Why do beauty standards matter so much to people? I mean, they’ve changed so much throughout the years. Nowadays a lot of people, especially girls, want to be super skinny, with an hourglass figure, perfect wavy hair, a slim face, “siren” or “doe” eyes, big lips, a small nose, and perfectly tanned skin. 2022 beauty standards have changed so much compared to the 2010s. In just two years everyone’s vision of the “perfect look” or the “perfect body” changed so much. In the last decade, women’s bodies were more celebrated, like more plus-sized women getting on more magazine covers. Still having an hourglass figure is still a big influence on today’s beauty standards.

I personally think that current beauty standards are very unrealistic. Having a small nose comes with genetics. Nobody can pick and choose if they have blue eyes instead of hazel. Unlike, having an hourglass figure or your hair color, some things you can’t just change because you don’t like them. Of course, plastic surgery exists, but you have to be 18 years of age if you don’t have a consenting parent(s), not to mention, it’s going to be expensive. Just because you might have a “bigger nose” doesn’t mean you should wear so much contour or concealer to make your nose look smaller. However, makeup is a form of self-expression, you do what you think looks good to you. 

Beauty standards all throughout history have been a toxic mindset to both men and women. The history behind them started 2,400 years ago in Greece. The people of Greece believed that “perfect proportions” were an important part of women’s beauty. If we look back to the 1920s, the beauty standards were still similar to 2022 but also, different. In the 1920s, women wanted a flat chest and boyish figure, not a larger chest with an hourglass or more feminine figure. Going a little bit closer to now, in the 1990s women’s “ideal imagine” was to be someone who looked very unhealthy, they wanted to be extremely thin and not too look feminine but androgynous. Comparing the 1920s and the 1990’s to now, they are very different. Of course, they have some things in common with the slim build but still seem to be very unhealthy towards “the perfect body” in women’s fashion.

It’s very obvious today’s beauty standards are driven by models. Like I have said before, this is so unhealthy. Most fashion shows that don’t have plus-sized models have models that are unhealthy and underweight. Looking at some of Victoria’s Secret models’ diets, it’s a combination of multiple diets put together to make a “franken-diet”. This diet is not good for their models. The models only consume 1,300 calories a day. Which is 1,110 fewer calories than the recommended 2,400 calories for adult women. Having so many of their models go on this “franken-diet” will lead to all of their models being unhealthy looking. Of course, they put their models into possibly hours of skin care to hide the fact they keep them under this inhumane diet.  

In beauty standards, the topic of makeup will always come up. Everyone who does their makeup, men or women, has their own way of doing makeup. Social media, apps like Instagram and Tiktok have let people show off all if they have different ways to do their makeup. Some of those people do SFX (special effects makeup), which allows them to make themselves look like a deer to things like imagery creatures, though not a lot of people do it like this. A lot of people share their makeup looks on the internet. Just do traditional makeup. I personally have seen a lot of people do traditional makeup using products like primer, foundation, and concealer. I also have seen people do makeup trends, like putting their contour in dots all over their faces, along with concealer and things like that. Beauty makeup trends are also things like different ways to do eyeliner or blush. 

Different beauty standards also come at different ages. Older men are seen to have to be “silver foxes” and older women are seen to have to be young looking. A lot of people today, call older actresses who haven’t had some form of plastic surgery or hours upon hours of makeup and wigs are called attractive, but the ones who haven’t had plastic surgery are one of those “Celebs/Actors who have aged badly” lists on social media. When women notice gray hair, they buy hair dye and dye their hair to remove the gray hairs, having gray hair is a natural part of aging. Men don’t dye their hair when they notice grays, so why do women feel like they are still “young”? It’s pointless to continuously buy hair dye when getting gray hair is a natural thing people have. 

Basically, beauty standards are dumb and no one should pay attention to them. Beauty standards are a toxic way for women to look at a way of how they want to look. They are toxic for little girls, for them to look older, wear makeup, and have the perfect body, and perfect hair. While older women want to look young again, doing makeup to look young, and doing hair to look young because of actresses who have done tons of plastic surgery.