Thursday 5 April 2012
Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice...or Not?
For those of you who know a bit about Manchester, I was walking down Market Street this morning when a young girl (probably aged twelve) caught my attention. Apart from the fact that it is freezing outside and she was wearing the shortest shorts I have seen in a while, I have to say her general look shocked me. Along with her shorts she was also wearing high heels, false eyelashes, red lipstick, and a huge quantity of foundation cream.
I guess her objective was to look very pretty, just like those models on TV, but the truth is that she just looked vulgar. It couldn't be less natural and was frankly disturbing.
So I asked myself why did she do that? What can lead you to believe that, at age twelve, you need all those tricks to feel and look beautiful? I personally started using make-up when I was fourteen and don't think that you really need it before. You are naturally beautiful and (still) have nothing to hide! I perfectly understand that you want to change from time to time or look at your best for a particular event, that's normal. But for me make-up should just be used to make yourself more attractive, not to turn yourself into something you're not.
Talking about this with my male colleagues, we think that three main reasons can explain this behaviour.
First, the easy access to all kind of cosmetics. As a foreigner, I am impressed with the range of beauty products sold in the UK and the generally lower prices. In a place like Primark you can find all the products you want for a few pounds which is perfect for people whose only source of income is weekly pocket money.
One of my colleagues introduced the idea that young girls using make-up are probably doing it because they want to imitate their mothers. I strongly disagree with this point. Most teenagers want to rebel and thus do not want to look anything like their parents, (because they are all wrong and old-fashioned anyway!) and they certainly don't want to use the same make-up their mother uses. No I definitely think that they are copying their older sisters, in a generic way. If you look at twenty year old girls on a night out they all wear very high heels and are perfectly made up from head to toe. In the UK it's perfectly normal and considered as being beautiful and that's why younger girls do the same. The only difference is that what can be considered as beautiful on a twenty years old girl can quickly be considered as vulgar on a younger one.
And therefore, where does this trend come from? Who delivers the idea that to look beautiful you need as much make-up as a clown? Television and magazines are obviously the main vectors of this message. But don't be fooled by what you can see on TV or in Grazia, nothing is real. All those photos are widely modified by powerful software and no matter how much of the promoted products you use, you will rarely get the same results. The worse thing is that it will probably make you look over made-up and definitely not "natural" as the add says.
So, to all the young girls around, you don't need all those tricks to look beautiful, you already are! Use make-up if you like it but not in a way that changes completely the way you really look like. Don't try to look older it will already come quickly enough (believe me!) and, above all, don't believe that to be beautiful you have to look like those models on TV, it's all fake.
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