The concept of beauty and who is considered beautiful
has been a core part of the human experience for millennia.
And it has long affected a wide range of social outcomes,
from partner choices,
to hiring decisions,
to life satisfaction.
So it’s no wonder we humans have a long history
of trying to optimise our beauty.
And arguably, that’s intensifying in modern life.
We are living today in the most
prolific visual culture in history.
The obsession with beauty also stems from new pressures and new freedoms
people are experiencing in global capitalism today.
Many people have more partner choice than they did before
as urbanisation grows and more people date online.
This means that people may be competing with others
more than before.
More people are also working in services
where appearance can be a job requirement
and that can contribute to body anxiety.
Given the intense social pressure to look a certain way,
there’s no surprise that the beauty business is booming -
the industry is currently valued at around $532 billion.
In 2019,
globally there were over 11 million cosmetic surgical procedures
and over 13 million non-surgical procedures, such as Botox.
Of course, there is no one way of being beautiful,
but every year brings an abundance of treatments and products
that promise new ways to try and achieve it.
Like the notorious vampire facial of the 2010s,
also known as the platelet-rich plasma facial.
First, a sample of your own blood is taken and then the plasma -
the liquid part of your blood that carries cells and proteins -
is extracted then injected back into your face.
Or, in more recent times, a range of skin products
containing snail excretions.
Though neither of these treatments have proven results.
But before you go running into the garden
to interfere with some molluscs,
you might want to ask yourself if any of these treatments
and products actually make you more beautiful.
Is it even possible to get an objective assessment
as to how beautiful - or not - you actually are?
Qoves Studio is an Australian based company who claim to offer just that.
Using machine learning, Qoves takes in-depth measurements
of your facial features, and then shows you how you compare
to others within your own ethnicity.
A useful service or downright terrifying?
At Qoves we have a comprehensive report where we measure
your facial features against scientific standards
and then evaluate how far off you are
from the "perfect face".
Now, there is no perfect face,
but generally these standards of scientific measurement
are the ones that plastic surgeons would use,
and so it provides a background briefing before you go in for surgery
if that's what you're interested in.
But is this pursuit of perfection healthy?
Shouldn’t we love the skin we’re in?
We're providing you with the research in a nicely packaged way,
but we always encourage you
to critically think about your own surgery
and to think about how beauty actually affects you.
Is it important? Is it important enough to warrant surgery?
If cosmetic surgery or applying snail mucus doesn’t appeal to you,
there are thankfully some less extreme ways
of optimising your beauty.
If you have too much sun exposure, UV exposure,
this can cause damage to your skin
and the cells in the skin.
The DNA may undergo mutations,
which may eventually lead to skin cancer.
Because the UV rays can penetrate deeper into the skin,
they also damage the collagen and the elastic fibres
that are in the lower layer of the skin.
And this is what causes the deep wrinkles.
So when you're out in the sun
for a long time then you should wear
a broad spectrum suncream
or clothes that cover your skin to prevent that skin damage.
Lack of sleep can release the stress hormones which are bad for our skin,
also, the skin has its own internal clock
and so skin cells are programmed
to grow and repair
at night while we sleep.
A good night's sleep can be subjective,
but on average it’s anywhere between six and nine hours.
Genetic epidemiologist Tim Spector says the role of diet
in conditions such as acne is still unclear.
But he believes that keeping the microbes in your gut
in good working order, through reducing processed food
and eating a wide range of fruit and vegetables,
should help your skin’s health generally.
So in the future, we will be able to tell you
which foods you should be eating
to enhance this particular type
of microbe that could help your skin health.
At the moment, we're just giving general advice
to increase the helpful microbes in your gut and reduce the harmful ones.
You might think all this beautifying is deeply superficial -
but perhaps this pursuit of beauty
is part of what makes our species unique.
The Kadiwéu people in Brazil elaborately paint their faces,
the Nuba in the Sudan practice scarification,
the tattoo, a Polynesian word, is widespread across the Pacific.
Beauty can have an irresistible pull for humans,
but we are fundamentally different from other animals
in that we do not accept our bodies as they are.