What's with this fascination with beauty?
The demand for beauty services in spite of the economy?
Even when there is a recession, beauty parlours still flourish. Beauty products still fly off the shelves.
There is this saying that beauty is skin deep.
Then again, first impressions count.
Put it this way. Beauty is power. That was true centuries ago. That is true today.
When a beautiful woman walks into a bar, men flock to her and offer to buy her drinks. When an unattractive woman walks into the same bar, chances are, she would have to buy her own drinks.
A beautiful salesperson, man or woman is more likely to win the sale. Between a beautiful job seeker and an unattractive one, all other things being equal, the employer is likely to choose the good looker.
Like it or not, looks do count.
In the past, when women were dependent on men to support them, beauty was everything to a woman. A beautiful woman would have more suitors. She would be able to marry up. To marry a rich man who could take care of all her financial needs and that of her children. Long before commercial cosmetics existed, mothers would instruct their daughters on traditional beauty remedies. Simple beauty remedies like using mayonnaise as a moisturizer, or egg white as a firming mask were often used by women in the days before commercial cosmetics.
Then along came women entrepreneurs like Estee Lauder and other women from around the world. They converted traditional beauty recipes which worked for themselves into beauty creams that they sold to other women. Every woman has a right to look her most beautiful and these women were selling others their beauty secrets.
Women all over the world are willing to suffer for the sake of beauty. Long ago, in China, women in wealthy families would bind their feet. The Chinese back then view tiny feet as beautiful, so little girls have their feet bound, to prevent them from growing big and ugly. Now that long legs are considered beautiful, some women go through a very painful medical procedure that breaks their legs, and stretches their legs by a few millimeters a day through a painful device until they attain the height they want. With their newfound height, these girls can look forward to a wealthy, glamorous future as an international model.
In Europe, centuries ago, wasp waists and curvy bodies were considered beautiful, so corsets were worn to make the waist look much smaller. These were tied so tightly that women faint easily. All for the sake of beauty. Now, corsets are in again. These days, women and men subject themselves to surgery to attain the beauty they desire. Liposuction to remove the excess fat to contour the body. Breast augmentation for bigger breasts that are considered beautiful. Nose jobs, face lifts, the works.
Both men and women even have poison (botox) injected into their faces to paralyze their facial muscles in order to erase the expression lines we know as wrinkles.
There is also a return to natural beauty remedies. This time, commercial cosmetics use natural ingredients that women have used in centuries in the home beauty preparations.
With modern advances, beauty preparations are more effective than ever. Even doctors have developed their own skin care ranges. Acne can be a thing of the past with some of the latest acne treatments. Some doctors, both dermatologists and general practitioners offer facials which treat most of today's skin problems very effectively. After all, beauty is skin deep. Healthy skin is beautiful.
There is wisdom in the old ways women took care of their looks. Fresh food, exercise, plenty of water, plenty of sleep, soap and water. That's all the women in the olden days had in their beauty routine. These days, add a good sunscreen worn every day to protect your skin from the sun. A good toner, cleanser and moisturizer, a regular scrub and mask and you are done.
About the Author
The writer is the webmaster of Cosmetics Online , where you can find cosmetics, skincare, makeup and all the beauty products from your favourite beauty brand.
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by: Cathy Gatson
The Importance of Sleep
Sleep is a restorative process. While we're sleeping, our brain is cycling through the 3 stages of sleep: light, deep and REM. Sleep restores, rejuvenates and energizes the body and brain. Our immune systems are recharged, cells grow and repair themselves, and our bodies conserve energy.
Dangers of Sleep Deprivation Unfortunately, to many sleep is not valued. In this "open all night" society we now live in, four out of ten Americans are trading much-needed sleep hours for longer hours at the office, gym, club and other activities which seem more important or interesting. What they may not realize is that lack of sleep takes a toll on our mental and physical well being. Studies performed by the
National Sleep Foundation show that even minimal sleep loss has a profoundly detrimental impact on mood, cognition, performance, productivity, communication skills, accident rates and general health. For optimal functioning throughout the day, the average adult needs between seven to nine hours sleep a night. According to the NSF, the American adult population functions on about six and a half hours of sleep per night. Don't Sleep? For some, lack of sleep is not a choice, but a condition. Millions of Americans suffer from insomnia. According to the NSF, a third of Americans are using over the counter or prescription sleep aids at night. If you suffer from insomnia, here are a few tips to help you get some shut eye: Pray before bedtime.
