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Through My Eyes

Through My Eyes

Author: Kasia Yoko
Date: 2014-04-11
Ambrose Bierce (1958) once wrote, "To men a man is but a mind. Who cares what face he carries or what he wears? But woman's body is the woman." Despite the societal changes achieved since the fifties, his statement remains true. Since the height of the feminist movement in the early 1970s, women have spent more money than ever before on products and treatments designed to make them beautiful.

Having been brought up with seriously down to earth role models I have missed the 'Beauty Obsessed' boat completely and I guess if you don't start young with the vain fixations you could skip it all together.

At a recent swanky birthday bash I was amazed to see the craziest sets of nails and I am not just talking about just hands, the toenails now also started to resemble the famed Fabergé eggs.

The vanity trend has gone seriously wonky for methe fake eyelashes, suntans and hair extensions. The Swarovski crystals, the international fashion brands and the exorbitant price tags, the whitening creams, the sliming potions and the fitness regimes have got me out of breath and totally out of sync.

It's so utterly time and energy consuming, it actually brings tears to my eyes. Recently one of my clients looked at my hands shook her head and said something like, "You know if you want to be taken seriously you do have to take care of your appearance. With nails like these you can forget it". It is good to stress here that she is a health spa owner who wanted to get me to take advantages of her services.

Needless to say I tried it and failed - could not for the life of me get how sitting two hours in a chair, inhaling dangerous fumes and talking absolute nonsense with the polite therapist could benefit my career. But there I was giving into the peer pressure, having my nails done.

The recent Cancer Awareness Campaign on Facebook brought my attention to something I take for granted every day. Some of my Facebook Female Friends (FFF) dreaded posting their makeup free face for all to see.

Some posted photos showing just parts of the face, some 'selfies' were shot from strange and impossible angles. In some the lighting was so bad you could not make up their facial features. I could sense the dread and almost a fear that they went through exposing their paint free faces.

But when did the fake beauty craze begin? When did we realise that our own eyelashes were insufficient and that we need to make them shaggier? When did the laughter lines and worry contours on our face start being offensive and in need of invasive and often harmful Botox? Who decided that a woman's breast should be shaped on Marie Antoinette's Champaign goblet?

Beauty has become the most elusive commodity. Ideas of what is beautiful vary across cultures and change over time. It has been proven that beauty cannot be quantified or objectively measured; it is the result of the judgments of others.

The concept is difficult to define, as it is equated with different, sometimes contradictory, ideas. When people are asked to define beauty, they tend to mention abstract, personal qualities rather than external, quantifiable ones.

Some believe that because beauty is an ideal, an absolute, such as truth and goodness, the pursuit of it does not require justification, an ideal, by definition, which can be met only by a minority of those who strive to achieve it.

So if you are on the beauty treadmill - stop and take a breather, know that no one else can define your beauty for you and know that the only beauty that counts is the one nestled in your heart. Have a fabulously beautiful week!