Thursday 18 July 2013

Paper flowers and beauty clinics

Crepe paper flowers made on Tuesday night at Handmade Happiness
Carol made most of these. She was the only one of us able to produce quantities of flowers while talking. If the Apprentice final had happened on Monday night instead of last night I dare say we'd have been talking about that.

Dr Leah won The Apprentice with her chain of 'beauty' clinics idea where people could get Botox, 'facial fillers' (edited re: comment below) or a skin peel locally to them. So Alan Sugar is to put £250,000 of his own money and his and his staff's expertise into the pursuit of 'beauty'.

This makes me sad. Are women today so insecure about their looks that they are willing to spend thousands on having their faces smoothed out and their lips puffed up in the hopes that they will then look like their favourite celebrities? Whatever happened to natural beauty?

 Is the only beauty people recognise today a medically- enhanced thing? Or rather do older women feel the only way they will be appreciated is to pay to look young again?

And what sort of message is this giving to teenage girls and boys? That you can't be happy with what you are born with because it's not good enough? That they must save up for a 'boob job' or a puffy mouth to appear sexy? What rot.

 Let's instead praise them for their own unique and individual beauty so they feel as good as anyone they see on the television or in a magazine. We are all special and valued and the media should be giving us that message.  Not encouraging the setting up of clinics where people can be manufactured to conform to one stereotypical idea of beauty - a baby smooth face and puffy lips - in other words, beauty blandness.
Unhelpful and unhealthy. Shame on you BBC. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Botox is a different treatment to facial fillers!

jenny said...

Proves how much I know about these things! Thanks for that info.

Amy said...

I agree with you. In my line of work I'm surrounded by great women who struggle to look in the mirror and to be content with what they see. Letting small imperfections cloud every beautiful thing about them. I used to work with a girl who's own mother had taught her to smile without creasing the skin around her eyes- the result was a spooky, lifeless expression.

I'm not going to be hypocritical and say looking good isn't important to me and that occasionally the women I see who I know have had some extra work don't look good- some do. A lot don't though and increasingly often I'm faced with women that make me think, "wow, I bet she was gorgeous before she erased all her wrinkles and distorted the shape of her mouth"

jenny said...

Thanks for your comment Amy. Really interesting.