To say that women look bloody weird ….

It doesn’t help that the online social media world rewards & praises ‘beauty’ as such accomplishment.

🙄

Of course - but it was a great investment. Even from a very cynical financial perspective.

You may have that belief but so many women don’t have that belief about themselves, that's the issue.

Yep, maybe that's what you should have done. You're not being clever or funny.

As someone who needs to have my front teeth built back up, due to chipping them quite badly years ago, I'd never choose to get this sort of work done if it wasn't necessary. Mine look fine and are quite sturdy, but every 5 years or so I can guarantee one will chip a bit.

In my experience if is seldom naturally beautiful women that have these procedures, I don’t mean celebs, but in the real world. Maybe a touch of Botox or some teeth fixing if crooked,

It is predominantly done by arguably average looking women, to enhance looks rather than maintain them.

the naturally beautiful or attractive women I know don’t do it, but the more mainstream average looking women do. The naturally beautiful ones i guess know they don’t need it, so don’t, the less attractive think they do, so do, the naturally attractive tend more to working out, make up, hair etc, to enhance what they were born with,

the women on the lower end of the attractive scale also tend not to do it. It’s the clump in the middle of the bell curve who are at it,

No they dont- at every social occasion I have ever been to- weddings, parties, birthdays, events, black tie evenings, Christmas - all offered free alcohol. Alcohol is encouraged in our society as a social lubricant, it's advertised everywhere- wine o'clock and mummy's wine etc etc As a non drinker I have even been told to "stop being so boring and drink up- surely you can have just one!" though!

I have never gone to a social event and been offered free botox 🤪 nor have I been called boring for not getting a boob job!

Never mind

I think you’ll find they do

It’s worrying that very young women and men with perfectly healthy natural teeth think it’s an improvement to had them veneered or crowned. They’ll need doing again in the future, which is to the detriment of their teeth. Perfectly even, luminous teeth don’t look good, they look weird and false. Whitening and / or straightening would improve normal healthy teeth if necessary without resorting to drastic, permanent measures which will surely be regretted in years to come

My teeth quirks were very unattractive - think Jeremy Kyle on a bad day so I had a complex about it and fixed it after seeing my mother and sister smile and cover their mouth and realising I did the same thing. Slight quirks are appealing, some aren't and I think a dentist would look at you like you had two heads if you asked them to leave a little bit of crookedness. I'm extremely glad I had access to that "tweak" and sad that my mother never saw a viable route to smiling freely infront of people. My bite was fully functional, just unattractive.

I think other work is the same - feeling beautiful is a privilege and I think you should grab it with both hands if that's what you want regardless of how it affects beauty standards or if some people find the look unattractive. You have one round on this planet and should do it how you want to do it - if you want to look like a pornbot alien as someone else described it then go for it. I love having work done because I was unattractive growing up and (as bad as it is to say) so were most women in my family and I saw how low their self esteem was due to it.

I don't use social media and I'm not around people with alot of work so don't feel a pressure to perform - the look of having work grew on me from an eccentric aunt who always had expensive handbags and a very "done" look and thinking of how fun and glamorous she looked. I find it fun and glamorous, I don't want to claw my skin off when my botox wears off or anything. Though I do love an interesting face, especially large noses and sunspots - it's just not for me.

You obviously have a massive amount to spend on yourself, too!

Um, what are you doing exactly?

I met a woman at the park and she genuinely frightened me. She looked like a corpse and I got uncanny valley vibes. She was nice and clearly took pride in her appearance but she was scary to look at for me.

In your opinion natural and healthy are always more aesthetic. However realistically nature bestows a wide range of physical traits upon us and then proceeds to alter these traits as we age. The results of this for some are without doubt more aesthetically pleasing than for others. This always impacted the self esteem of those women less blessed by nature in a world where the most important thing about a woman is often her looks.
You see procedures as causing a problem, whereas I'm more inclined to see them as a solution some women tend to choose for an existing problem. They feel they are not as beautiful naturally as they'd like to be in a society obsessed with beauty, so rather than allow this to cause distress, they take advantage of available products to change things.
The problem for me is that women should have to see their appearance as so important in the first place, not how they choose to navigate this. Rather than attacking their choice of 'cure' we should be fighting the disease. And I don't think going on about how beautiful some women are naturally helps.

