4 ways to make you more beautiful – plus the ultimate solution

What’s your least favourite part of your body?

We all have them.  Mine is my nose, I think it’s big, worse still when I was young, I learnt the horrifying truth that your ears & nose keep growing as you get older! Armed with this knowledge, I could only imagine, as I become an old women who will be shrinking in size, my nose will continue to grow!  

I am born into a family who have impressive honkers, well at least on my paternal grandmother’s side.  I loved my Nana to bits, yet like her brothers, she had a very impressively sized nose.  When we were young my twin sister and I used to stand in front of the mirror and hassle each other on who had a bigger nose.  We called it the ‘Butler nose’. To be honest I have never had anyone comment on my nose size, never been hassled as a child (with the exception of the sibling jesting) so the worry is all in my head, a fabrication caused by my critical observations and the idle family chatter around me.   

It’s a curious thing when we get worried about something to do with our appearance.  Once we are worried, every photo we see that ‘thing’ stands out as if it is surrounded by neon flashing lights.  Yet, in the most part others don’t even notice the ‘thing’ we have grown to dislike in ourselves.  I use the word grown as it is exactly that, we have trained our minds, for whatever reason, whether it be because of believing other people’s nasty words, images we see in the media & movies or our own self criticality.   

What is it that makes us think we have a flaw, why do I not like my nose?  It’s mostly because of social conditioning, depending on your culture you’re conditioning will vary.  Most Western countries depict white, thin, wrinkle free women as being the epitome of beauty.  We see these images so often, most of the female actors on well known TV shows or movies have a ‘look’ which matches the profile.  So subliminally we have registered an image by which we then measure ourselves on.  This of course is setting ourselves up for failure, as we are comparing ourselves either against someone with a completely different gene pool mix or someone who has had ‘assistance’ to look the way they are presented to you.  

Four things that assist the illusion

That assistance can come in a variety of forms, surgical, lighting, photo editing and make-up.  Let’s explore these a little more: 

1. Surgical: I think surgical has it place, helping those who have been born with a facial disfigurement, people involved in an accident or as a result of abuse.  However, the most money spent on surgery, is by people striving to look the way they think they have to in the hope it will give them the happiness they most desire. It can do, however it is normally short lived.   
   
2. Lighting is a trick used by photographers and videographers world wide, if used well it can create optical illusions.   
   
3. Photo editing has been abused by magazines for many years. I edited my smile lines out once and thought it looked good, until I compared the edited version of me against the original. I liked the original more as this was the person, I saw in the mirror each day.  Smart phones have instant editing tools which have led people to retrain their brain to think they look better without the smile lines, without the sags and bags.  What do you think this does to your-self imagery when the person you reflect yourself as in the public eye is not who you see looking back in the mirror? 
   
4. Make-up is a girl’s best friend and her worst enemy.  It helps cover up those blemishes’ teenagers get when going through puberty, it helps even out skin pigmentation and hide the age spots caused by not looking after your skin in the sun, it can be used to enhance our natural features or replace them entirely. I am always surprised when I hear a woman say they would never leave their house without putting make-up on.  What do they think would happen?  Or is it that their self imagery has been trained to tell them they are only beautiful if made up?  I think there is a place for make-up, it’s fun to use and amazing if you think of what they can do with special effects.  If you are happy to be seen with or without make-up then it means you do not associate make-up with you being beautiful.  Would you believe I went to a professional networking event the other night with no make-up on!  It was liberating I assure you.  If you think that make-up is needed before you see anyone then there is a high likelihood that your self imagery is low and would benefit from some work.    

What’s this beauty thing all about?

I once flatted with a woman who I quickly became good friends with, we socialised together and ultimately ended up going to family functions together.  One day when visiting her parents, I looked at a picture of a young girl with a face full of freckles and tight curly ginger hair.  I asked who she was, my friend laughed and said it was her.  Well, you could blow me down with a feather.  The reason I did not connect her with that little girl was that my friend had dead straight black hair and not one freckle in sight.  Then it all made sense, she could not do anything on the spur of the moment, as when she woke her routine before leaving her bedroom would be to apply her base make-up (cover the freckles & colour the eyebrows to remove signs of her natural ginger) and straighten her hair (hide the curls).   

How far do you go to cover up the thing(s) you dislike about your body, or do you know someone like my friend?   

The images we are surrounded by subliminally tell us what is beautiful, it is the standards we measure ourselves against. It’s not only for woman but men also, and it is damaging the fabric our society, our souls. Cosmetic products reached $532 billion worldwide in 2017 and the global beauty industry is expected to reach a value of $863 billion by 2024! With the men’s personal care industry predicted to rise to an astonishing $166 billion by 2022! If you consider most of the packaging produced is for single use the beauty industry is not doing their bit for reducing carbon creation¹.  

It’s healthy for us to understand the influence beauty companies and marketing have had on how we see ourselves and what we measure ourselves against. Make-up has been around for centuries; it’s been discovered in Egyptian tombs (dating back 7000 years) ². In the 1800s Queen Victoria declared the use of makeup as improper and vulgar and was only to be used by actors and prostitutes.  Make-up, or derivatives of it, have been used in spiritual/religious ceremonies and by indigenous tribes for a very long time. So, it’s not going away any time soon, however with rise of more accessibility of make-up in the past 100 years coupled with publications, influencers, marketing strategies and social media its growth has a massive impact on our culture and environment. In 2018 7.9 billion units of plastic beauty products were created in the US alone³! These are all single use plastic products, all of which are helping contribute to the forecast that by the middle of this century (not that far away) the ocean may contain more plastic by weight than fish. Thankfully, the fact that the world got to see our carbon footprints turn in toeprints in 2020 there is hope we all are ready to make some changes. The beauty industry is committing to this but with the world of online shopping it will be interesting to see how they influence the move to refillable containers. 

Ask yourself, who influences you? Are you happy with who you are or are you trying to look like someone else? If so, ask yourself why, get to truly understand you.  

The ultimate solution

One thing I knew for sure, is that I needed to learn to love my nose way before I became an old woman. As if I didn’t it would have the potential to prevent me from loving who I am, and to me that’s important, it’s a core pillar of self-esteem. If we love and accept who we are the world will too. Judgement has not place in this world, self-judgement in particular stops us believing in ourselves. The ripple effect of this can hold us in damaging relationships, attract us into situations which perpetuate the feelings we have about ourselves. I have worked for many years on building my confidence and self-esteem, I didn’t want my dislike of my nose to undo all that great work.  How did I do that?  I stood in front of a mirror and talked to my image; I studied my whole face, my body, I told myself that I was just how I was designed to be, my nose is just right.  This takes quite a few sessions, you need to not only say the words, but you also need to feel them.  At first, it’s just spoken words, and it feels awkward and then over time you feel more comfortable hearing those words spoken, this is the early stages of you reframing your negative self-image into a bolder happier self-image. The measure of your success, is when you can look at your image and there are no longer any judgmental thoughts about any part or parts of who you are. If any negative thoughts, do slip back into your most powerful mind, tell yourself ‘Hello negative thought, you no longer serve any purpose to me, I am happy the way I am”.  

Research resources 

¹ 38 awe-inspiring beauty industry statistics for 2020 
²  https://cosmeticsinfo.org/Ancient-history-cosmetics  
³  https://www.allure.com/story/beauty-industry-packaging-waste