I was at Target and was taken back by the appearance of the cashier. She was young, somewhere between 16 and 18, thin with long blonde hair wearing her Target shirt and khakis, appropriate attire (??). When we got up to the register both my husband and I were rendered speechless looking at her. He looked at me like do you see this and I mouthed oh my god. The amount of makeup was shocking, it well, its Target at 5 pm and she's wearing khakis but her makeup screamed, let's say night club. She had it all from heavy contouring to fake eyelashes. She had a dark lip with a dark eye in the harsh fluorescent lights of retail. I walked away feeling a little sad for her. What makes a young girl feel she needs to hide behind all of that makeup? To feel you have to spend a good hour on makeup just to go to work tells me she has serious self confidence issues. It's as if she is trying to completely change everything about the way she looks. I am positive underneath that mask is a very pretty girl, unfortunately she doesn't see that. It's a viscous cycle, the fake lashes and heavy makeup are to possibly hide bad skin or sparse lashes but the makeup and lashes keep making it worse. The bottom line is what she sees when she looks in the mirror and why does she have such an adverse reaction to her reflection. The truth is it is most likely an emotional issue rather than a physical appearance problem and like I said she was cute girl from what I could see. So why wear all that makeup?
So now I'm back full circle, the new definition of beauty is a lie. It's photoshopped, crazy filters and plastic surgery. These girls 'ideal of beauty' is pure fiction but they keep aspiring to look like some instagram celebrity. I don't want to bash a young girl, so that is not what I am doing here however this whole Kylie Jenner thing is feeding these insecurities. Now I don't believe it is her responsibility, nor would I say she is or should be a role model. She went from being a cute, girl next door to a 'Kim Kardashian' clone. Maybe she fell prey to the instagram celebrity herself. These images that have exreme filters making them appear to look 'perfect' which is a lie. She has obviously undergone a significant amount of plastic surgery especially for a girl her age. So what's the message here, to be beautiful you need to have a plastic surgeon on speed dial?
We need to redefine beauty, I'm just not sure how we do that when the commercial world is driving this 'new definition'. Magazines and ad companies photoshop celebrities to such an extreme that sometimes they are unrecognizable. (Cover Vogue Nicole Kidman) As long as we buy these products they are advertising in droves they will keep doing what they do because it is working. We all complain about, we know the image being used to sell some new $200 cream is a lie but emotion takes over, we throw all rational thought out the door and eagerly lap up whatever lie they are selling us. At some point we need to jump off the hamster wheel, stop complaining about the way woman are being portrayed and take a stand. There is only one thing these companies care about, their bottom line if it was profitable to show Julia Roberts in their print ad on the beauty counter as she is, crows feet and all they would absolutely do that. So in the end, it's our fault that these companies use deceitful images because we keep buying into it and I'm no better than you, I've made those 'emotional' purchases.
Megan Fox has completely changed her appearance through plastic surgery and continues to do so
Scarlett Johansen changed her nose Blake Lively also changed her nose
Nicole Kidman was unrecognizable on the cover of Vogue after photo shopping
It appears Kim Kardashian has had plastic surgery and as we know is the queen of heavy contouring as well as using heavy filters, photo shopping for her famous 'selfies'
Honestly they look amazing in the before but they still made them look 'perfect'
I worry about how this 'new' ideal of beauty affects my daughter and step daughters My youngest step daughter has stated that she wants to look like the girls on Instagram, how do I get her to understand that they don't look like that? How do I get them to not be affected by these altered images when honestly they affect me?