The true price of beauty today
By Anne Davey, Opinion Editor //
In 2014, global beauty sales topped $416 billion. According to FashionInvesting, the Western Hemisphere accounts for the majority of the consumers, but India and Asia are not far behind. While the beauty industry includes things like shampoo and body lotion, the main component of this economic sector is makeup. The makeup industry giant MAC sells one lipstick and one eye shadow every two seconds, while Sephora, another industry leader makes over $636 million in revenue annually.
Makeup itself is a practice as old as the ancient Egyptians. It is our new fangled obsession that has implications for women across the globe that took this tool and morphed it into something scarier. Once a tool used to simply add color and show social status, makeup is a global phenomenon and almost a requisite in modern society. While the industry booms, women across the world becoming increasingly dependent, vain and self-conscious.
Women across the globe are spending at an ever increasing rate on products designed to make them… what? What purpose does this obsession with makeup really serve? There are products designed to make skin tighter, to make us look younger, to make eyes brighter, to make pores smaller and to blur imperfections. But really, at the end of the day, these products speak to our insecurities. They fabricate flaws and call attention to areas where there may not have been an issue before. Longer eyelashes, perfect skin, more defined cheekbones…no young girl looks in the mirror and wants these things. Rather, our insecurities are manufactured by a world with false beauty standards, an industry constantly morphing the image of the ideal woman to maximize profits and increase revenue.
Recently an article went viral that chronicled the story of a college woman who went without makeup for a year. This was a shocking notion for our generation, her story a powerful one of self-confidence and inner beauty. The notion that someone going without makeup for an extended period of time was newsworthy and even horrifying to some speaks to the deep seeded insecurities that stem from this powerful industry. While makeup can indeed be wonderful, its important to think about how we see ourselves, not just how we think we need to be seen.
Commercials designed to make us feel flawed for things we never considered an issue need to be taken at face value; they are simply ads designed to sell a silly product for a company to make money. The fact that this industry preys on young women and girls is also something to be considered, the implications of their words and targeted campaigns have a greater effect than can be readily measured. Its not dollars earned, products sold or new tools released that matters, rather it is the negative effect these products are having on the women who’s lives and appearances they claim to help.