That beauty ‘trends’ are trying to make us all look like sex dolls?

[Montuaklighthouse]

As the subject line says - beauty standards / trends are just so… Unprogressive? Is that a word?

Huge exaggerated eyes with flicked eye-liner, contoured to death cheeks and tiny noses and overdrawn lips that look ready for a porn-shoot BJ (or lip-filler if you can afford it). Almost all young women have long hair as well, no interesting hairstyles.

Obviously I’m generalising, but it’s just so fucking boring. The Kardashians have a lot to answer for.

This thread is both awfully misogynistic and outdated. Heavy contouring, big eye brows and the full matte lip look aren’t the main beauty trend anymore. It’s ‘natural’ glowing skin, glossy lips and fluffy, natural looking healthy eyebrows - which is exactly what people seem to want!

But even if it wasn’t, why does it make one jot to any of you how women want wear makeup? It’s really pathetic some of the things you are calling other women PURELY based on their make up choices.

It was me who used the word misogynistic on this thread, and if you read my post, I never said any of those horrible things, nor do I think them.

I don't think less of women who wear make up - that would be pretty much every woman i know. And i certainly don't look down on some styles of make up over others, i explained that's why I voted yabu. But I feel sad about make up in general as a social phenomenon, the way I feel sad that, for example, women statistically do much more housework than men. I want to say to them, "you don't have to do that, that's not Women's Work".

Some of us have natural big lips. My eyebrows are tattooed but not obvious in any way
Each to their own, what anyone does to their own face doesn't concern me

What's with the huge bottoms?? Makeup is removable I worry about those implants though

Seems to be popular for specific social classes around here

Just refuse to participate. I don't do the heavy makeup, false nails, hair extensions, don't have a curvy body, don't wear body cons anymore, don't mind going out with a bit of armpit hair, leave the bush the one think I don't need is lip fillers because I have big lips already

That's it. Just don't participate if you don't want to. Easier said than done for some things. If that doesn't appeal to men my I age, I do not care anymore.

Fashions come and go, and usually other than some embarrasing photos, there isn't any lasting damage. Hair grows, perms and colours grow out, make-up washes off. Many of these trends aren't temporary though. What happens when it's no longer trendy to have big lips, when heavy eyebrows are permanently marked on and body parts exagerated with implants, and hair is thinner and weakened from the weight of extensions?
They are a huge commitment of time, money and often permanence.

The current pseudo-natural look isn't natural either. It's an over-managed illusion that takes time and money to create and an unrealistic illusion of "perfect" skin, and enhanced/ minimised features. There always have been natural looks to enhance features, but the current incarnation is much stronger.

I do think it's a shame that young, individuals with their own unique attractiveness do cover it up to this extent and often end up looking very homogenous and sometimes when done badly, a bit strange because the proportions become too unrealistic.

Hear hear!!

Also, like with your thick lips, if you wait long enough, your natural features come into fashion at some point anyway lol...I have the bushiest "brushed-up" eyebrows ever and that seems to be in now! Cashback lol

I do think it's a shame that young, individuals with their own unique attractiveness do cover it up to this extent

I completely agree with this - except the young bit - my mum (early 60s) is a stunner imo and I'm always sad she covers it up with eyeliner etc when she goes out. She always said to me "you don't need to wear make up as you're young" but I reckon she(or any woman) doesn't need to either

I also get sad when my SIL dyes her eyelashes - she's strawberry blonde and her eyelashes are like delicate cobweb lace but she dyes them dark brown. My dh is blond and has gorgeous long eyelashes but you can only see them if you're really close up like about to go in for a kiss. I think that's so so special. Im from a country outside the uk where everyone has black hair. I think blond or ginger eyelashes are so special and rare and I think mascara is such a waste of that natural wonder

(Obviously black eyelashes are gorgeous too - I just mean I wish we all celebrated our natural special features)

I find it a little sad that so many young people do feel the need to conform to or follow a style throughout their lives. I definitely dressed a certain way to conform with my peers during my teenage years but by early / mid 20s I'd found my own style and wasn't afraid to have elements of individuality.

A cousin (late 20s) and her friends all dress and look the same way to the extent that I have difficulty identifying her in photos as they even do the same poses. I like it when people are happy and confident enough to express a bit of their personality in how they look / present themselves to others

Beauty standards have always been homogenous and - in retrospect, potentially dangerous and grotesque - though.

Women were plastering their faces with lead in the Edwardian era to look fashionably pale; at one time, corsets to have the tiniest waist possible were the rage in many countries; Chinese women did foot binding to look like they had tiny feet; Tudor women plucked their hairlines to have a high forehead.

Beauty trends have almost always been about making us look more attractive.

It's not new.

That's not a good thing, but it seems pointless to single out the current look just because you don't like it or find it 'boring' - I'm sure plenty of people thought all the looks above were homogenous or boring, that's what trends do. They cycle from new to ubiquitous to oversaturated and then something else starts.

My friend recently posted a picture of her 14 year old on SM, with the insane makeup and hair extensions, then filters over the photo. It was captioned with what a 'natural stunner' she was.

The photo wouldn't have looked out of place on a porn advertisement. I told my friend this by DM and at the time it didn't go down well, but we've talked since, and the picture has been replaced with a very natural one.

Sometimes I think it's much easier being the mum of boys!

Women were plastering their faces with lead in the Edwardian era to look fashionably pale;

This was the Elizabethan era not the Edwardian! At this time they also dropped deadly nightshade into their eyes to make them look larger and more luminous.

As recently as 1933, the radioactive elements radium and thorium were used in beauty products.

edition.cnn.com/style/article/when-beauty-products-were-radioactive/index.html

@figtrees couldn’t agree more. What an awful, awful thread.

Trickledown of the porn aesthetic into our everyday lives.

Some of the language you're all using to talk about other women, and talking about openly criticising women's bodies to your children (teens or not), is pretty shit behaviour.

As far as I'm aware, lip fillers dissolve, and extensions come out; judgey obnoxious people rarely change.

Did you genuinely tell your friend that you thought their 14 year old looked like she was in porn?

Jesus christ.

How fucked up are you that the first thing you see when you looked at a child was porn? How much porn are you watching that you sexualised that child straight away?

No, women are not jealous and bitter about being ignored/overlooked by men because that's not all that matters in life.

How about YOU stop telling women what to wear? By espousing this look as one to be "jealous" of, you're suggesting this is what all women should want to look like.

You sound every bit as hateful as the PPs you're complaining about.

I dunno if that is necessarily what's trendy at the moment. The majority of younger people I see have a really natural look.

I didn't say anything about men. You are projecting.

I didn't tell anybody what to wear. You are projecting.

Quiet frankly I don't give a shit what you do or don't wear, I don't fucking care. It makes not a dot of difference to me.

If it isn't jealousy what else would possess a group to shame other women and make fun of children, saying they look like porn stars, call out specific individuals on instagram.
I don't just mean jealous of the way they look either... Jealous they have confidence? Time to take care of themselves? Don't look like dogshit? Jealous they seem happy? Or perhaps it is the alternative which is much much worse. You just hate young women for existing.

I think high heels have largely died a death so there are some moves in a good direction for women.

It's racist to mock and sexualize physical attributes that typically are represented in black people. Just because white people find them attractive and enviable and decide to mimic them, doesn't make them comical or blow up doll like. And when we talk about full lips going out of style, that's a very white centric attitude.

Not quite sure how you extrapolated these ideas from figtrees’ post which didn’t mention men and didn’t tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t wear. Could you explain?