beauty standard

The other day I saw on instagram a photo of Pamela Anderson on red carpet with her bare face without make up. She has been doing this for a while now and in my opinion she looks great. But I saw then on the comments people were being very negative and vile criticising her saying she should wear make up. And most of them were women. I wasn't surprise because just as we say homo homini lupus, women oftentimes are women's wolf. I can recount many instances where my female friends criticised my appearance. 

One said during a dinner at an udon place that my eyebrows shape was weird. They looked like rainbow. (What?) I've always think that my eyebrows are fine, they're not perfect but they suit my face.

One said during a group dinner at a pancake place that the way I use eyeliner was weird. I rarely use eyeliner but when I do I have to use it in a way that accommodate the shape of my eyelids because it smudges very easily. 

One said when we're walking in a mall that my feet looked weird. For the love of god. My whole life I always see my feet as completely normal. It is normal and I like them. 

All of them are women. Who for some reason projected what they think is the norm to me and felt the need to say to me that I didn't fit in those norms. I'm not saying we can't comment on each other especially when it's an objective constructive criticism or comments that are sometimes necessary. But I think what older generations, my generation included, fail to realise is that there's no one formula fits all. 

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In recent years there are a lot of emerging "trends" on the internet about colour analysis, Kibbe body types, Kitchener style essence, Zyla archetypes, etc. Those who don't really (try to) understand would usually be the cynics who say oh look another beauty standard bullshit for women. But it really is quite the contrary. They are there as tools to help women realise that every woman is different. And we can find what works for us according to our own complexities. What works on others wouldn't necessarily means it would work on us. 

For me all these theories or formulas made me realise that it all makes sense. It makes sense why certain colours make me look icky. Why I can't wear certain type of clothing. Why every time I tried new pair of pants, I always gravitate to certain cuts. We of course don't have to take everything too rigidly but these tools if anything could help us narrow down what works and what doesn't. Save us energy and time and money. I think it's great that younger generation who are already a lot more receptive gets access to these without having to go through longer period of trial and error. 

But just like everything else that get popular, with social media many would start to self-proclaimed as experts so it can get people more confuse and in the end be dismissive. As with everything on the internet I guess it takes energy and time and wit to filter out and decide which one's great and which one's a fraud. For colour analysis I think Carol Brailey makes a lot more sense than the others. Aly Art is a gracious and great reference for Kibbe body types. David Zyla's book has great exposition explaining and classifying style not just with physical attributes but also intellectual and social presence. Kitchener's essence is similar, watched one video which I think is a great explanation.

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When I was living in Europe, my friends constantly made a point that I needed to wear make up although I always had make up on however minimal. I had light foundation or powder, eyebrow pencil, and always with blush because I look dead without blush. One day, maybe I was wearing the blush a little heavier or maybe I was walking a lot making my face looked slightly redder or maybe the lighting in the bar was great, when they saw this one particular photo we took they made a loud point that I was wearing make up like it's a thing worth noting. It felt weird to me.

It was and is still true that I don't particularly know how to and don't particularly like to apply make up. But the thing is, my friends then came from the Middle East, from South America, from South Asia, where the face structures and complexities are suitable for heavy make up. Heavy make up is part of their culture. Where as I always feel like a clown with heavy make up. It just doesn't suit me. It's not like I had never tried. There's a video from this East Asian channel dear peaches that explains specifically about this and again, it all makes perfect sense. The point is what suits you doesn't necessarily suits others. 

There's also a video from the same channel explaining how we can shape how we want others to look at our face with the way we put make up on. They mentioned how we almost never see Julia Roberts with bright red lips because she chooses not to draw people to her lips or mouth area, but instead to her upper face. It makes perfect sense. Ever since I was kid lipstick always makes me feel icky. I thought that's something that'd change once I grew up but it never does. 

I'm not saying that I know everything that's good for me. Quite the opposite. I think I need all the help I can get from experts to help me present myself in the best way. And I do realise that maybe I don't look well presented enough that people feel the need to criticise my appearance. All I'm saying is that I know what looks bad on me and what makes me feel terrible and not like myself. No one should feel forced to be or look like something they don't want to. And I hope more people realise that there are many types of beauties that we can celebrate, that we can look good in. Also, there are more than one way to apply eyeliner, it depends on the structure of your eyes.