The bible tells us to "Cast your burden upon the Lord. Don't go to bed with a heavy load. Give it to God. Remember Joy comes in the morning" Avoid caffeinated food and beverages like coffee, teas, soft drinks and chocolate 3 to 4 hours before bedtime. Exercise regularly, but complete your workout at least three hours before bedtime. Keep your body calm. Make sure your mattress is the right one for you. Flip your mattress over periodically. Develop a bedtime ritual. Taking a warm bath 90 minutes before bedtime will
relax your body and usually make you feel sleepy. Make sure your bedroom is quiet and comfortable. Have a cup of warm milk. Play relaxing music. Go to bed and wake up the same time every day. When your sleep cycle has a regular rhythm you will feel better.
Be a Sleeping Beauty friend of mine once told me that a woman should present herself to her husband at bedtime like a present. Interesting…so I polled a few colleagues and found overall most husbands prefer their wives to be lingerie clad at bedtime. Nude came in a very close second and pajamas were considered very un-sexy. Wives preferred their hubbys wear only boxers to bed. Whatever your sleepwear preference, bedtime is the opportunity to prepare your mind and body for the rest it deserves. Here are a few more tips to help you sleep pretty: Always remove your makeup and cleanse your face thoroughly before bed (Oil of Olay Foaming Face Wash for Sensitive Skin). Going to bed without washing your face not only leads to mascara-stained sheets (Andrea Eye Q's eye makeup remover pads $3.50+ voted best by Allure Magazines 1999) but the dirt picked up during the day can clog pores and lead to acne. Brush and floss your teeth. Vaseline works wonders on rough spots while you sleep. Try it on feet, elbows, and knees and dab a little on your lips too. There are several night creams on the market now claiming to be more effective if applied at bedtime, here are a few to try: Lancome - Primoridale Intense Night Cream $41.50, Murad Perfecting Night Cream $41.50. If these prices are more than you normally spend then L'Oreal Age Perfect Night Cream and Oil of Olay ProVital night creams are available at Wal-Mart and Target. Prices range from $14 - $15. If you wrap your hair in a scarf at bedtime, remember to wash it regularly. Wear your fancy nighties to bed. Don't save them for a special occasion. You are a special occasion. After your bath or shower ritual slather on a lotion that relaxes you and helps you fall asleep like Origins Night-a-mins moisture lotion or Calm to Your Senses Body Souflee. Marilyn Monroe is said to only have worn Chanel No.5 to bed but if you prefer something a little lighter then Issey Miyake's L'Eau D'Issey Soothing Night Fragrance is a good pick.
Here's wishing you brighter days and more restful nights!
Cathy Gatson is a freelance writer and owner/operator of a hair and body salon located in Northern California. |
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To fall in love -- considered by some as the ultimate quest in life, and prepared by others with a constant and unending flow of fantasies, dreams, and enchanting ideas. And what we find sometimes to be so uniquely freakish of a fetish of our own, so personally vaulted and denied at every conscious inquiry -- we find, in fact, that it is a secrecy of our own sexuality and our own fantasies, that disallows us from discovering that, what we find to be deviant is actually commonplace in the minds of all individuals. There is no person whose sexual ideas are unique, no fantasy of anyone that is not based on the same roots of the fantasies of others. This is sexuality, a social and emotional facet of every human. So, it must be granted as truth, that it is the repression of sexuality in our society, that convinces us that our own sexuality is a freak, a deviancy, an intolerably disgusting and improper attitude. Despite the fact that sexuality has been an intrinsic part of the lives of the hundreds and hundreds of millions of people, or the hundreds of billions of animals, there are still some puritanical ideas of people to oppose it. And, even if sexuality weren't commonplace, one would think that the argument of "so long as none are harmed, let it be," would be enough to justify it. I think that it was not a matter of argument, but one of shame and repression, that granted the puritan-minded people to believe and preach as they do. If, in fact, those of the puritanical ideas had no conception of sexuality, I do not believe they could have the will to rally against sex. If it is just a fact of life, nothing that personally effected them, then it would not be something they could muster so much unforgiving hate for. Alas, I do not think these puritanical ideas have done much of anything to uplift the personality of goodness or the character of charity. The idea that sex is an evil is not a friend of the ideals of kindness, intelligence, or truth. These puritanical soldiers have done nothing but bog down the structure of civilization, waging a war against our own animal nature. By seeing their own feelings of sexuality, experiencing the desires and urges, the thoughts and inhibitions, puritans find themselves villified with their own character, ashamed and mortified. I think that people manage to put anger, passion, and strong, powerful emotions into vengeance, when it is their own personal nature