Beauty is an aesthetic, a concept, a product, a tradition, and even a sport.
It's always subjective, but one sure thing about beauty is that it changes drastically
depending on geographic coordinates.
Each culture has its own unique standard of beauty, and while some countries keep beauty
practices minimal, others have a whole lot to say about what makes the "perfect" woman.
Here's what people find unattractive around the world.
No curves
In Venezuela, beauty is a huge commodity.
There's high pressure to have a very specific kind of figure: a big bust, tiny waist, and
a plump backside.
This ideal of the female form is in such high demand that women of this country often undergo
multiple surgeries to fit their country's standard of beauty.
A few years ago, the country's president, Hugo Chàvez, publicly spoke out against these
practices, saying that doctors "convince some women that if they don't have some big bosoms,
they should feel bad."
Still, these standards permeate retail.
Vendors even display mannequins that reflect this particular shape because the more voluptuous
form actually ups their sales.
"(speaking Spanish)"
So, if you're flat-chested in Venezuela, you're practically a pariah.
A tan
While many Americans would kill to have the perfect bronze tan, that's not so for many
Asian countries.
In America, having a tan is a sign of beauty and social status because it signals that
you have the luxury to be able to afford tanning, or to go on a tropical vacation.
But in places like China and Korea having a tan is just the opposite.
In these cultures, the darker a person's skin is, the lower their social class.
It signifies that the person does a lot of outside, manual labor.
By contrast, the lighter an Asian person's skin is, the higher their social class and
the greater their beauty.
Women will often go outside with parasols to keep their skin light, or will even go
so far as to consider skin bleaching.
Virgin skin
In many countries, if you have a scar, people gape and ask what happened to you.
But in Ethiopia, scars are a way of articulating beauty for women, as well as physical prowess
for men.
In the Karo tribe, for example, people routinely scar themselves to represent vitality and
attractiveness.
So, while Americans go to great pains to minimize and hide scars, other cultures willingly undergo
scarification and celebrate it.
The monolid
In South Korea, the biggest plastic surgery trend is double eyelid surgery.
It's not unusual for South Korean parents to offer their children double eyelid surgery
as a gift.
It all stems from the fact that many Asians have what is commonly referred to as a monolid
— literally meaning "one eyelid".
It's the crease on the upper lid that's so common in the west that they're after.
South Korean women largely think that the double eyelid is more attractive, but many
cosmetic surgeons argue that South Korean women don't get the surgery to Westernize
themselves or reject their heritage, but rather to emphasize their facial features and emulate
their favorite K-Pop stars.
"(speaking Korean)"
It's widely known that South Korea's pop stars and celebrities opt for this kind of surgery
and, as in most cultures, people like to emulate what they see famous, successful people doing.
So while the double eyelid surgery is normalized within groups of family and friends, it is
made even more desirable by the country's entertainment culture.
Thin eyebrows
Full eyebrows have been trending in the U.S. on and off since the 1940s, with thin eyebrows
coming back in style here and there over the past century.
But luscious brows are a beauty staple within the Mexican culture.
For the better part of a century, the epitome of Mexican beauty has involved dark curls,
red lipstick, and bold eyebrows.
Dramatic, shapely brows are a defining facial feature that is specific to Mexican cultural
history.
While women today don't go as far as donning brows like those of famous artist Frida Kahlo,
Mexican women still prefer dark and striking brows as opposed to thin ones, and it's starting
to catch on in more European cultures, too.
"These ones are the ones that do all the work."
"They're it!"
"I just sit."
The curious thing about beauty standards is that they only serve to point out how there's
really no such thing as a standard for beauty.
Beauty isn't uniform throughout the world, and not even uniform in any given room.
Societies construct concepts and rules about what makes a woman beautiful, but that's all
it is — a construction.
Everyone is beautiful to someone, and hopefully, more importantly, beautiful to themselves.
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