Perception of Beauty
By Adriana Ortega
 
¨You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older¨ Anouk Aimee
 
I have volunteered for Beauty Night for 2 months; it’s been a life-changing experience. I have learned about patience, compassion, respect, empathy and so many other things more than I have in my whole life. Every Tuesday, I apply make up to our participants. Today, I had to apply make up to this beautiful women in her late 40´s or early 50´s. She asked me some tips about make up because she was looking for a job and wanted to know how she could look better and more presentable.
 
As I started talking to her, she tells me how hard has been to find a job for people her age, and even though she has all the energy to work, employers only want to hire young people.She tells me she is old and not pretty anymore. As I listen, I cant help thinking that sadly, most of the time this is true, but what it really hits me is to see how she actually believed she wasn’t beautiful anymore, and she was.
 
All the marketing and propaganda around us has made us believe that ¨beauty¨ is something that comes with ¨youth¨ and specific stereotypes; skinny, tall, perfect nose, perfect hair, etc., and there is nothing further from the truth. If you pay attention to all the ads, not only do they always use perfect photoshopped women, but always say things like ¨younger beautiful skin¨, ¨look 10 years younger and beautiful¨. The list is endless. As soon as you get older you automatically stop being beautiful. I see every day how those companies and products that claim to give us that ¨self confidence¨ are the ones that took it away from us in the first place.
 
All this makes me think about how we perceive beauty and how mistaken this perception is most of the time. Wouldn’t it be so much better if instead of saying things like ¨I want to look younger¨, we said ¨I want to age beautifully¨? or those ads instead of saying ¨Look younger and beautiful¨ said, ¨Look gorgeous at your age?¨ And that we started to appreciate beauty in all her forms and ages?
 
How would the world be if only we accepted and realized that each and every one of us are beautiful in our own and unique way? If only we didn´t let anybody else put us down and make us believe we are not beautiful and important? If only we respected other´s uniqueness, regardless of their age, origin and beliefs?