What is beautiful about being beautiful these days?

I like to think I am still a spring chicken. I haven’t yet reached middle age, I’m only a Glogau 1 (I think) on the classification of skin ageing and I’m not yet called ‘Mum.’

Yet, in just the short 30 years I have been alive, I have seen how we approach ageing and beauty. I do believe it has changed.

Rather than celebrating and highlighting our uniqueness, I believe we are toning down our differences and ‘botoxing’ our way to uniformity, in a desperate quest for anti-ageing.

When I look at my Grandma, to me, she is beautiful. A true British lady. She has lines on her face demonstrating her wisdom, a nose which distinguishes her as a ‘Fletcher’ and a light pale skin tone with rosy cheeks explaining that was born and bred within the United Kingdom. She is my Grandma and has never tried to be anyone else.

Despite this, she is so very vain! Adamant about being well presented, will not go out unless her hair is done and curled and ‘best of british’ to anyone who attempts to offer her a perm and style. It just won’t be right!

Yes, my Grandma has made the most of who she is. Yet she hasn’t altered her features underneath a surgeon. She hasn’t masked her genetics in favour for a ‘scientifically derived’ definition of beauty.

‘Beauty is symmetry, beauty is 30 degree eyebrow lines, eyebrow arches, eyebrows the perfect distance apart, beauty is a strong chin, beauty is clarity between the eyes and around the nose.’

Or is it?

If we follow these guidelines in the quest for aesthetic perfection, won’t we all dilute down….. to being…the same?

Even with our skin colour, we peer across the fence to see what we do not have. I am from Liverpool and I confess ‘I have tanorexia.’ I do not leave the house without the spray tan that my husband hates.

Yet I work in a clinic where, daily, I am requested for whitening treatments by women with enviable rich, deep skin tones. I reluctantly prescribe vitamin C, Glutathione etc and then watch as their skin tone meets mine over the course of their treatment. From my extreme to theirs, we are united in the middle and become – not too dissimilar. Despite my skin emerging from the rainy docks and theirs from the desert.

As we become more and more international, our familial characteristics, the heritage in our features and skin types will become more and more alike. Coupled with treatments like botox, fillers, evening out our contours, removing our individualized expressions. What will be left of ours?

I have worked in cosmetics, I love elements of cosmetic medicine and science led cosmeceuticals. I am a victim myself of seeking the impossible perfection! ‘This is fixed, so what next to realise that is imperfect about me…’

But at some point we need to remember to be us. Concentrate on good skin care, maximizing our own potential without altering ourselves to the point where we lack our own individuality. Just concentrate on being you and I will concentrate on being me.

And as I often try to consider myself, those that are happy are the most beautiful of all, and you can’t be happy without first being content with what you have and what you are.

If you are the leggy blonde with fine hair; rock it. If you are the sweet looking pixie type; rock it. If you are the broad shouldered black hair pale skin type; rock it. Just don’t try to change it (too much.)

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