This blog is inspired by my panel discussion with The East Asian Girl Gang on the topic “Modern Beauty Culture: Empowering or Toxic” and the conversations I had with women afterwards who openly shared their experience with beauty.
When you hear the word “Beauty”, what words or phrases come up for you?
For me, beauty is about “Experimentation” and “Self-expression”. It can also be seen as a “Uniform” or an “Armour.”
Some other words that came up were:-
“Kindness”
“Hard work”
“Acceptance”
“Unattainable”
“Expensive”
“Skin deep”
“Self care”
“Self love”
“Power”
“Control”
“Superficial”
“Fitting in”
“Standing out”
Does any of the above match your current views on beauty?
No doubt beauty can be as triggering as the subject of weight.
Beauty is such a big topic with so many layers and nuance.
Being an aesthetic doctor in the beauty industry for the past 17 years, I see both side of the coin and the grey areas in between. Beauty can be a source of power, an act of defiance, a blissful escape, a charming suitor or a controlling master.
It can be seen as a frivolous luxury to a life-affirming necessity or a powerful elixir for growth.
As much as social media and the society thrust their idea of beauty onto us, I feel our first views of beauty were really shaped from our relationship with our mother or our primary caretaker.
Reflecting back on my own childhood (early 1980s) when the internet was in its infancy and social media wasn’t around yet, I learned about beauty from my mother, the magazines she bought and the TV shows we watched.
“You look so pretty” when I wore a dress and my hair neatly tied up.
“Crying and having an angry face will only make you look ugly” when my emotions were high.
“Eat all your food otherwise you will get pimples when you grow up and no one will like you.” when I was already full.
“They are fat because they are lazy” my dad would often point out as a stranger walks by.
“Buy this whitening cream and you will never be lonely again” as the lady in the TV advertisement finally receives the attention of her love interest.
I grew up in the fitness and diet craze in the 1980s with the neon leg warmers and marathon long aerobic classes. Jane Fonda was my mother’s inspiration. Our fridge was stock with fat-free everything and the Kellogg’s Special K diet was firmly on the menu.
My mother did not have good skin. She suffered from extensive acne scars and painful psoriasis and eczema. Her tummy eventually was all wrinkly after having 5 children. She had a lot of stretch marks and varicose veins. But she knew how to make up and dress to look good, highlighting her best features.
I grew up believing beauty was hard work and the goal was to please others.
I was (and still) am not considered classically beautiful by Oriental standards so I needed to do more to be noticed, to be picked, to be loved. My mother took me to facials to clear up my acne and anti-ageing treatments to sharpen my face. She bought me slimming treatments so I could achieve a more feminine figure from my squarish body.
In my teenage years, I developed an eating disorder and was underweight at a BMI of 18. But I loved that I could wear low hip jeans showing off my tiny waist and ribs. I stopped martial arts so I didn’t bulk up with muscle. I cried when I fell into a monsoon drain, my knee covered in blood as I was worried I would get a scar and no boys would like me.
Crazy how the young mind thinks!
Fast forward to the modern day.
I see how my view on beauty to begin with was outside of me where I needed to “fix” my “flaws” to be accepted into what was more comfortable and appealing to others. My worth was dependent on external validation and acceptance.
Moving away from Malaysia to London to study helped me change my views on beauty. It gave me permission to experiment more and to discover what felt good or didn’t. I saw more celebration of diversity and with that, learned to celebrate my differences.
In my 20s/30s, there was still an underlying pull towards the need to please others and fit in but the ability to choose how I made and spend my money gave me more agency.
After I lost my mum, her sister told me how she felt insecure of her looks and worried my dad would leave her. It fuelled my decision to become an aesthetic doctor, giving me the opportunity to empower women and in return helped lift me up too. Even when I wrote my book “The Hormonal Acne Solution – how to clear adult acne without medication”, I wrote it with my mother in mind.
In an indirect way, it was my way of healing my association with beauty growing up as I hated the power we seemingly lose when we have bad skin or when we grow older.
With the rise of social media, I see how it creates and perpetuate our insecurities as women. I mean I was insecure growing up without social media, when we have 1000s of eyes (mostly from strangers) comparing, commenting and criticising our features, choices and styles, it can easily be demoralising, toxic and even dangerous.
When we feel good about ourselves, we can easily find a “flaw” we need to “fix” as we scroll through social media. Insecurities feeds into the consumerism culture. Insecurities also keep women small, to keep us in line and to keep us from fulfilling our full potential.
There are books written on how beauty is used against women and instead of denouncing beauty altogether, I see how it can also be used it to empower us. When we know what we are up against, we can make different choices for beauty to serve us.
