undemocractic, undermines free speech, controls media message, and underepresents local people's voice-all that matters to these companies is profit.
Health conscious consumers won’t be happy with celebrity fashion and make up had they known the reality. Of the many cosmetics products found on the market a number of allergic and carcinogenic substances are found on the list of major brands. Check the label on your skin care, shampoo, powder, lip stick, foundation, perfume, and others for some harmful ingredients like euthylparaben, butylparaben, mythelparaben,propylparaben, titanium dioxide, sodium benzoate are all carcinogenic. Sodium Lureth Sulfate and Ammonium Lureth Sulfate are known for allergies. These are just few of the many serious chemicals the cosmetics companies consistently use to produce commercial quantities at less cost, increase shelf life, enhance scent, but at the disadvantage of your health. Check the Cosmetics Ingriendients Dictionary here.
When you are making your physical beauty a priority to expose to the public everywhere you go chances are that you are going to attract the wrong persons to you. Some people dress up like they are going to a party when they are going to work, shop, or just for a casual outing. Here is a point where beauty standard has to be imported or imposed in every day life. The Media Awareness Network (a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to media education and internet literacy through critical thinking) published on its website ‘beauty and body image in the media’ in which they raised concern over the female body used by the media to sell everything. Example is the magazines that feature pictures and news of younger, thinner, and taller models that urges women to loose those last 20 pounds in order to make life by winning the perfect marriage, job, and kids ..(as if those weights you carry are responsible for all of your misery).
What’s on stake here? They have found women who are unhappy with their bodies (and feel insecure) are easier to buy from the products that appeared in advertising and likely to be tuned to the next media recipe. The question this awareness network asks is that 'why should beauty standards be imposed on women?'
In 2001(maybe old news but serves the purpose here) a reporter for the Telegraph reported a news that titled ‘women seduced in the search for eternal youth’ attacking the cosmetics industry’s consistent seduction to women to buy their products in the hope of gaining better look, beauty, and youthfulness. Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, made claims (that led to publishing a study report by Euromonitor) on anti-aging creams describing them as ‘’complete pap’’. She also made accusations against the cosmetics industry for ‘’perpetuating lies’’. The report gave sales figures of cosmetics in the
Go back and look at the cosmetic products you already have. How many have really worked for you as they ‘promised’? Experience tells us that most of what we spend on cosmetics produce less of what the labels claims to do. I suspect anyone who is fully satisfied with his/her buys. Reality is that all of us made some mistakes (at least in the past) that the beauty products we bought only worked our pockets. And by the time we learn the tricks the sellers would have made their record sales- how many of us will learn to make better choices after all.
In the
The psychological aspect of body image appears on two fronts. One is the personal perception of oneself, and the other is the perception that one wants to have in people’s mind. If you want to look more beautiful than others then it is either your perception that’s behind it, which is making you feel unhappy, or the favourable perception that you want others to make about you. In both cases the perceptions of body image are not abstract, rather they are associated with positive outcomes, social acceptance, better life, better job, better relationships, better healthand the like. However, you can try and read the biography of some beauty models to see how lacking their life was on some of the above favours. (Read about how beauty didn’t translate into the sought after desires for your celebrity model, or actresse)
There is another to the point of making beauty a life obsession and public utility. This is when relationships break down causing divisions over desired aspirations of exemplified beauty. It’s a reality when women seek to look attractive to direct attention to themselves (after using a bundle of beauty products and services with increasing cost and time) that may win the attention of others, especially men, causing distress and anxiety.
Some social consequences are (you may check them out) : men’s preoccupation with the more (or most) beautiful female partner, breaking out with less beautiful partners, seeking a related female and possibly married one, the loss of trust and cheating in favour that more beautiful look, less attention to and psychological stress to children of both sides, blemished reputation for dating many partners, fragmentation of the family as younger generations take similar approaches later therefore decreased number of or delayed marriages, weaker marital relationship, extramarital relationships, decreased morals, pouring thousands of dollars in retailers accounts, and the continued feeling of less satisfaction as trends, fads and fashion keep on changing.
Doing something to look better is learned rather than applied. Feeling good with what you have and adopting a healthy lifestyle give more to your natural beauty than cosmetics can ever provide. That way you will have more time to spend on securing a better future and life.
