The Culture of Beauty

January 19, 2012 by Alia 6 Comments

Last week, I wrote a blog post about Environmental Defence’s video, Try to Look Pretty Without Poisoning Yourself.   It focuses on the harmful ingredients that are used in everyday cosmetic products.  Since its release on January 9^th, it has received a lot of attention and was featured in the Financial Post on January 13^th.  I stumbled upon another video that I liked last week by Jesse Rosten called Fotoshop by Adobe.  It highlighted the fact that all of the photos we see in magazines and on billboards have been edited through Photoshop or a program like it.  In other words, what you see is NOT what you get.  I like both videos and they got me thinking. Why do we have to do anything to ourselves in order to look or feel pretty?

The Culture of Beauty

In North America (and many other places), it is simply the norm to beauty products.  From moisturizer to lipstick, it’s readily available in any form you want.  Not only are there beauty products available for purchase, there are a multitude of surgeries and injections that you can have done to alter your appearance. Why?  After being bombarded with images of what an ideal body image is, in general, we seem to have bought into it.  Most models meet the BMI for anorexia.  Read this article to see how skewed the modelling industry has become.

But everyone is different

The facts are, each person has different proportions, grows to a different height and will age differently.  The choices we make early in life will influence how our bodies change.  We get wrinkles and age spots and or bodies change over time.  Is it really necessary to aggressively try and avoid all of that, just for the sake of it? Should we really use expensive wrinkle creams to ensure that our skin stays perfectly smooth into our 60s?

Take it as a badge of honour

How about we take those wrinkles and age spots as a badge of honour rather than things to be covered up or removed?  Sure, we can still have a healthy lifestyle, maintain a good diet, and get regular exercise.  But, if at the end of all of that, we still get a wrinkle of two, be proud of it!  After all, it’s bound to be the product of all the amazing things you have accomplished in your life.

Of course, this is just my opinion.  What do you think?