that they are attacking. The puritans have allowed themselves to be cruel, brutal, and absolutely cold blooded in their war against sex. As the blood running through civilization warmed, the extent to which they were allowed to fight has been limited and limited. Tortures and murders were an intrinsic part of the original Puritan culture, when it came to their attitude about punishing sex. It is a rather popular statement, that beaty is in the eye of the beholder. Yet everyone seems to interpret this statement differently. The fact that someone or something is beuatiful is only true because there is a critic to call it that. No artwork exemplified beauty without an onlooker, no song brought forward melody without a listener, no poem created peacefulness or rage without a reader. There can be no argument to this. We find, also, that just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is ugliness in the eye of the beholder. The same artwork that was called beautiful by one may be called ugly, disgusting, or otherwise unappealing by another. It is here that the true meaning of the phrase may be captured. The only reason why something is appealing or unappealing, attractive or unattractive, is because there is a mind in the sensory organs there to judge. The ideas of what is or is not gorgeous, enchanting, homely, or wretched are all dependent upon the viewer. Then we apply these ideas to a person. One's voice is seen as glorious in tone or rancid in quality. The face and body become a considerable work of art or a defaced panting, or something in between or to a more extreme. Judging a body and a face, though, as beautiful or ugly, is a much different action than judging a painting as either beautiful or ugly. A person, unlike a painting or a poem, is conscious, capable of emotion and happiness. All of a sudden, their physical attributes become subject to criticism and judgment. What is the purpose, though, of finding someone attractive or unattractive? The simple and obvious answer is for thepurpose of mating and procreation. Now that the reason for appeal or unappeal, in a person's beauty anyway, has been uncovered, another question remains open. If a person's outter shell can be judged as ugly or beautiful, by one person or another, and since this judgment does not help us to determine their character, should we disregard beauty and ugliness as a deterent to a person's true self? Of those individuals who call themselves Freethinkers, artists, independent minds, lovers of intelligence and friends of liberty, it is the typical attitude that a person's emotions and way of thinking is in fact a part of their intrinsic self. There can be no greater proof of this than experience: beautiful people may be cruel and heartless, as the ugly people can be intelligent and meaningful, and vice versa. A person's beauty does not determine the way they think. It does not make them more kind or charitable, nor does it instill in them attributes of vice or cruelty. This fact, I imagine will meet with no argument from those whom have experienced the world. The Freethinkers, though, have further advanced this position, by incorporating this philosophy int their personal lives. They do not judge people on their image, and accept friendship and affection from someone regardless of theri looks, and they are not less scornful of a brutal person no matter their beauty. They have taken a rational position and they must be commended for that. In another way, some of them have incorporated their philosophy into their sexuality, either consciously or unconsciously. For example, they find someone attractive based on their ideas, their character, their way of thinking and personality. One's physical body becomes esxually arrousing once they are identified with ideas of justice and goodness. They have not warded off human sexuality, so they have much more mindfulness and personal awareness than the puritans. In some cases, a Freethinker who fell in love with someone for their ideas, after the berakup, individuals they see resembling their initial love, even if socially considered unattractive, are considered attractive by the Freethinker. So it happens, that the phrase comes to us, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and we find that beautiful and ugly are relative terms, subjective in that they are exsiting only in the mind. Our natural response to this is that a person cannot wholly be judged by their physical, since they are conscious. they are capable of thoughts, ideas, emotions. Thus we find every Freethinker and independent individual falling in love with a personality of a person, irregardless of physical appeal. There is one fact that must be treated, though. An individual cannot have sex with a personality. As much as the idea is desired, physical affection cannot be given to a thought, an idea, or a character. It is necessary that a body is there. Admiration of an individual and their thoughts is never so pure or heart-warming as when there is a face for that individual, by which emotions and even ideas can be expressed. The look of ease, of a person laying down at the end of a long day, or a look of interest and intrigue, fascinated by the current occurrences, or a look of boldness and strength, defending what we believe in and what we fight for. The analytical expression, unsatisfied with what we know, delving through