I know there is plenty we can flesh out here but for now, I wanted to share my insights on how we can reclaim the power of beauty back to us:-
- Change the meaning of beauty.
Being beautiful is often associated with being good and more lovable. If we change our meaning of beauty to be more empowering and make beauty more neutral, it has less a hold on our worth.
- Change the motivation to be more intrinsic than extrinsic.
Traditionally, beauty was used for external motivation e.g. to “marry up”, “to be picked for the job” and to “fit in”. No doubt these reasons have their merits but as we see more women embracing de-centering men, choosing not to get married and creating their own financial security and independence, there is less need for the use of beauty for these reason.
I see more women using beauty and makeup as a form of expression and defiance, seeing ourselves as the canvas and a work of art to be explored, rather than conforming. It’s a way to experiment and explore where it fits in our life.
There will be people who believe if a woman takes care of her appearance, she is doing it for a man. Other people’s opinion about you is none of your business. Let them talk. You take care of yourself and move on.
- Educate yourself.
We often fear what we don’t know.Learn about your skin and your body. Be in tune with them. Learn what happens when you age and know the options available but don’t get too fixated with it. We are all going to grow older and we need to make peace with ageing.
Be careful of the words you say to describe the physical part of you. Words have power and in a world that’s determined to tear women down, we need to be our own best friend, cheerleader and advocate.
- Focus on self-connection rather than self-care.
Caring for ourselves does not come naturally to many of us. Little girls are conditioned to please other people, to worry what other thinks about them, to ask others for opinion and not trusting ourselves/ our bodies/ our feelings. This can play out with our relationship with beauty as we grow up.
If we feel confident with our beauty choices, we may fear people calling us “entitled” or “who does she think she is?”. It takes us extra brain power to think about it as we subconsciously give our attention and energy to other people first.In this modern day age, it’s not enough to just do self-care, there’s the added pressure of needing to track it, document it and sharing it on social media. All this adds to the mental load. Self-care should be about doing less and not adding more to our plate.
Instead of self-care (which also feeds into the consumerism culture), focus on self-connection. This often looks like silence, solitude, stillness and just being. Strengthening the connection with our inner true self highlights what is important to us and less worried about what others thinks of us.
- Use social media intentionally.
Social media feeds our insecurities and wants us to be continually plugged in. Did you know TikTok applies an automatic filter when you upload a video/picture? You need to actively go into your settings to deactivate it.
Don’t look at social media when you’re feeling tired, overwhelmed and insecure.Take regular digital detoxes, less selfies, get out in nature, move your body and catch up on your sleep. Choose accounts that educate and inspire you. If any accounts make you feel bad about yourself – delete it for a week and see how you feel. You can always upload it again in the future.Don’t look at your phone for the 1st hour of the day because your brain is most susceptible when you wake up. Give at least an hour buffer, switching off all technology before you go to bed so it doesn’t affect your sleep.
- Give yourself time.
Before you make decisions to buy/ proceed with treatments, give yourself a cooling off period – a minimum of 24 hours for small purchases up to 2 weeks for large purchases. This ensures your decision is less clouded by emotion and more grounded intention.
This is particularly important when you are considering aesthetic treatments.
The development of aesthetic treatments that are relatively non-invasive, more affordable, shorter recovery time and has lower risk of complications compared to surgery give more options to women and not just for the rich who can afford surgery. From a feminist point of view, this is positive progress.
It can help women look less tired when they are going through/ have overcome challenging seasons. Aesthetics can also help boost confidence when balancing profiles, facial features and improving smiles.
It’s easy to get carried away when we see impressive before and after pictures, meet good looking practitioners, influenced by friends and promotions. No shade… I’ve been there many times.
Do your research. Meet your practitioner (or a few). Ask questions. And give yourself time.
- Learn to celebrate yourself.
Small wins. Big wins. Celebrate them. Every night before going to bed, write a short gratitude list or love letter to yourself of things you’re grateful for. Not just what you’ve achieved or doing but also who are you are. Celebrate your quirkiness, uniqueness and difference. Gratitude is a muscle and the more you use it, the more you will feel it.
Experiment with beauty and see what floats your boat.
Find the right mix that suits your season of life, your personality and priorities.
It’s okay to want more and okay to want less.
Question everything.
What is important is continue defining and being clear of what you truly want and not what you think you want.
As I said at the beginning beauty to me is about experimentation and self-expression.
Beauty is seen from the energy we exude and the words we speak. Beauty is the gratitude we feel, the impact we make and the legacy we leave behind in this one beautiful lifetime.
The physical part of beauty is just a small piece of whole ecosystem.
To reclaiming back your power in beauty.
Dr Terry