The United States Is The Biggest Cosmetics Industry

In 2004 , In England, Dove started the Campaign For Real Beauty , with the aim to make women feel confident about their physical appearance no matter their age and their size.

It’s difficult to envision a world where idealized female imagery is not plastered everywhere, but our present circumstance is a relatively new occurrence. Before the mass media existed, our ideas of beauty were restricted to our own communities. Until the introduction of photography in 1839, people were not exposed to real-life images of faces and bodies. Most people did not even own mirrors. Today, however, we are more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. But the concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable given society’s standards. According to Jane Kilborne, “Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the

Beauty standards are an extremely critical issue facing young women today across the country. Beauty standards are changing the way we perceive ourselves. Beauty standards change the way we dress, our make-up, our hair, and our size. We think about what others will think based on how we look. In the morning, while getting dressed, we may say to ourselves, “What will they think?” or “Is this shirt too tight? Too loose?” We wonder if our hair is the right color, or if our teeth are white enough, and the largest standard of all, if we are skinny enough. In a short clip, “Beauty Standards Around the World,” created by Buzzfeed (2014) shows how each country defines beauty. Buzzfeed uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and logos to effectively convince the viewers that society is manipulating women’s perception of beauty. A young girl sent out a photo with no make-up on and her hair pulled back to photo shop experts around the world. The results were upsetting.

Correspondingly, society has also constructed this image of unrealistic beauty standards that do not appear naturally on faces and bodies. Huge lips, white flawless faces, thin noses, long smooth hair, volumptuous chests, perfectly round behinds, all features women now consider are essential to be beautiful. Forgetting that, "if I change myself ill just be another of the bunch, there won't be anything unique about me if I conform to everyone's

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.

“Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.” Gwyneth Paltrow touches on what life is all about, accepting your flaws, but not being afraid to rock that lipstick. I had just got done doing my daily routine of grooming and put down the mascara tube. With one more glance in the mirror to appreciate the look I had created. I headed to class. When I sat down in my seat and begin settling in, a fellow classmate leans in to passively mention how boys usually like the more natural look and how she could never waste that much time on getting ready. While my confidence about the choice to apply a smoky eye decreases fast, I look away to see the girl next to me with the same exact look. I start to realize my not so original makeup is more common than I thought. Now, most people may be fine with looking for others for approval about the way we wear clothes or apply make up, or lack there of, more Americans should experience how makeup can make you feel when you look in the mirror and not what others say. Additionally, make up is a creative way to express your-self and find it to be better in an enhanced face than a naked one.

However, once the older generation who are aging and “gravity’ takes hold, grays come in, wrinkles begin to appear and elasticity and firmness turns into sagging body parts. The pressure to remain young affects them considerably because youth is escaping them as they progress in years as looks begin to fade. Because we are in a society where appearance equates to acceptance in the job market and I social settings. Images of beauty is exposed and represented in everyday lives, such as in sports, magazines issues, movies, book novels. Both men and women must meet the “Hollywood” standards of beauty and good looks if they want to remain employable and it trickles down to local soap operas and sit coms. Children, especially young girls learn representation of female beauty from the toys they play with like Barbie dolls with short skirts and long blond hair with high heels and face makeup. On the other hand, boys play with super hero action toys who are muscular and

Since a young age, it is instilled in females that we should take the time, effort, energy, and money into achieving what is considered “beautiful”.

Everyone loves to feel beautiful, but what is the price? Everyday there is a woman painting painting her nails, a man running gel through his hair, and a mother rubbing lotion on her childs skin. These are looked over like normal activities but they contain a dark secret. This secret can lead to death, pain, and injuries. In fact, it has been in the dark so long, that many people choose to ignore it. What is this secret? Well, the beauty industry hides an ugly truth: It has flaws in the system that lead to mislabeling of products, unregulated chemicals in formulas, and dangerous diseases in cosmetologists.

“Your total comes to 8 billion dollars.” This is the amount of money Americans spend each year on cosmetics according to WorldWatch.org. Americans are willing to pay anything to look and feel beautiful. Most people do not even think twice before buying a product or service that will benefit their beauty. Why are americans so obsessed with trying to feel beautiful? It is as if they were born this way, and they have no other choice but to strive to be beautiful. Reasons why this may be so is because of how americans are brought up and raised. Obsession with beauty starts at childhood, develops into adulthood, and continues until the day they die.