You can't win.

Old women look "weird" apparently
Tattoos on "old" skin will look "weird" or worst.

Might as well do exactly what you want and enjoy it.

We are lucky to have access to cosmetic procedure of all kind, to look better, or younger, or whatever we want.

Use them, don't use them, nothing wrong in wanting to look as young as you can.

Am I? I'm reading here about how it's such a shame that 'naturally beautiful' young women are 'corrupting their beauty' with procedures THEY don't NEED.
If I was reading this as a women who is not young and naturally beautiful, or as a young woman who like the majority of young women, doesn't see herself as one of the 'naturally beautiful', it would be quite understandable if I thought people were talking about a group of women who didn't include me.
You can call it pedantic, but language matters. If procedures spoil faces and are not 'needed', then there is no need to single out a particular group of women to apply this to on the basis of your own assessment of the quality their looks.

Agree with you @BlueJuniper94 . ^

@5128gap You're just being pedantic now. Of course no-one is saying that it's OK for women who aren't classed as conventionally pretty/beautiful to have procedures and fillers!

And you know no-one is saying this!

They can be conflated because they are one and the same, truth and beauty are not in conflict with aesthetics. Natural and healthy is always more aesthetic.

You need to go back to the point of my post, my original argument was not "we should reduce feelings of insecurity" it was "these procedures are nobody else's business and concern nobody but the woman undergoing them". They are distinct points and although related, as you pointed out, one strand of my argument was about contributing to the psychological stress of those who feel they might need these procedures my actual and over arching argument/objection was against the liberal notion that we live in these individual vacuums where we do not influence nor are influenced by the actions of others.

That approach also applies to allowing women to discuss what they want, especially the topic of ageing

Using phrases like 'naturally very attractive women corrupting their beautiful appearance' is coming from the exact same place though.
On one hand you're arguing (justifiably) that it is harmful for women to feel they need to meet certain beauty standards, on the other reinforcing them yourself, by waxing lyrical about the beauty of SOME women.
What about the women who are not very attractive and have no beauty to 'corrupt' are procedures OK for them? And if not, why bother to emphasise the 'corrupted beauty' thing at all?
If you're serious about reducing the insecurity women feel about their looks, you need to start with the thing that is within your power, and stop using such loaded language around appearance.
It shouldn't matter in the least how beautiful a woman is naturally to whether cosmetic procedures are harmful or not. Nor should it matter if the procedures make them look better or worse.
This is either a point of principle or one of aesthetic taste. Conflating the two weakens your argument significantly.

It isn't for me so wouldn't bother to get it. Individuals (men or women) can do what they want and I am not fussed however, where I do get bothered is when it goes wrong and they look to the NHS to fix it for them, free of charge.
If individuals can't afford to go to reputable people then they take that risk of it going wrong, and shouldn't place more strain on an already overburdened system to 'correct' it.

I don't know any young women who are into this look - all the ones I know are either sporty or 'alternative'. It's something I've only ever seen online where it mostly seems to be mocked. Perhaps it depends where you live.

I partially agree. On the hair dye thing, I find there is something rejuvenating about having had a hair cut, yet nobody needs a hair cut in the same way nobody needs to dye their hair. Hair dye is okay to me as long as it's a colour that occurs naturally, ie blonde, black, brown, ginger/red. My favourite colour is purple, so while I do appreciate the colour purple, I don't like seeing it as a hair colour. Does that make sense? It's unnatural. Your appearance plays a huge part in your identity and if someone with naturally mousy brown hair suddenly shows up with purple hair, it has a shock factor to it. It does to me, anyway.

I understand people wanting new clothes, new car, a nice house etc because if it's something they can afford, they should never be held back. But if they're quite hard-up and don't really really need new stuff quite yet, then it makes sense to save their money.