What is it about?
Beauty standards determine which features such as height, weight, facial proportions, skin colour, hair texture or body shape are considered “beautiful” in a given cultural context. And it’s not only about looks. Sociological studies show that people perceived as conventionally attractive are more likely to be considered clever and high-performing, while enjoying greater self-confidence, professional success and social influence.
What’s the beauty of it?
These days, we seem to be getting increasingly schizophrenic about what role “aesthetics ideals” should play. Social media platforms have increased the focus on physical attractiveness to the point that looks and ‘likes’ often go hand in hand. Yet we are repeatedly told by Body Positivity advocates (and by most beauty brands) to cease pursuing unrealistic beauty goals and enjoy our “perfectly imperfect” selves. TikTok trends such as ‘contrast make-up’ (emphasizing the natural contrast between skin tone, hair and eyes) encourage individual, rather than standardized, beauty routines. Plus, a plethora of micro-aesthetics beauty trends (think clean girl style, mob wife glam, brat summer, or very demure, very mindful back-to-school) now co-exist, instead of just one all-encompassing norm. Does it mean beauty standards are gone for good? Well, not exactly. Our data shows that one third of European Gen Z women are convinced that they do have to follow beauty standards to feel beautiful. That’s 8 points above the average for all generations. Most of those young women also admit to systematically using correcting filters on the pictures they share online.
What’s at stake for beauty brands?
Beauty brands are increasingly aware of their key role in fostering mental wellness and the importance of showing a diversity of aesthetics. However, over and above body positivity, talking to individuals about who they are and could be, rather than how they look, might be the way to go. As a young woman posting on whiteboardjournal.com feelingly expressed it:
““I have embraced the fact that I look mediocre. I don’t need the toxic positivity that “we’re all beautiful in our own way”. (…)being pretty is not all that we have to be. Instead, we can always try to be more knowledgeable, compassionate, empathetic, humble, funny, and other million things that are not less important than being pretty. We can still be better human beings without being pretty.””
