Merriam-Webster defines beautiful as having qualities of beauty : exciting aesthetic pleasure. So then, what is beauty? Merriam-Webster defines beauty as : the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : loveliness
2 : a beautiful person or thing; especially : a beautiful woman
3 : a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality
4 : a brilliant, extreme, or egregious example or instance
Not the definitions you were expecting, right? Or were they? Mostly because, we as a society have created a new meaning for what is really beautiful. Curious, I went to Google and searched "beautiful women" under images and got this result:
Hardly any of them had clothes on or were sans makeup. And if they weren't clothed they definitely didn't look like this:
Which picture do you find "beautiful"?
Picture number two wins for me hands down. I might be biased since I have quite the flabby tummy myself :Þ, but she looks genuinely happy. She isn't enhanced or altered (to my knowledge)The first picture seems so... FAKE... Her expressions look forced, her ass was probably enlarged with photoshop and her face looks as though it has seen far too much sun and botox injections. Am I wrong? Who is really wrong?
The extent women go to be beautiful is beyond me. I mean... There are some crazy things people have done or are doing now, regardless of any consequences. Right now I am in intro to cosmetology and we're learning all the history and stories behind it and here are some crazy things that we have learned in class. Some of them I had already known, but some of them are new to me.
In ancient China, the 4-inch "lotus foot" was considered a sign of perfect beauty. The practice of foot-binding involved breaking the bones of the forefoot and folding them forward, then tying the misshapen appendage to prohibit growth.
For ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Persians, sparkling eyes were considered beautiful and they applied the heavy metal antimony to make their conjunctiva sparkle. A woman with a high forehead was considered beautiful during the Elizabethan era, and upper-class Elizabethan women plucked or shaved their eyebrows and top of their hairline to achieve this look. These women also covered their skin with ceruse (lead-based) makeup, which caused peripheral neuropathy, gout, anemia, chronic renal failure, and disfiguring scarring, requiring the application of more ceruse makeup. Chronic users, such as Queen Elizabeth I, acquired a misshapen appearance. Upset over her grisly visage, the Queen banished all mirrors from her castle.
In the court of Louis XVI, noblewomen drew blue veins onto their necks and shoulders to emphasize their exalted status ("bluebloods"). In the 16th and 17th centuries, the wealthy used belladonna eyedrops to dilate their pupils. Users acquired an "attractive" doe-like appearance, but they also risked retinal damage, glaucoma, and blindness. During the 18th century, vermilion rouge, concocted of sulfur and mercury, achieved popularity. Users lost teeth, suffered gingivitis, and (unknowingly) risked kidney and nervous system damage from mercury.
Today, it's all about hair dyes, makeup, corsets, botox, cosmetic surgeries, anorexia, bulimia, meth, heroine, among many other drugs that rid you of an appetite and speed up your metabolism. What are we doing to ourselves?
To some, if not most of you, this is just a ridiculous rant that will lead me to nowhere, and you're probably right. But I felt compelled. In class we were outlining chapter three of our books, which is all about your personal image. I came across a paragraph that contained a few sentences that really rattled me.
First, let me be the first to tell you that I LOVE me some makeup and I wear it almost daily. I will be the first to tell you that I am somewhat unhappy with my body and what I see are it's flaws, and to most women this is also true to them. However, I am surprisingly the most happy about my body than I have ever been. I think I am sexy and beautiful and real. I am learning everyday to embrace my "flaws" and lead a healthy example for my girls.
Okay... Enough about all that... Let me get to my point.
Here is the excerpt from the paragraph under The Art of Makeup.
"...You should ALWAYS use makeup to accentuate your best features, and mask your less flattering ones. With that said, it is VITAL to ALWAYS wear makeup at work. A freshly scrubbed face may look great for a leisurely day at the beach, but it does NOTHING to promote your image as a beauty professional while at work..." (Milady's Standard Cosmetology pg. 29)
WHAT?!?! Did that really make it to print in our book?! Yes, yes it did...
Who are you to tell me that I HAVE to wear makeup to work to make it as a beauty professional? If I'm being honest, most women to me, look more beautiful without all the makeup. I choose to wear it because I feel I look ill or pale without it. Mostly because I am used to seeing myself with it on and that is probably the case with a lot of women. But why would I have to wear it to make a living as a cosmetologist? If I'm good at what I do, that should be enough, right?
I'm done ranting... For now. Most of you will probably not have made it this far into the post, so I'll just zip it.
Thanks for listening... Or reading... Whatever.
Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it. —Confucius
