Beauty standards for women seem to only be getting harder and harder to achieve. One day, everyone wants a thigh gap and the next day, every song on the radio praises big butts. (Because we’re supposed to be able to magically have both, right?)
And it’s not just in America. Remember Asia’s ridiculous “finger trap” beauty test? Let’s be honest here, it didn’t actually indicate if you were pretty. It just determined whether you have a tall nose and really long fingers. After all, how can any test determine beauty? Why are we holding ourselves to standards that will likely change as most trends do? Most importantly, who says there’s just one standard of beauty?
To highlight this, UK online pharmacy Superdrug Online Doctors conducted an experiment called “Perceptions Of Perfection.” The company sent the same photo of a woman to designers all around the world. The designers, who came from 18 different countries, were simply to told to photoshop the woman to fit their culture’s ideals of beauty.
When the results came in, it was clear that beauty truly lies in the eye of the beholder. The experiment, which aimed to get people to reconsider the beauty standards and expectations they hold themselves to, succeeded in reminding everyone that beauty ideals are subjective and we simply can’t be too hard on ourselves if we don’t fit just one standard of beauty.
And this is just one of many photoshop experiments which aim to prove this point. In 2014, a similar experiment was conducted which focused on the ideal face. Journalist Esther Honig, who was responsible for the experiment, was left in shock over the drastic differences in each image.
“When we compare unobtainable standards on a global scale, achieving the ideal remains all that more elusive,” she concluded. “It almost neutralizes the belief in a universal beauty.”
So the next time you’re feeling pressured to look a certain way, just remember that beauty comes in every shape and size.
