To this day, plastic surgeons use Nefertiti’s face as a model of beauty.
Hello world,
As you may know I tend to post some of the most beautiful women of color on my blog. As I like to say: “some of the most beautiful women in the world”. I do it in support (I guess bloggers like myself are fighting for recognition) because psychologically it’s unhealthy not to see a person in your likeness/image. You feel like the world doesn’t think your appearance is beautiful. As a woman it’s very important to know that your just as beautiful and desirable as the other ladies that are deemed in the media as the ultimate beauty.
Some of these gorgeous women that are posted on this blog are absolutely fabulous. They speak on average of 2-5 languages, traveled the world, multi-cultural, have great life experiences, partied at some of the top exclusive clubs in the world, gone to red carpet events, worn gowns that are worth $5,000+, snowboards, plays acoustic guitar, and more.
I hope that some of the open minded agents out there will view this blog as a platform for potential models and send these BEAUTIFUL ladies of color on many castings for advertisement campaigns, acting roles and more.
I do know that some women get jealous of each other sometimes. Whereas others like me, has no problem sharing, promoting, and advertising strong, successful and elegant women of the world. Once you see other women like you around the globe, the awful feeling of isolation goes away. Seeing a familiar face subconsciously is like seeing a close relative.
I recently watched two modeling documentaries where it was clearly stated on camera that “it’s difficult for black girls to book a decent modeling job”. But why? Because of their different skin tones?! Obviously we don’t all look alike but as you may know Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so why can’t we all be treated equally? Isn’t diversity a great thing?
We are all born in different parts of the world, with different features like eye colors, hair textures, bone structures, personalities, cultures and languages. What’s the problem with that?
Lets stay optimistic, I have come across some great blogs and websites around the world that acknowledges our potential and are showing support for women that others deemed as exotic.
I must end this off by simply saying that, I personally love fashion, traveling, I like to go shopping, I love the spa, I love interior decorating, I like doing my hair and make-up, I love being pampered and I love being in love just like you.-Sola
(Me above)
___________We are all human______________
Science says that beauty is instinctual and not cultural.
(Thank goodness)
We’ve all heard that today’s standard of beauty is unreachable for many Americans. It is being thin and tall, whereas in other cultures it is being plump and pale. However, I believe that there is a standard of beauty that is universal across all cultures, so if two people, one from America and one from Uganda were to look at a picture of two women and asked to pick which was more beautiful, they would choose the same person.
There are certain traits that people construe as beautiful, such as a symmetrical face, clear skin, a square jaw (in men), high cheekbones (in women), and hourglass figures in women with a waist to hip ratio of .7. These all suggest increased health and fertility: great traits to look for in a mate.http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/02/health/mental-health/beauty-brain-research/
In fact, it’s not only humans eligible to mate that notice these traits. In a study, babies were shown two pictures of computer-generated women, one being attractive and one being unattractive. Babies spent more time looking at the attractive face, meaning they showed a preference for the face that was attractive. The face that was attractive was more symmetrical than the face that was considered unattractive. This shows an innate judgment of beauty before babies can be affected by things such as cultural influence.http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p230823
While this study seems legitimate, it is possible that there are other reasons why the baby would look at the symmetrical face for longer other than the fact that the baby finds it beautiful. For example, I often find myself looking at things that are confusing, ugly, or random. I believe that it is possible that the babies spent more time looking at the other face for reasons other than the fact that it is more beautiful. Since they are so young, they are unable to verbalize their feelings and preferences, we will never know if they were looking at the faces for so long because they found one face more beautiful. However, assuming the study was done correctly, we should be able to assume that there was SOME reason why babies looked at the more symmetrical face for longer. From my own experience of babies I think it is because the one was more pleasing to the eye.
This gives evidence to the fact that beauty is not culturally determined but rather innate. The babies are too young to have already been affected by what society says is beautiful and instead are using instinct to choose. This to me, means that beauty is universal rather than cultural.
I previously talked about how babies find faces that are symmetrical more beautiful than those that are not symmetrical. This to me, showed that beauty is universal rather than based on cultural preferences, such as being thin or having a certain skin pigment. However, there was a little bit of question in the results since babies can’t verbalize why they looked at one picture for longer than the other.
Another study was conducted in which the participants were adults from two parts of the world: the United Kingdomhttp://www.cnn.com/2012/03/02/health/mental-health/beauty-brain-research/ and from the remote Hazda tribe of Northern Tanzania. The Hazda are a hunting-gathering society with limited exposure to modern media and are therefore not influenced by a modern standards of beauty. In fact, their mating process is much more important to find a mate with good genes and fertility to keep your DNA going.
The UK participants were randomly selected, as were the Hazda participants, and were asked to choose which photo they found more attractive. One was an original picture of people from all different all cultures and the other was a picture of their face perfectly symmetrical. In both cultures, both genders chose the face that was symmetrical more often than not. This is pretty convincing evidence that there is an instinctual aspect to beauty, rather than just our society.
Another study found the ideal distance between a woman’s mouth and eyes. In four different studies, participants were asked to say which picture of a female face they found most beautiful. The pictures were all identical bar the distance between the eyes and mouth. They found the most preferred ratio to be a woman’s mouth taking up 36% of the face’s length and the eyes taking up 46% of the face’s width.
This also has the potential to show that there is a universal beauty. It is a good first step that an average ratio could be agreed upon, but the experiment needs to be opened up across cultures to see if the ratio is consistent. Especially since eyes and lips do not seem to show anything about a woman’s genes. Should this study be expanded, it could give better insight to whether there is a universal beauty.
Still, I think there is enough conclusive http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/02/health/mental-health/beauty-brain-research/ evidence to show that there are such qualities as universal beauty, specifically, face symmetry. It shows that more symmetry is more pleasing to the eye and that it shows better set of genes.
Source: http://sites.psu.edu/siowfa13/author/klt5257/
Other interesting links on this subject