Men often strive to have women who look like Victoria’s Secret models, but if that’s what they want from us, we should expect nothing less from them. If they put such high, unrealistic standards on us, we should do the same to them. That way it’ll be fair game. Nevertheless, most of us know that looks are not everything, but society forces such shallow mindsets on its individuals. We are constantly reminded whether directly or indirectly that looks are everything, even though they are ultimately

For many years, women have been critical of their images, thinking that others portray them with the same negative view. Perhaps this is worsening with time due to pressure from social media demanding that beauty is seen in perfection. According to an online article, “Social Media: Does Social Media Have a Positive Impact On the World?”, the opposition argues that “People need to look deeper for self-worth, they contend, than achieving "likes" (on Facebook) by posting selfies on social media”. They suggest that “if you’re editing photos down to the finest of details such as changing eyelashes and skin tone, chances are you're giving too much merit to how others perceive you." (Social Media: Does social media have a positive impact on the world?). In the ad “Real Beauty Sketches: You’re More Beautiful Than You Think”, Dove persuades women to fight against the negativity and discover inner beauty, which is crucial to finding happiness. The message is portrayed by touching the hearts of viewers through emotive connection with real people, a tranquil atmosphere, and a calm tone to captivate and gain their consumers trust in the brand.

Whether we like to essentially admit it or not, physical appearance literally is a particular sort of the main factor in a person’s characteristics in society. It basically for all intents and purposes is almost unavoidable to mostly see things in everyday life that actually encourage the act of altering someone’s face through makeup or surgery or even the way somebody dresses or essentially carries themselves in a subtle way in a major way. The beauty industry works really heard at targeting women, specifically definitely young girls to alter their appearance to something that is unrealistic in a major way, which is quite significant. The beauty industry’s influence on young girls in America can cause health risks; both mentally and physically. Awareness should, for the most part, be spread to really make individuals particularly basically realize that the standards that generally are set could actually, for the most part, be harmful to our children and really specifically are truly unrealistic; outweighing the benefits of being attractive, contrary to popular belief, which particularly is quite significant. It actually is important to kind of inform our youth about beauty before the beauty industry itself does, or so they thought. Beauty can range from the things we literally wear to the way we really really walk and essentially mostly talk in a definitely big way. The media displays everyday what society perceives as the perfect person, setting a generally definitely goal

According to an online article ‘12 Surprising Statistics About the Beauty Industry’ by Style Caster, one in three women admit to never leave the house without any makeup on (Irvine, 2013) This shows that the cosmetic industry caters to a large market of consumers who are willing to spend a major chunk of their income on self-adornment products and services. A report generated by YWCA USA (2008) indicated that a total of $7 billion is spent per year on cosmetics, which is 0.5% of the country’s total GDP. This essay aims to determine whether the ever growing cosmetic industry is affecting individuals in a positive or a negative manner physically and psychologically by studying various sources of information such as books, articles, reports and websites keeping a feminist’s approach towards the topic.

Often times, women are pressured by the mainstream media to upkeep a stellar appearance. They are expected to measure up to high standards without question. Even before most girls reach puberty, commercials are bombarding them with small Barbie esque makeup kits filled with lip glosses and chalky eyeshadows. The impact it has on impressionable children, both girls and boys is something that will likely last a lifetime if unlearned. Cosmetic companies who are marketing to young ladies say they can simply improve their looks to gain acceptance from their peers if they use the products they are selling. The makeup industry is a multi million enterprise that makes a profit from women’s insecurities and amplified pressures from society as a common tactic many cosmetic campaigns use is to push women to embrace the ‘natural look’ by providing products that will make it appear as if the individual is not even wearing makeup. Companies will spout out that with these products, the end result will be ‘you, but better.’ It is somewhat of an underlying and slightly manipulating slogan, as if to say how a woman appears could be improved because it is lacking in the moment. This distorts how we all believe how a woman is suppose to look.