Sponsored by:
Melissa Juried Kriebel
IceCream Sunscreen
IceCreamSunscreen
Money Money Money
The global cosmetic industry is valued at $380.2 billion.
What is Beauty?
We may want to be beautiful, but what is beauty?
Studies have determined that “beauty” is NOT in the eye of the beholder. In reality, beauty is defined by cultures. Consider that in some Middle Eastern countries almost every body part of a woman is hidden, leaving slits in the fabric for vision; in other cultures, women are considered beautiful with only the smallest amount of fabric covering carefully chosen parts of their bodies.
In some cultures, female faces are judged to be significantly more attractive after the application of layers of eye, lip and full-face makeup while other nations find women beautiful without any adornment or color at all.
In the West, a quick scan of a Vogue or Glamour magazine provides insight into the values of the American culture which continues to focus on the aesthetics of a tall, slender woman with large breasts and delicate features combined with a tiny waist and small buttocks. Although there are ample public relations efforts to encourage a more realistic and healthier realistic body profile, women still flock to doctors, shops, and gyms for breast enlargement, enhancing bras, waist cinchers, and leaner-toned arms and cores.
In America, tan skin is desirable so we strip down to almost nothing and have our bodies spray painted and contoured or bake under an unrelenting sun to get the glow. In comparison, Asian women want a creamy complexion and Japanese women wear long sleeves and hats to keep the sun away from their skin.
Women considered beautiful in South America are featured with large breasts, thicker, more muscular legs, and hips with a significant focus on the butt. To reach the glorified goal, women head to the plastic surgeon for breast and butt enhancements.
In Korea, a woman is considered beautiful if her skin looks like a porcelain doll (a look that does not come naturally) and pale skin is associated with youthfulness. The first sign of aging in Asian women is skin pigmentation, not wrinkles and women use beauty products with whitening agents to appear as light and ageless as possible.
Korean beauty consumers favor a dewy, glowing complexion with texture, yet natural eyebrows. Beauty trends lean toward soft, earth-toned eyeshadow and natural lips with lightly tinted color. Wide eyes are also desirable and every year thousands of young people undergo double eyelid surgery to make their eyes appear larger.
This has impacted the desires of women around the world as they run for Korean skincare and face masks in order to model the Korean female and combat aging while achieving the perfect complexion.
Women in India are influenced by Western ideals and are now under pressure to lighten their skin and slim down in order to more closely meet the Western ideal; some think that the desire to conform is based on the history of colonization.
One of the outstanding features of the Indian woman is her think lustrous hair and Western women are quickly purchasing coconut oil in an attempt to achieve the mane of the Indian female. Long lustrous black hair, almond-shaped eyes, natural lips, dark eyebrows, thick eyelashes, and straight pointed nose equate to beauty in India. Fair skin and Bollywood actors/actresses endorse beauty products that contain whitening agents that promise a lighter complexion.
In New Zealand, the Maori people find that face tattoos are beautiful, especially swirly-shaped markings called Ta Moko with a preference for tattoos on chins and lips.
BIG BUCKS IN BEAUTY
Plastic Surgery
Plastic Surgery has been the third most popular cosmetic surgery worldwide. In 2020, the United States registered the highest number of global cosmetic procedures with nearly 4 million operations. The number of surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures has grown over the last 10 years from 1.6 million procedures in 1997 to over 5.5 million in 2020. Nonsurgical operations represent nearly three-quarters of all procedures.