Trashionista co-editor and Shiny writer Diane Shipley makes the case for beauty without cruelty (to ourselves)…
It’s not that I think women with brains should wear clumpy boots and never crack a smile, let alone the seal on a lipstick: I like make-up, I love pretty shoes, and don’t get me started on bags... Dressing up and pampering yourself is fun, lifts the sprits and provides numerous best-friend bonding opportunities.
But standards of beauty are becoming ever more unrealistic - and we’re all making ourselves miserable trying to keep up. Look at any rom-com from twenty years ago and you’ll see that all you needed to be considered pretty back then was decent clothes (or what passed for decent in the 1980s), recently back-combed hair and lip gloss. And the typical size for Hollywood stars - let alone average women - was a US 8. No-one obsessed about cellulite, tried to be a size zero or waxed their eyebrows, let alone their bikini line. (Speaking of which, I blame a more liberal attitude to porn for the trend in super-groomed girlie bits).
What were once extreme beauty treatments have now become standard; filtered into high-street salons via celebs with dirty minds and too much time on their hands. So now we’re all supposed to withstand incredible pain in the hope of looking like a Brazilian beach beauty - just to keep up with Paris Hilton and Gwyneth Paltrow).
And while we’re metaphorically down there, I have an issue with underwear. I know thongs are supposed to continue the Brazilian beach-beauty theme but personally I prefer underwear that doesn’t cut me in half. I mean, come on- do you think other people care that much about seeing your VPL? (Is it going to scar them for life?!) The one time I went out in a thong, I had to waddle to the nearest bathroom, remove it and spend the rest of the night panty-free.
But worse even than thongs is the euphemistically-named ‘control’ underwear (do I want to be controlled by my underwear? I don’t think so…) Wedging yourself into a pair of these is an act of pure masochism. I tried them once and once only: first I had to cut off my blood supply by squeezing into them, then I had to somehow act like a person who wasn’t having her internal organs forcibly rearranged. The worst thing is, I thought the finished effect looked really good - but I felt terrible and decided that was marginally more important...
Talking of unwanted spare flesh, it would be nice if I could have a conversation with another woman about our bodies without one of us mentioning the c-word. No, not that c-word, this one: cellulite. Can you imagine what would happen if we all decided not to care about it? We could all be a lot happier, and surely that’s worth the collapse of a multi-billion dollar industry! Most of us have it, it’s natural and there’s little you can do about it. Why not just accept it, as women used to before the fashion industry and certain magazines decided to make us feel bad about our bodies...
And then there’s the beauty stuff that’s considered essential maintenance. I’m not opposed to removing body hair, but what I do object to is pain: electrolysis, epilators and waxing all resemble medieval torture techniques. I’ll concede that maybe waxing is not so painful at exclusive beauty salons, but I’m not living on exclusive beauty salon wages (more like Walgreen’s). A few years ago, before a beach holiday, I had my first and last experience of home waxing. I applied the pre-prepared strips to my left leg, waited as instructed, and then ripped. “EEEEEOOOOOOOOOuch!!!” is a rough and very toned-down approximation of the sound I then made. I had to remove the rest of my leg hair by razor- it was quicker, cheaper and didn’t make my legs throb with fire.
Those aforementioned legs, by the way, are, and will remain, milky-white. Yes, I resist the fake-tan trend with every fibre of my being. I mean, is the colour I was born so offensive that I should spend my Friday nights applying a toxic-smelling gloop to my legs (and by association my pajamas, sheets, towels and furniture)?
And all this is just the everyday stuff! Thanks to the easy viability of credit (i.e. debt) and extreme TV makeovers, making the effort to exercise (or even to - gasp - accept yourself) is less encouraged than ever. Even twenty-something women indulge in botox and most of us have tried a toned-down version of the Pam Anderson/Angelina Jolie (pick your decade) bosom, albeit via sophisticated brassiere wrangling.
I know it’s a cliché, but whatever happened to inner beauty? Just think how much time and cash we could save if we stopped obsessing about our looks- we could do something meaningful, like working out ways to save the planet, or having an all-day Lost marathon. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good, and I’m certainly not immune to insecurities about my appearance, but maybe we should give ourselves a break.
If we appreciated our fabulous personalities a bit more then maybe we’d judge ourselves (and others) a bit less - and have more time for, you know… FUN!
