What is beauty? “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!” Sure, but when our society is built on European beauty standards, the “beholder” suddenly struggles to find beauty in anybody that doesn’t conform to these “norms” without exoticising or fetishizing them.
The whitewashing of beauty has its roots in elitism throughout the ages, as pale skin was associated with wealth because it meant you were not out working in the sun and could afford to stay inside all day. All of this changed in the 1920s when Coco Chanel made having a tan not only acceptable, but a symbol denoting a life of privilege and leisure. In the wake of Chanel’s adoption of the suntan, dozens of new fake tan products were produced to help both men and women achieve the “sun-kissed” look.
Today, self-tanning is a multi-million dollar industry. Many people self-tan year-round in order to maintain the coveted “healthy glow”. However, some people push the limit, and use self-tanner almost as a modern type of brownface.
Some people achieve the same effect using makeup…
In the above photo set, Kylie Jenner is using foundation, something that is supposed to even out her face and blend into her natural skin color, that is several shades darker than her actual skin color. She is purposely trying to appear darker. She’s “borrowing” dark skin, over-lined lips, and other features that latinx, black, and afro-latinx people have had for decades. However, unlike real people of color who are typically labeled as “ghetto” or racially exotic because of these natural features, Kylie benefits from them. She profits off of these looks, and is labeled “edgy”.
You’d think that since society places value on darkening white skin, it would also value skin that is naturally dark. The fact of the matter is that people of color are only celebrated as “beautiful” if they assimilate to European beauty standards. For example, there’s still a huge market for skin-whitening products.
From 2005 to 2013, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates that the number of cosmetic procedures performed on Asian Americans increased by 125 percent, Hispanics by 85 percent, and African Americans by 56 percent. (Procedures on white people increased just 35 percent.) Popular procedures under the “ethnic plastic surgery” umbrella include creasing Asian eyelids, pushing sloped foreheads forward, pulling prominent mouths back, sharpening the stereotypically flat noses of Asians, blacks, and Latinxs while flattening the stereotypically sharp noses of Arabs and Jews.
On the other side of the coin, many white people also get plastic surgery or have other procedures done to look more “exotic”.
So, what is beauty? Is it darkening your skin color, getting lip and butt injections, and altering your hair’s natural texture in order to seem more racially ambiguous (or “edgy”)? Is it lightening your skin color, shaving your jawline, and shrinking your nose in order to assimilate to the seemingly mandated European beauty standards? Or is it something else entirely? It’s up to you. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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