To think that people (girls/women) are more attractive these days?

[moomin35]

When I see pictures of girls and peers on facebook I can't help but think how good looking everyone is. In my day, whilst my friends were certainly not ugly, we were all, well, very ordinary! If you were good looking (I'm talking 90's early 00's I guess) then you stood out and were spoken about (in a good way!). Nowadays there are beautiful people everywhere, anyone else think this too?

More people/teenagers are made up to glamorous proportions even on an average day than years ago.

I used to rock a bright red lipstick, bleach blond bob, big sunglasses look in my last year of school. Nothing remotely remarkable by today's standards. But in '85 suburbia i was considered very 'out there' (and got quite allot of reactions too).

I think you've got a point. I look at the girls at my DSs' school and think so many of them are absolutely gorgeous.

Yabu. I can't actually believe this is a serious op.

They have all got such long hair!!!

I think it is as simple as nearly all girls and young women these days wear substantial amounts of make up, false eyelashes etc. Also gym culture makes for fit looking people too.

Yes to the long hair. That helps in looking good.

Yes to the better products too. There is absolutely no excuse for being a plain Jane these modern days.

Recently I found a photo of my mum in Costa del sol in the really early 1970's, and she looked awful, she looked like she was not coping with the heat ( she hadn't been to a hot location before then), her sun dress was too tight and her hair was just lank and hanging. I thought people travel so well nowadays and look so good of all ages.

I think it's just a sign that we're getting older.

Did you SEE us in the 60s? We were stunning !!

I have a dd of nearly 16 and she and her friends aren't slavered with orange make-up and fake nails. They are lovely, natural girls who wear skinny jeans, contemporary shoes and nice tops or a neat short skirt with textured tights and something nice. DD has her hair highlighted (as most of the blondes do, but very naturally) and has had a manicure as a treat for achieving non bitten nails.

They are without exception pretty and natural and if I compare a picture with me and my three best friends when we were 17 I think there was equal naturalness and making the best of what we had. I was 17 in 1977 and there were good highlights and good make-up around then. Even jeans had a narrow stage at that time and we used to wear them with Shetland Fairisle sweaters knotted over our shoulders when we weren't wearing flowery peasant skirts with broderie anglais petticoats

The difference is my dd and her friends are nearly 40 years younger than me and my contemporaries and of course they look good.

Oh god totally agree ! Me and my friends are all ok looking, some very beautiful (not me though lol) and we are mostly 30's, yet I look at pics of us growing up say 12 to 17 and we were, tbh, pretty ugly and gawky

Yet teenage girls these days are mostly stunning

I think it really is just decent make up and haircuts. (Although I still wonder about the lack of acne?)
I just dug out a pic of me at 19. I have severe cropped hair and very over plucked eyebrows. I am only wearing mascara. I am wearing a band Tshirt ,massive combats and a shapeless chunky cardi! I look dorky, but if I had really good foundation, proper shaped brows and long glossy hair I would have looked good.
I quite like that we looked like dorks in the 90's. I like that my favourite outfit aged 14 was an aciiiid patterned baggy shirt in eye watering colours paired with boys surfing shorts. I like that I my friends looked even worse! It didn't seem to matter as much then. We still had boyfriends, even having never seen the inside of a beauty parlour. I didn't know what a manicure was at 17!

It's comparing apples and oranges. As others have said, far more products, services etc now exist to fundamentally alter the average female appearance and - depressingly - there is also far more social pressure for today's girls and young women to avail themselves of such products and services. (I find Property's comment above rather grim - why should a woman feel the need to invest so heavily in her looks, simply because grooming products exist?)

If you look back to group photographs of girls or women, say, from the late 19th or early 20thc, when there were far fewer aids available to alter what they actually looked like (and most of those weren't considered suitable for 'respectable' women), you were pretty much either pretty or plain, naturally - which would have had its own problems, obviously, but at least there was no pressure on you to alter what nature had given you...

I think the acne thing is because there are brilliant medications available from the GP these days.

Really, nobody should have to suffer some of the severe acne problems that we used to see going back a decade or 2.

I had a visit from my DGD several days ago. Haven't seen her for several months.

She has just turned 11. She was sitting listening to something I was saying and I suddenly stopped talking and stared at her. Such a beautiful girl. Absolutely flawless skin, it actually did look photo shopped.

Her Mum (my DD) went through her teenage years without colouring her hair or wearing makeup (Although I insisted on skin care products and sunscreen from an early age) Did this with DS as well.

I think the OP is right though. I very rarely see a very plain or ugly person these days. They always have some redeeming feature.

Not like my best friend. We were at a party for a 6 and 10 year old and she pretty much had something nasty to say about most of the DC.

"Look at the big ears on that kid", "That kid is a big overweight isn't she".

My comment to her was "well none of us are oil paintings are we" pointedly looking her up and down

My DGD's other Grandma knitted her a jumper. Beautifully knitted and very colourful. DGD loves it. She entered it in a local show before giving it to DGD and it won first prize.

Friend's only comment was "Well, everyone will see her coming, won't they"

goodness, I'm a teenager of the 80s and I never emulated Princess Di. I emulated Robert Smith.

Digital cameras, but I also think that because people can stick up a photo that hundreds of people, including strangers, will see and comment on, they are more concerned with how they look. Which is a bit depressing, really.

Girls/women are not more attractive these days. They just look different to what they used to do. That is all.

I have some considerable expertise in this area after several decades of experience.

As Minesa says, my parents and their friends look amazing in photos from the sixties. Lots of people were in a very good state of health and clothes were often better as people made their own. My mum made her own clothes from Mary Quant patterns.

People now often don't look healthy, not necessarily weight related, but poor nutrition so they look drained, stressed etc.

YABU. Many people look healthier and more natural in photos from a few decades ago. Too much makeup and emphasis on over-grooming these days.

I wore Adidas poppers, white eyeshadow and hair slicked back growing up. We never wore glam clothes we aspired to Nike trainers instead of reboks.

Everyone looks glam nowadays where as me and my friends only discovered foundation that was orange powder around 15 and all we had nick out of superdrug was rimmel.

Our sexy was a crop top with trackers LOL

There is absolutely no excuse for being a plain Jane these modern days.

Unless, you know, you want to be? being groomed isn't actually compulsory Nightmare.

I think what the op is noticing though is youth. Youthful people are beautiful. We just don't notice that when we're youthful ourselves.

I agree

I think many are just looking healthier and certainly getting taller

yes make up is better and now you have good natural looking foundation but you see so many really beautiful young men and women about (in London anyway)