Day 15: Beautification

I read this quote a while ago - “Pretty is something you're born with. But beautiful, that's an equal opportunity adjective.” Witty. Beauty really is all about perception. It's just a pity how much emphasis is being placed on girls to be a socially constructed version of beautiful.

From being a super chubby kid to being a super conscious, self-esteem challenged teenager to being a borderline feminist who does not want to be labeled, judged or valued based solely on physical attractiveness, I've evolved, I've come a long way. If there's anything Lady Gaga has taught us (other than you can recycle meat to make a dress) is to accept and embrace the way we were born. Born this way, hey?

I can say I'm fairly confident about the way I look and dress. Of course like everyone else I have days when I look at myself in the mirror and wonder WTF (Why the face as Phil Dunphy would say) but generally I like what I see. My friend and I took a gender psych paper at University and did our research mainly focused on body image, media representation of women and self-esteem in teenage girls. The more research and case studies I read and watched, the more aversive I grew towards the media and the cosmetics/glam industry. It's sad how manipulative they are in changing and influencing perceptions of people, how they create images that are so far from being natural or even "beautiful" sometimes, how they overplay the importance of being "pretty" or "beautiful" (i.e. like their models).

Our main takeaway after an entire semester was that there's a lot more to life than being a pretty face. Also, when it comes to "looking a certain way", other people have to look at you a lot more than you look at yourself so as long as you are comfortable and happy with the way you look, other people just have to learn to deal with it. I've always been the one to "keep it real", I don't like make up, I don't own a lot of it, I don't buy any (I just inherit stuff from an aunt who believes make up maketh a woman), I don't have any beauty rituals and I hardly invest any time in making my skin glow or hair shine. This would be all be very evident if you met me. Crazy hair, natural skin, colourful quirky clothes, signature hat and flat shoes. That is me and that is who society has to accept or "deal with". I'm not going to emerge out of my house looking like a girl from a Vogue magazine, neither do I want to.

Having said that, every girl does like and need a little bit of TLC. Facials, manicures, pedicures etc are feel-good beauty rituals. I've never had any of those. So to do something new, I decided to pamper myself a bit and invest a little more time and effort into looking good. So instead of running off to an expensive spa that I cannot afford or to a beautician who would plaster my face with a mask of chemicals I decided to do a few home-based beauty rituals. An oil massage for the hair, natural face mask for the face, pedicure (manicure was not really possible since one really needs unchewed finger nails for that) etc. It was nice. I don't think I have the time, patience or inclination to do it every day but was a change from the mundane. Something new, something done deliberately to maintain and repair the body!

I don't think any of these beauty rituals made any drastic difference to the way I looked but was a good way to get in touch with my girly side and show my body that I haven't just taken it for granted and am willing to spend some time on a little bit of pampering and maintaining.