thoughts, facts, memories, to develope a more just theory -- the expression of deep thought, it allows us a a greater admiration of the deep thought itself. Nothing can greater express sadness than a story one wished to levie by retelling, accompanied by tears. This is just the face alone: eyes compliment diw th brows, a mouth given a tongue, and a nose, the rest covered with skin enveloping ten thousand muscle strands, all of which can combine to tell us thoughts and emotions. Anger and aggression, sadness and solemnness, pleasure and euphoria, exhaustion and rest -- all feelings by which we can purely communicate to another by the contraction or relaxation of our face muscles. The blessing of the voice adds to whatever feeling we are comunicating, even if we are not speaking actual words. In fact, the emotion or facial expression delivers is dramatically heightened and empathically understood those vocal sounds which transcend all human language, particularly when we express a sudden pain, joy, or understanding. Then, we are to consider the rest of the body. There are few words so reassuring, as a gentle, affectionate, and understanding touch. The idea of love can be written in a million poems and a thousand essays, which help us understand it in a reflective manner, but few things are so realistically understood as love when through the physical act of it; it is so logical to believe that experience is necessary to knowledge in this situation, just as it is impossible to know the true nature of terror without going through war, or other experiences. Lips, eyelashes, and other facial features, gently caressing, touching, or nuzzling the intimate or even common parts of the body: love-making, never so real or pure as can be demonstrated through experience. Those gentle parts, the neck, the stomach, the inner arms, find themselves also to be the most intimately felt. Perhaps it is the nature of evolution: ourselves becoming most protective of our most vulnerable parts, that they can also be the most intimate parts, because we feel that we want our lovers to feel those parts which we are most aware of. The other parts, the spinal column, the inner fore arms, the hands, though we are not only protective of them, we regard them during sex as gentle and intimate. Understand, though, that up to this point, of the necessity of a body for physical expression and physcial love, I have said nothing of beauty, spoken no words on one's complection as it is concerned to sex. I have only demonstrated the purity of expression when physical, when either in body and through the face. Yet there may be something rather unsettling, or otherwise seemingly contradictory about these thoughts. Those who have based their opinion on Freethought and independence, have argued that the physical complection, of beautiful or ugly, is not accurately indicative of a person's inner character. But, on the other hand, the body allows us the most pure and affectionate method of expressing our desires. I suppose that it must be admitted that one's body and face is an important part of love and sexuality. Whether we find one's body to be beautiful or not, the existence of such a body is important. But, beauty can even play a positive role in this. A body may in fact be considered indefferent, perhaps somewhat ugly or holmely. But, once that body has a personality, an opinion, an ideal, a character, these things alone may be enough for us to find them attractive physically. The same can be said of a body we initially find attractive, but then we hear a rather unintelligent, thoughtless mind speak, a rather cocky personality, and an otherwise unattractive character, and we find them ugly physically. It is not always the case, but it happens to be true often. Thus, beauty, no matter what it comes from, a physical complection, is necessary to a meaningful relationship. Before ending this dissertation, there are still some thoughts on beauty that will not rest in my heart until I have fully explained them. As I stated before, there are many people who would find it immature or thoughtless to love or deeply care about someone just by their physical complection. But, it is almost a thing of serenity, when a young boy's passions are enveloped around just the image of a girl. Granted, he may not be thoughtful in his quest, but he is listening to his desires. The thoughts and ideas that are spurning in his mind may be misguided, but they are gorgeous, wonderful, and even comforting. Fantasies may be pplayed out where just a kindly personality is placed in the boy's fictionaly apparition of her. He will feel joy when he imagines her impressed with every aspect of him, and very loving and caring of him. The same can be said of a girl and her affection for any handsome man. With this, I end. I can only hope that I have enlightened some minds. http://www.punkerslut.com/ For Life, Punkerslut ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has been writing essays and poetry on social issues which have caught his attention for several years. His website http://www.punkerslut.com/ provides a complete list of all of these writings. His life experience includes homelessness, squating in New Orleans and LA, dropping out of high school, getting expelled from college for "subversive activities," and a myriad of other revolutionary actions.
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