[tooriscool]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is skin deep and is 99% attitude - we hear it, but we don't believe it. If we did, we wouldn't spend billions of dollars every year on cosmetics.

But it's not just women. Ten years ago women spent ten times more than men did on beauty products. Now we spend four times more.

From deodorants to sunscreens, Americans use an average of seven skin care products daily. Supposedly, women in Shanghai, China use twenty. If that's true, Mary Kay is turning Red China pink.

Lipstick shades go from Playful Pink to Passionate Purple, but none of them last as long on my lips as they do on the rim of my coffee cup. My grandmother didn't believe in using lipstick. If women wanted their mouths to look better, she thought they should smile.

I smile when I see the promises made by hair care products. There are shampoos to make hair curlier and straighter. There are conditioners to make it less frizzy, fuller and shinier. I buy whatever is on sale. Basically, hair is protection for my body. I'd rather spend my money on my body - and I do.

Laugh lines, scowl lines and character lines are euphemisms for wrinkles; and the price of anti-wrinkle cream is enough to cause me more lines - worry lines. The good news is there's an impartial website that rates the top ten anti-wrinkle creams. The bad news is mine isn't one of them.

Fifty years ago Marilyn Monroe would have been rated one of the world's most beautiful women. By today's standards she'd be considered short and chubby. She'd be in the "but doesn't she have a pretty face" category.

Models have to have more than pretty faces. They have to be tall. I'm never going to be 5'10". If I added three inches to my height by wearing heels, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Models also have to be thin. Some resort to cocaine. Others become anorexic or bulimic. Let's face it. Models don't model real life.

In China girls' feet were bound because tiny feet were a sign of beauty. In Africa women made their lips bigger by putting plates in them. They made their necks longer by wearing more neck bands. Thankfully, things have changed. Eventually thin won't be in - but fat chance that will happen in my lifetime.

[Sooshi]

Oh it goes a lot more beyond that. Little girls starving themselves because they think the thinner they are the more attractive. It's scary what people do to become "beautiful".

[qiwoman]

I think all this beauty Industry sucks no wonder Lao Zi in his Dao de Jing says what people deem beautiful is ugly and what is ugly is beautiful because beauty in the Vain sense has caused many people too much unhappiness and undue stress and made people slaves to this stupid idea of what we see as superficial beauty..Yes to look after one's self is good..To be neat and clean and to look nice but not because other people expect you to look in a certain way or because so and so models at size 0 advertise on billboards to put pressure on all us women to look like them otherwise our husband will leave us or the PORN INDUSTRY that expects us all to look like kinky teenagers for the rest of our lives..Come on give us a break it sucks! I also live in Richmond and it's full of Chinese..Here the Chinese think any woman over 30 is old and women over size 4 are fat so you understand how I feel at 44 and a size 8!!! Every Daren or Office manager has a wife and a mistress on the side, usually from the office..It's a custom to have younger women as mistresses..the younger the better and the women go out hunting for Rich men and don't care if they are married or not! Thank God although My husband is Chinese he has become a little bit more spiritual over time and has decided not to trade me in for a younger model because he also says a young Chinese woman wouldn't put up with the poverty and sh*t I had to put up with lol..Now women sell themselves to the highest bidder..Beauty? Huh it's a pretty ugly situation and to be honest I am who I am and won't be a slave to this BEAUTY MACHINE..Whoever likes me for who I am is lucky to to get the best from me, if they don't their loss!!! We are living in a plastic age..now we have plastic women, full of botox and collagen fillers to boot.

[partyrock]

There’s a cost to everything, so what price does physical appeal exact on the beautiful.

[rohit]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is skin deep and is 99% attitude - we hear it, but we don't believe it. If we did, we wouldn't spend billions of dollars every year on cosmetics.