BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE DON’T NEED MAKE-UP

In observing an object observer’s point of view matters the most. If the beholder is both the observer and the object, what does she see? She finds her beautiful; it is impossible to love something or someone that is not beautiful. A woman would not look at her if she does not find something attractive in her. She knows what that something is. She wants to get noticed and wants to look beautiful to others as well as to herself. Beauty lies in body as well as in mind. There is more to beauty than meets the eye. Physical beauty compliments intellectual beauty. Intellect is essential part of the make-up of a beautiful woman. Abraham Maslow has described the situation appropriately. A husband’s conviction that his wife is beautiful, or a wife’s belief that her husband is courageous, to some extent, ‘creates’ that beauty or courage. This is not so much about a perception of something that already exists, but about bringing something into existence by sheer belief.
Then, there are ‘perfectionists’. For them perfection is an obsession. It is said that annoyingly perfect people are the most annoying. Nathaniel Hawthorne has written a story about one such perfectionist. . This man marries a beautiful woman. This woman has a birthmark on her left cheek. The perfectionist wants to remove her blemish, only to discover that it is her birthmark of mortality, and that removing it would remove her from life itself. Hawthorne’s message is clear; natural imperfection can be beautiful. The story advises us to accept natural limitations and learn to enjoy them. It is not a piece of paper on which you write something, and if you don’t like it, tear it. Annoyingly perfect people forget that one need not be perfectly perfect to get noticed. One needs to be different.
Must a woman be beautiful to be loved? Time magazine posed this question to its readers nearly eight decades ago. There were some interesting observations: In a girl of 16: 80% beauty; 20% mental coquetry; in a woman of 30: 50% beauty; 15% mental coquetry; 15% intelligence; 10% physical coquetry; 10% generosity; in a female of 50: 40% generosity; 40% intelligence; 10% beauty; 10% physical coquetry; complete absence of mental coquetry. The survey suggested that charm varies according to age. As women grow older, other charms evolve and outweigh beauty. What about today’s women? Has there been a change in the perception of beauty? It is for the market researchers to find this out. I would like to recall what Maharani Gayatri Devi said in an interview, “I never use make-up”. Of course, beautiful people don’t need make-up.