Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

Pressures to look good to compete with other women and look good for the opposite sex keep women shelling out money on make-up, treatments and surgery to keep them looking young and carefree for longer.

I read a story about a Korean woman called Hang Mioku woman who since the age of 28 has become addicted to treatments to improve her looks. She took drastic attempts and started injecting her own face with silicone and then went onto COOKING OIL. She was a beautiful woman to begin with and will now remain hideous for the rest of her life. She alone should be enough to say it's just not worth it.

I have spent so many years focusing on my own imperfections that when I decided to actually take a step back I realised there was not a damn thing wrong with me. I don't need that nose job I've wanted since I was 11 years old, and even if I went ahead and got the bridge narrowed and nostrils cut just a little smaller, who's to say I wouldn't be satisfied and want something else done.

NOPE **shakes head** I am not getting anything done. I'll do something which is a lot harder for most women to do in this day and age and that's love themselves to the fullest, appreciate that everything works, I'm not disfigured, and I'm totally healthy.

Now the only reason I may have surgery would be if [God forbid] I had to have a mastectomy following breast cancer or say broke my nose and it was all bent out of shape, but for vanity's sake just for the hell of it I'm leaving it alone.

Baz Lurhman said on his infamous spoken word hit song 'Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen', "Don't read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly" Never a truer word spoken. It is so easy to be sucked into the airbrushed world of celebrities and models. Perfect skin, perfect teeth, perfect breasts, perfect hair. My goodness have you seen before and after airbrushed images? Hair, teeth, eye colour, skin, nail polish, it's all bloody airbrushed to perfection. Right down to the gleam on the fingernails and shine on the hair and the blunt cut on Laetitia Casta on those L'Oreal hair ads. I'm not going to be a slave to the false enhanced images that I see before my eyes. It's like being a lamb led to the slaughter. Are women even aware that breast implants have to be redone every few years [I mean that may have changed but if not, be prepared to go under the knife every few years have about £5,000 on standby and endure the recovery process, that's if you wake up from the anaesthetic that is as that's not even a guarantee either]. Not every man like big boobs, [I'll take one of those fellas thank you], because close to 30 I'm still perky unlike singer Kelis, and will take that over a pair of fake breasts any day.

I gave up the beauty magazines a long while ago. I save money and I saved trying to live up to what wasn't real. Now I just do me and I'm happier than I've ever been. I can honestly say I love myself both inside and out, there was a time that I didn't. I only now subscribe to Sophisticate's Black Hair magazine every month without fail and occasionally Hype Hair magazine. I'm older and wiser to not be suckered to the overly airbrushed sistahs in these publications and focus on the hair styles alone.

I am not even slightly intimidated by any celebrity because I look perfectly fine sans make-up and I look great as they do when applied. As a woman I know what goes into a finely polished Halle Berry, Eva Longoria or Cameron Diaz and it involves a great stylist, hairdresser and make-up artists, all things I could get/do for myself or pay somebody to hook me up. The difference between them and me is their pay check, aside from that they are human and too have blocked pores, cellulite, stretch marks and uneven skin tones.

Celebrities aren't born beautiful, they are made to look beautiful. On their off days a lot of them look a hell of a lot worse than the average woman in my office. Lip injections, breast implants, butt implants, hair extensions, false eyelashes, false nails, spray on abs I'll take and love the real me over these glamorous editorials on a daily basis. I know better to not act the fool and get depressed over the fake L'Oreal hair and airbrushed skin [yes even commercials can be airbrushed] and red carpet divas. Shoot give me the best of the best and I'm sure I'll look stunning too. On my own I'm sure I can do a pretty good job.


I just wish women would love and accept themselves as they are and stop using surgery as the new tonic for a temporary self esteem boost.