The change in the beauty game.
By: Saujanya S
Tags: Influencers, Beauty Standards, Body Positive, Self Love

When we wake up on a work-free Sunday morning, what is the first thing we do? That’s right. We check our phones! Even though we’ve read countless articles on the internet and forward messages in our family group that say “Looking at your phone immediately after you wake up can destroy your life!”, we still do that, don’t we? We start a brand new day by mindlessly scrolling through Instagram to see how everyone’s living their lives. But the thing we look at most are the influencers — humans who have porcelain skin, perfectly toned bodies, chiseled jawlines and picture-perfect lives.

Photo by Plann from Pexels

If you’re active on social media, there is no way you would have missed the Kardashian-Jenner clan. They are the OG influencers who have had a massive role in shaping the beauty standards of today. They have millions of followers and let’s face it, the effect that they have on us is ginormous to say the least. Not a day goes by without reading an article in Buzzfeed that’s an exposé of their photoshopped posts or the problematic products they endorse. Now there are countless celebrity influencers, fashion bloggers and beauty gurus on every social media platform, who post “a day in their life” that’s just full of glitz and glam, not to forget, their diet, workout and skincare routine.

We all know that the glamorous life they have on display is far from reality. Even then, we somehow still feel the need to be like them — to have an immaculate lifestyle and a body sculpted like the Greek Gods. That doesn’t end here. You cannot scroll through Instagram without seeing an influencer trying to sell something, be it a product or a lifestyle. For major brands, tie-ups with celebrity influencers have become an essential part of their marketing strategy. For companies to sell their products, they need to create demand. What better way to sell a product than by creating a little bit of insecurity in people? Every time you log into any social media platform you unlock a new insecurity. I didn’t know I had a “hip dip’’ until I saw an ad for waist pads to hide them. I didn’t know that I had to have a gap between my thighs, or that there was a particular way to smile to look pretty! Companies sell these borderline bizarre products by preying on our insecurities. They sell appetite suppressant lollipops to tuck the tummy in, lip plumpers to make lips look juicy, and many other things. And the reality is, even though we don’t need all that, we still buy them, because if Kylie Jenner said that her lips look irresistible because of her lip kit, then it must be true, right?

Photo by Apostolos Vamvouras on Unsplash

There is this small voice in our brain that trumps the logical part when it comes to our body. It always says, “If the company claims that these products work, what is the harm in trying? The models look pretty, maybe I will too”. But what the small voice in our brains doesn’t tell us is that the models will look pretty even without them and so will we! When it comes to our bodies, we always listen to the small voice, because that’s how we’ve been conditioned.

However, recently this trend is changing and also for the better. The beauty industry is no longer just about being thin, fair and blue-eyed. We are all sick and tired of celebrities and companies trying to push for an ideal that’s impossible to achieve. To say the truth, no one wants to look like carbon copies of Barbie dolls anymore. Barbie is now producing dolls that look like real people! Everyone’s beauty is unique in its own way and people have started to realize it and are very vocal about it too. Everyone is pushing towards authenticity on social media. Nowadays, there is a steady rise in body positive influencers who actively advocate for embracing the human body in all shapes and sizes. Instead of heavily photoshopping their pictures, a lot of influencers talk about bloating, puffiness, acne, stretch marks, cellulite, skin tone and everything else that’s made us insecure before.

It doesn’t end here. People are now actively calling out brands, celebrities and companies that sell or push toxic and outdated products and ideals that shame bodies. The company “Fair And Lovely” that was notoriously famous for perpetuating the idea that “fair is beautiful” for decades, faced enormous retaliation for it. Because of it, they changed their brand name to “Glow and Lovely” and actively changed its marketing narrative to avoid promoting this destructive beauty standard. This means there won’t be ads telling you that you’ll ace your interview if you become light skinned. You can also get a job if you have dark skin. Yay for that!

So many brands have now included plus-size models and people of colour in their campaigns. The one who made an everlasting impact on the beauty industry is the legendary singer Rihanna. Her cosmetic line Fenty Beauty focused on a wide range of traditionally hard-to-match skin tones. Her foundation had 50 shades and revolutionized the beauty industry by offering a wide range of choices for women of colour when previously the industry only offered choices to people who were fair. Savage x Fenty, Rihanna’s lingerie brand, included plus-size models and people of colour for its clothing. Fenty Beauty changed the game by introducing models of all skin tones and every other industry followed suit soon after.

Not long ago, our Pinterest boards were filled with “thinspo” or “thinspiration” pins. There were a lot of feature photos, blog posts, diet and exercise instructions, and inspirational messages devoted to the pursuit of thinness. Now, Pinterest has become the first social media service to ban all weight-loss products from being advertised on its platform. The new ban goes several steps beyond that by prohibiting any weight-loss language or imagery, testimonials about weight loss and references to body mass index, or BMI, among other content.

Another great step to fight social media’s problem with unrealistic beauty standards was taken by the Norway government. They made it illegal for influencers to share retouched photos of their body in promotional posts on social media, without acknowledging the image has been edited.

Photo by Antonius Ferret from Pexels

The real question is, are these steps effective in dissolving deeply rooted body and beauty standards or are they just band-aids trying to fix bullet holes? While it’s obvious that these measures cannot completely “fix” or solve body image issues, they are still amazing steps towards the goal. We are consciously moving towards self-love and body positivity by acknowledging the toxicity of these impossible standards. Even though these are only baby steps, they are helping us be kind to everyone and most importantly, ourselves. So let’s celebrate all victories even if they are tiny ones. I, for one, am elated that all body types and skin colours are now represented in mainstream media. Just because we still have a long way to go, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t applaud how long we’ve come. This shift in the beauty game has now given us the liberty to express and love ourselves without fear of judgement and the stigma surrounding our bodies, and that is a tremendous achievement.

The concept that “beauty standards change with time” has become outdated. Now it’s more about “you are beautiful no matter what decade we are in”. We have been in conflict with our bodies for very long and now it’s time to make peace with it. Like Camila Cabello said, “Being at war with your body is so last season.”

It’s high time we accept and love ourselves fiercely, because that’s what we deserve!