Feeling Bad For Cher
I was at a gathering years ago and Cher came on the television. A woman in the group absolutely went off on her.This woman had a problem with all of the plastic surgery Cher had, and with the way she'd done her hair for the event, oh and with her clothes, and with Cher's makeup...
"I wonder what she really looks like.", the woman summed up scathingly.
Okay, sure, Cher is definitely an extreme example of messing with your own appearance, but heck, don't we all?
What is 'natural' anymore? Are we all in Amish 'plain dress'? Are we giving up ornament of all sorts from nose rings to buttons on our clothes?
Going by how much this woman was dissecting Cher's appearance, you can't really blame Cher for wanting to do whatever it takes to make the 10 bazillion people watching (and, ya know, judging her) think she's looking good. If we each considered our appearance to be a business investment, and if the whole world (practically) was watching...who knows what we might do?
Glass Houses
And, here's the interesting thing: The woman making the comment was wearing some fairly heavy makeup, dyed her hair, and used nail polish on her extra-long artificial nails. That's cool to me. I don't care.But...is it natural? Is it that all so different from Cher? Seems to me it's, basically, Cher with a smaller budget to play with.
And those were just the obvious beauty hacks this woman was using. This was a regular night, with a dozen people seeing her. What would she do for a special event?
There were probably other measures that weren't as obvious.... Maybe she was wearing Spanx? Maybe she used Retin-A. Who knows?
And, here's the important thing: Who cares?
Why are we so judge-y of other women?
It makes me wonder: 'What's okay? And what's worthy of judgment?'
'Natural' Beauty
There was a time when women would sit around and whisper about a neighbor, or the woman at church, who 'hennas her hair', or wears 'lip rouge', or a woman who was suspected of some other equally heinous crime against society.I Googled how many women dye their hair in the U.S.
Here are some of my search results:
"In 1950, only about 7% of women colored their hair, but in 2015, it's up to about 75%."
I thought of that Clairol campaign: "Does she...or doesn't she?? Apparently, this one ad changed the world. "Within six years of the first add, 70% of all adult women were coloring their hair, and Clairol's sales increased fourfold."
Here's what I've noticed: Something that's way 'out there' one year, becomes the norm the next. I'm guessing those 7% who dyed their hair in 1950 were labeled: floozies. But now it's more likely that the 25% who don't would be labeled as women who don't 'take care of themselves'.
Times Change
I remember being on a crew van (transportation between airports and hotels) years ago. I was talking to this guy with blindingly white teeth. I commented that his teeth were beautiful. He confided (almost like someone admitting they cheat on their taxes): 'I have them whitened.'I'd never heard of that. It seemed like a really extreme measure. Later on in our trip another flight attendant made a comment about this guy: How vain can you get? Does he think anyone cares about how he looks. (Uh, obviously this guy did.)
Nowadays your dental hygienist will ask you about teeth whitening as if it should be part of your regular cleaning.
Seems like that's how it is with things like this; What at first seems like an extreme measure begins to seem like a must-do part of good grooming. As products, or technology, improve and beauty treatments become more available and less expensive, what was once only for celebrities becomes commonly used.
A fashion blogger I follow has an online group of women that I'm part of. She did a video about her use of Botox. Most women (me included) were interested in her experience, the cost, how often she gets it done, etc.
She looks great. At heart, the reason we're all in this group is because she looks great. That's her job: to look great and help other women to look great too. She's very frank about her own struggles with her appearance.
But some in the group really attacked her. They said she was hypocritical because she talks a lot about accepting and dressing the body you're in, and celebrating your own beauty, and here she was changing herself.
I didn't see it as hypocritical, but more as experimental. What makes her feel good? What makes a difference? What doesn't?
The young girls I fly with are always talking about needing a Botox touch-up. (In their 20's.) . They will probably never have wrinkles.
Wrinkles are getting practically outlawed. They seem to view it as a basic part of taking care of themselves properly, and people getting wrinkles just aren't doing a good job with self-care.
So, as the 'young folk' say...
"You do you."
I think the bottom line for me is finding what makes me feel my best, and letting others do the same.Jealousy Ain't Pretty
I admit I don't always maintain this attitude.
I think the times when someone else doing what they want to do bothers me is when I feel that something I want isn't possible for me. (See Green Eyed Monster post.) If I didn't think I could afford to, or have time to, make changes I wanted in my appearance (or my life for that matter), then I resented those who were doing it.
It goes back to Julia Cameron's idea of viewing jealousy as a road map. It's probably a good idea to just admit what we want and then go for it, or decide it's not worth the effort for us.
Either way, we'll be so focused on working towards what we want, that we won't have any time left over to pick at others who are doing and getting what they want.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for dropping by my blog!
Please share your Daily Hits of Happy. After all... shared happiness is doubled.