Beauty is Advertising Deep

I was at a cafe today when I overheard some ladies next to me talking about what cosmetic procedures they were planning.

It was with shock that I listened to them swap botox stories and plans for boob jobs and liposuction.

They talked about it as though they were discussing what they were picking up from the supermarket.

Is it just me that finds this absurd and kind of sickening?

Is it just me that thinks the normality of this conversation among women makes a shocking statement about society and how women feel about ourselves?

I hope I do not come across holier than thou in this post. I am a victim of this as much as the next lady.

  I have felt and to some degree still feel, the pressure of this unobtainable perfectionism. It is just that thankfully, my awareness of this has really kicked in.

The pressure to be 'beautiful' peaked for me when I lived  in Sydney and worked in a very 'beautiful' corporate world.

My office was like a catwalk, even walking to work from Crown St to Sussex St I was bombarded by hundreds of messages on buses, billboards and other women - there was no escaping subliminal messages that I needed to purchase x, y or z to be good enough (read: beautiful enough).

Hey moving out of there wasn't a cure all.

I still obsess about my hair, but now can just laugh at the amount of stuff ups I have had with it!

Sometimes I think the universe has paired up with the hairdressers to mangle my hair each time I have it done as a reminder for me to 'keep it real'!

Instead of crying out of sheer depression when a hairstyle doesn't go my way (as I once did!) , I can now laugh at my patheticness (yes a word) about placing so much importance on ... hair!

 I, like every woman do have a thing about my weight.

Never happy.

But I am aware of why I feel like this, and therefore try to go easy on myself as much as I can.

 I am increasingly accepting of my body after having a baby and marvelling at what the purpose of my body actually is - * which newsflash - *  was not put on this Earth to go on a quest to match the bodies on the news stand - as deep and intellectual as that ambition may be.

To be honest with you, I am SO SO happy to be out of Sydney because it has helped me take a step out of the world where what you look like supercedes everything.

These days I view more tumbleweeds than billboards and that has been a healthy boost for my psyche that was drowning in the pressure to look a certain way when I lived in Sydney.

The Beauty Industry cleverly leads us to feel our worth as a human beings could somehow be elevated by removing the hair from our legs permanently or straightening out the creases from around our eyes.

I have had moments in the last year where I have looked in the mirror in horror!

I have a one year old baby and have had about 2 mins sleep in 2009 and crows feet have put down their foundations around my eyes and dug their heels in.

Heck I think I even have crows beaks!

I HAVE had moments where I wish I could have that fixed.

But then I stop.

I become present and I listen to that little voice in my head that for some strange reason sounds remarkably like that annoyingly sultry sounding voice from an infomercial.

 FIXED?

Did I think the word FIXED?

Is something broken?

Is something not working properly because my body is doing what it is naturally supposed to?

What needs fixing here infomercial voice in my head?

My crows feet or the way my mind has been programmed by the media, shops, other women to deem them as ugly?

Sadly, I think as women we are always prone to these 'not good enough' feelings.

 It is what the beauty industry exists on.

I wish I knew how we could eradicate these feelings altogether, but until we do the key to fighting them is the awareness.

Aware why we suddenly feel life would be complete "if only we had (insert cosmetic/beauty procedure here)"


Easier said then done I know.


The beauty industry coupled with the media  is a mighty mighty force to be reckoned with.


Let us be smart enough to recognise this. 


We have grown up in a society obsessed with making money!

By keeping us women feeling ugly and not good enough keeps the beauty industry alive.

If crows feet were to be deemed attractive, heck how could we kick back and watch Nip n Tuck on Saturday nights? Julian McMahon would not have a pretend job as a cosmetic surgeon! ( probably the biggest tragedy of my whole debate actually)

We are brainwashed on what beauty is, and we constantly feel like we do not measure up.

Advertisers want us to feel like we are not worthy unless we have all this work done - because "we are worth it " right?

It really really really saddens me how many women (myself included) have led their complete lives feeling not enough, completely based on our outer shell.

Our body!!!

It is laughable!

When oh when are the women of the world going to work this out!

 WE ARE good enough and it has NOTHING to do with what we look like!

We are not worth it. L'Oreal!  We are worth a lot more! You are not worthy of us and your blatant preying on our sense of self-worth.

We have bigger fish to fry - stop making us spend our valuable lives worrying about whether we deserve to cake some crap on our faces and then buy some other hoohaa to wipe it off with!!

Are women ever going to outsmart this industry? 


The women of the world who are flaunted as being the sexiest, most beautiful etc.. are all women who have no doubt had some plastic surgery, their teeth whitened, hair removed, eyes enlarged, lips boosted -- so even our men view this as "beautiful" - we are told what is beautiful and we fall for it, hook, line and sinker.

Who made this list and then told the world about it?

Who has the authority to decide who is beautiful?

 Maybe the answer that question was in my question. WHO indeed.

Why do we all buy into it and suddenly believe unnaturally large lips and a constant surprised look is what makes a woman beautiful?

If someone said to you "who is the most beautiful woman in the world?" which one of you didn't immediately think "Angelina Jolie"

Huh? Huh?

And why?

We are brainwashed!

Sure she looks nice, probably enhanced to buggery, but what is it about her that makes her beautiful?

Or is it the fact that this is the way she is marketed that we just swallow it up and accept it as fact?

If you ask me there are a heck of a lot more beauties out there than Ange.

Why not throw the late Mother Theresa into the mix?

Sure she wasn't a badass bisexual who kissed her brother inappropriately and then hooked up with Hollywoods hottest man (again who decides this?)

 She had a bad set of teeth, an appalling hairdo - but to me, she had it going on!

She had an abundance of radiance and it wasn't coming from her Oil of Olay.

 It was the real deal.

We need more beauties like her to gracing the covers at the news stands.

But where would the money be in that?

Who is going to feel not good enough because they haven't completed a compassionate deed of the day?

The world would be a much happier place if we spent time obsessing that we are not good enough due to not giving to enough charities, or were not kind enough to a homeless person then wasting our precious lives feeling not good enough because our thighs have a little hail damage!!

My message of this post is to challenge you to at least question your true need when the inevitable " I need xyz beauty product" strikes you.

Is it your TRUE need, or a need that you have been so cleverly and subtly sold?

I am not telling you to cancel your facial or to quit your laser hair removal - but simply to have a big think about why you are really feeling the need to do it.

Don't  let the bastards win by booking in for these expensive procedures and starving ourselves.

Let us be empowered girls - realise this is how they want us to feel and rebel!.

 Stick our fingers up at them - embrace our crows feet and put our concern into leaving a legacy behind that is going to actually mean something.

What do you want on your gravestone "She had an immaculate complexion"?

 Hey that won't count for much when the worms get to it!