Beauty Insanity

March 7, 2009.

Although it has been said on several occasions in most circles that it is a “MAN’S WORLD”, there can be no arguing the fact that issues of beauty are as feminine as childbearing.

According to Shakespeare “Vanity, thy name is woman”. Truly the amount of money, time and effort, which most women, put into their appearance in the name of beauty, one cannot help but wonder why the fuss?

Although there have been various attempts at defining what is beautiful or what beauty is, no definition or description is universal.  From ancient times, various cultures and peoples have distinguished certain attributes to qualify what they consider being a beauty.

“In ancient China, the 4-inch "lotus foot" was considered a sign of perfect beauty. The practice of foot-binding, uncommonly seen today, involved breaking the bones of the forefoot and folding them forward, then tying the misshapen appendage to prohibit growth. Foot binding caused severe pain, imbalance, and falls, and eventually osteoporosis, because afflicted women were unable to bear weight and ambulate correctly. Other consequences included hip and knee osteoarthritis chronic pain, and even joint replacement surgery.

For ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Persians, sparkling eyes were considered beautiful, and they applied the heavy metal antimony to make their conjunctiva sparkle. A woman with a high forehead was considered beautiful during the Elizabethan era, and upper-class Elizabethan women plucked or shaved their frontal hairs to achieve this look. These women also covered their skin with "ceruse" (lead-based) makeup, which caused peripheral neuropathy, gout, anaemia, chronic renal failure, and disfiguring scarring.”(WebMD Medical Reference from Medscape)

“In the court of Louis XVI, noblewomen drew blue veins onto their necks and shoulders to emphasize their exalted status ("blue-bloods"). In the 16th and 17th centuries, the wealthy used belladonna eye-drops to dilate their pupils. Users acquired an "attractive" doe like appearance, but they also risked retinal damage, glaucoma, and blindness. During the 18th century, vermilion rouge, concocted of sulphur and mercury, achieved popularity. Users lost teeth, suffered gingivitis, and (unknowingly) risked kidney and nervous system damage from mercury -- not to mention their having to deal with the unpleasant smell of sulphur.

Corseting, popular from the 14th to 19th centuries, originally involved compressing the bosom and constricting the waist with tightly wound whalebone on a steel frame. Shallow breathing, combined with the inadequate venous return, produced fainting and swooning. Hiatal hernias caused by overly tight corsets are termed "Sommerring's syndrome" -- after the 18th century physician who first warned of the dangers of tight lacing. Christina Larson points out, "the corset facilitated a pernicious association between physical beauty and virtue, as upright posture and a slender waist came to be regarded as evidence of discipline, modesty, rigour, and refinement. Ladies who abandoned their stays were scorned as both lazy and immoral.”(Ito Nakamura)

Ancient people even performed crude cosmetic procedures to improve—in their opinion—people's appearance. In western Russia, for example, a broad, flat nose was considered beautiful, so parents would bind the nose of a child to achieve this result.

Among some African tribes, an elongated neck is considered a thing of beauty, so some women keep adding rings around their necks stretching gradually to a desirable length. Some Africans believe that a plump, curvaceous woman is a beautiful woman, as a result, in Nigeria women are put in fattening rooms  especially in some areas of the south to achieve this beauty.

However, in today's world popular culture (Hollywood) dictates that beauty can be described as being extremely thin (size 0), high cheekbones, pouting lips, wide-eyes, pointed nose, large boobs and a whole lot more. The list is seemly endless, and as such, many women have had to visit various surgical rooms with all the complication that accompanies, just to meet these specifications.

In trying to be thin, many women have resorted to vigorous exercise routines, all manner of dietary programmes including only Apple diet and absolute starvation.

It is indeed safe to say; looking at the various descriptions of beauty,  that no matter how much time, money and effort are spent it will never be quite enough- So, why the fuss?