In 2022, the beauty industry made approximately $430 million in revenue. The beauty market is not just false lashes and lipsticks. It includes anything from skincare, makeup, haircare, and grooming products. And the experts project that the numbers will only keep growing.
Beauty products and their popularity mirror certain trends that are happening at one or other time in history. And, well, just because things are popular, doesn't mean that absolutely everyone likes them.
That's why when one Redditor asked "What's a beauty standard that you find actually unattractive?", netizens had plenty of answers ready. The answers ranged from surgical intervention to just simply too much makeup. Check out all the answers below!
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It's true that different cultures have different beauty standards. Most of the things listed here are Western beauty ideals. A paper by Harvard University writes: "Western beauty ideals include being thin and tall, having long hair, having light/tanned skin, having big breasts, large eyes, a small nose, and high cheekbones."
Consultant psychologist Dr. Elena Touron told Glamour that people adhere to beauty standards because they want to fit in. "When we're flooded with unrealistic images on a daily, hourly basis (as can be the case with social media), it's no doubt going to have an influence on our self-perception and how we view the world more generally."
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Unrealistic beauty standards are especially harmful to adolescents, as their brains are still in development. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote for The Atlantic that teenage girls are especially vulnerable.
"The subset of studies that allow researchers to isolate social media, and Instagram in particular, show a much stronger relationship with poor mental health. The same goes for those that zoom in on girls rather than all teens. Girls who use social media heavily are about two or three times more likely to say that they are depressed than girls who use it lightly or not at all."
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On the other hand, social media can also help us shake off toxic beauty ideals. A 2021 study found that those who observed body-positive social media experienced improvements in body satisfaction.
PsychCentral writes that social media might provide inspiration and support to live healthier. Many accounts provide advice about nutrition and exercise. And online communities can act as support groups where people find empathy, understanding and encouragement.
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Overfilled lipsWearing pants below your butt.The Kardashian-esque lookLong, pointy nails. Overly long nails in general. 1/4 inch past the tip of the finger is plenty in my opinion.Photos where the skin has been edited so heavily that it's lost all texture and character.
People aren't plastic. Stop it with that s**t.Face tattoosFake buttsI don't like body builder type bodies on anyone. People need to stop promoting the unnatural look. It’s terrible for young girls/teens and f***s their self esteem so hard. People in real life simply do not look like that.Thick, fake eyelashes. Geeze!All the contouring! It just looks so caked on and overdone. When you’re unrecognizable without makeup, it’s too much.Obesity passing as curves.Drawn on eyebrows creep me tf out. Why do they always have to look surprisedThe belief that the ideal woman looks and acts like an underage girl who needs a daddy figure to do everything for her.Orange spray tanWhen people do their lipstick way past their lip line to make them look bigger. It just looks weird imo but you do youOverly muscled men. Some is nice, some have bulging veins and look unnatural.A lack of standards towards men. As a man honestly men are allowed to be generally disgusting and nobody says anything because it's considered normal. Men too should be expected to put some level of effort into their appearance.Unnatural extreme white veneers. Many celebs get them even if they had overall nice teeth before.Filler in general, but especially in the cheekbones. I am genuinely so confused why so many girls want to look like they're having an allergic reaction. It's almost painful to look at, it looks like their face is swollen.
I've never in my life looked at someone and thought, hmm their cheekbones are too flat.Lip injections, saw one lady who looked like she had an infection or irradiationI don't find this unattractive, I just think its overrated; being blonde shouldn't be the beauty standard. Dark hair is beautiful as well.Women having to shave their genitals or its considered weird. You ever seen a historical depiction of a goddess that was clean shaven? Not only has millions of years of evolution trained my brain to see Bush and know you are fertile, and therefor its just deeply instincually sexy. But on a deeper label, its so powerfully feminine in a deeply beautiful, artistic way. A girl with her natural hair looks like a literal goddess. A girl with a bikini wax looks like a child. Its such a huge turn off, and like men demanding it gives of hella p**o vibes.Anything too far. Fake eyelashes? Make em look slightly better than natural. B**b job? Shape em and go up or down a size to fit your figure. Injections? A tiny bit so even your friends and family think you look great but can't quite put their finger on why. I laugh so often at all these BBLS and wonder what they are all gonna do when the new beauty standard/trend is flat a**es or rail thin. DONT GET SURGERY BASED ON TRENDS!Long beards on men.
Those absurdly long finger nails some women love to have, to the point they have problems even using a phone or writingThe common beauty standard around Asia is really weird to me - skeletor skinny, sickly pale, and timid. I've seen girls avoid eating, wear hats, masks, jackets, and pants in super hot weather to avoid sunlight, and cover their face in countless different skin cremes. Most of them would be beautiful if they ate something and got some sun though. Doesn't help that family members make disparaging comments with even the slightest bit of weight gain or tanning.What ever the Kardashian aesthetic is.
Pencil thin drawn on eyebrows
Face tattoos
Sociopathic behaviorNoticeable plastic surgery. It just makes me sad to see.It’s not that I find it unattractive but I do not understand the intense hype over tall men. I am way more into average to short dudes.I grew up in the 90s, women with no thighs or butt, and large often fake breasts, were the pinnacle of the playboy franchise. I adopted this standard of beauty as a young man. I now love a naturally curvaceous woman. I want to make it clear women of all shapes and sizes I can see beauty in. I feel bad for those who alter their appearance to fit the aesthetic of anytime. Finally personality is sooo important. A “stunner” can alienate themselves with a bad attitude. An “average” person can impress with a smile.High heels, especially stilettos. I just find them extremely unattractive. Maybe it's the implied vanity at the cost of foot health and comfort but I just find it yucky.There's a trend in female Kpop idols (I'm not sure if it's in South Korean culture as a whole--I know idol culture can be magnified quite a bit) to remove the fat from their cheeks, so their faces don't look so round and "fat". Every single woman I've seen do it goes from looking gorgeous to looking vaguely alien. The round face seems to be seriously looked down upon, which is a damn shame.The frozen look - which might look nice for posed selfies, but in person there’s a real uncanny valley feeling about it.
Seeing young women, especially in their early 20s getting botox in their foreheads is so unnecessary and strange looking.The current trend of thick, strong eyebrows on people who weren't born with eyebrows like that. Lily Collins, Brooke Shields, etc - YES. Everyone else - NO.Women pulling their tongs and swimming underwear way up the waistline to look sexy, while in no world do I find this provocative and it's just weird and exaggeratedYouth. The standard of beauty is young people at the peak of their development. I don't find that attractive.Button and ski slope noses. Give me some Roman chonkers.Tats and face piercings -- especially nose rings. I mean, of all your facial features, why do you want the most attention to be on your nostrils?People who watch makeup videos and try to over contour their face and then don't blend it well. When people do that on videos it is so much product and looks decent in pics but from what I have seen in person it does not translate well. The stuff is so thick I can't image the amount of remover it takes to get off the face. It also looks so damn fake in person.Easy on the eyebrow shaping please
