Last night as I was watching one of the many award shows (tis the season), I was also perusing a magazine article. A woman was describing how to achieve true beauty. Her words of wisdom: try to look your best as infrequently as possible. I found this to be ironic as I watched several movie stars with their hair just messy enough to look sexy and their gowns as sheer as lingerie. But it did get me thinking.
This woman, a contributor to Real Simple, stated, “However you look, people get used to it. If you accustom them to a very high standard – your hair and makeup are always perfect, your clothing is expensive and fetching – you are just setting them up for disappointment if you make a mistake or, God forbid, get lazy.” She likens the occasion of when you do dress up as a chance to exercise your right in choosing the time to blossom.
I asked a good friend of mine what he thought about this. He thought it was a risky piece of advice, especially to those who are not exceptionally pretty but overall he agreed with the statement. I have to say, this shocked me coming from a guy who values beauty very much.
In my invalid period I watched a fair amount of Oprah. One of the more interesting shows was about a typical 30-year-old female in various parts of the world. I had no idea that Mexican women think working out in the gym is crazy and that men should adore us eating enchiladas because it accentuates our curves. This was of course coming from one of their top soap opera stars. By the way, the French women also agreed with this statement. I also had no idea that a typical Cuban woman has had 4 abortions by the time she was 30 and divorced at least once. Oh, and ladies, you think dating in the US is bad, go to London. There, women outnumber men 3:1!!! I was beginning to feel quite attractive in my scrubs and glasses living in America (and at the time mostly surviving off of cinnamon rolls). Hey, it was au natural with minimal effort!
It never fails: you always have a great hair day the morning you have an appointment with your stylist. Or you feel sloppy the day of a really important meeting. Beauty, or more importantly, the feeling of being beautiful can strike indiscriminately.
Ever since I was a little girl, I adored baths. What I really relished were baths in my parent’s jetted tub. I would secretly pull my hair up into this yellow shower cap (pretending it was a short glamorous bob) and sample my mother’s dark lipstick. I would sit amid the bubbles and pretend I was some foreign student with an exotic accent telling some man to just, “leeve mee alozne.” All dolled up and nowhere to go. ( I can’t believe I’m confessing this!)
Its funny, the one time I did actually get “dolled up” post-op was when I was visiting my boyfriend. Hair done, makeup on, I never felt ready. The makeup looked forced, too shimmery perhaps, and my hair began to resemble a TV anchor no matter what I did to it. Even the Ann Taylor clothes looked wrong. And then I realized how uncomfortable I felt in a situation forcing beauty. I had a deadline to look pretty! Damn it, we had to be there with bells on to shmooze the MD world by 6:30!! I wasn’t able to “choose” my time of blossoming. We never did go to the Christmas Ball. We ended up dancing in our pj’s by the kitchen sink while reheating leftovers. There, in that moment with the makeup washed off and hair pulled back, I felt beautiful.
**Bonus!! Other moments when women are effortlessly beautiful.**
- Women who go naturally gray or at least blonde. Ladies, its God’s way of giving you a makeover! (Wrinkles are too harsh for dark hair.) My Mom is very pretty with her silver locks.
- Post-coital hair. (enough said)
- Women who cry with makeup on. It’s your emotion, not your perfection that makes you pretty.
- No makeup at the gym. (Really, who wears diva lipstick to the spinning class?)
- Confidence (no MAC artist can give you this look)
- Kissing…you always feel beautiful kissing.
- (Add your own here…or add your comments at the end of what you think makes someone beautiful.) J
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