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There is only ONE beauty secret!!!Part One
Is there truly only ONE beauty secret? Throughout history and through a cross-section of cultures, women have transformed their appearances to conform to a beauty ideal. In ancient China aristocratic women bound their feet as a show of femininity. American and European women in the 1800s cinched in their waists so tightly it sometimes resulted in internal damage. In some cultures women stretch their ear lobes to ridiculous lengths or place metal rings on their necks and permanently deform the bones in their shoulders. They were all looking for a beauty secret to enhance their attractiveness.
Beauty does at times seem to vary from culture to culture, with current western standards of beauty emphasising a toned, slender look, exuding fitness, youth, and health. However, there appear to be some universals in beauty. For instance, unlike the rest of the animal kingdom (where males are the beautiful ones), with humans the focus of beauty has always fallen upon women's faces and bodies and this is so in all cultures – it is more important for women to be beautiful.
Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Recent research suggests no, that ideals of human attractiveness may already come ‘hard-wired” into the human brain. That, in fact, we have a built in “template” of beauty by which we judge the attractiveness of others. However, you are not the best judge of your own beauty. In fact, contrary to popular opinion, you are more likely to over-rate your looks than under-rate them (unless you are one of the beautiful people, where your judgement about other’s perceptions of your physical attractiveness will usually be correct). Neither are your friends the best judges of your beauty. Because they know you, they include other aspects, such as your personality, when judging you. This generally results in them giving you a higher rating. Strangely, the best judges of beauty are complete strangers. Strangers, in not knowing you, are not biased, so they will make a purely physical appraisal, and that appraisal is amazingly consistent among groups. Males and females do agree in their judgements of another person’s physical attractiveness, with research reporting no significant differences between the physical attractiveness ratings given by male and female judges. We all seem to know what is beautiful and also how far an individual deviates from that ideal. (If you are a risk taker and don’t have a fragile ego you can upload a photo of yourself to www.amihotornot.com and strangers will vote on the attractiveness of the photo. If you try a couple of different photos you can get an idea of which of your looks is more attractive. (It can vary quite a bit). If you do this and the results are not what you want, don't beat yourself up. Everything can be improved. However, finding out what other people think of your looks is not the beauty secret I am talking about.
Why is beauty important? People believe that physical attractiveness has no effect on them. They state that physical attractiveness is superficial and peripheral, and that it should not and does not influence our lives. But the research literature provides evidence at odds with this. Studies have shown that people are either not fully aware, or not fully honest, about how important physical attractiveness really is to them. There are great advantages to being beautiful, especially for women. Beautiful women realise there are some definite advantages to their beauty, but they don’t seem to realise how different their lives actually are on a day-to-day basis. An analogy I like to use is that we are surrounded by air, it affects us all but because it has always been there, we simply take it for granted. We only notice it when we are deprived of it. The same goes for beautiful people and their beauty. They take it for granted because their lives have always been that way (though this doesn’t mean their lives are always blissful). There was a wonderful scene in the American television series ‘Average Joe’ where the very attractive female star is put into a fat suit and her appearance changed to render her unattractive. It was an eye-opener for her when she walked down the street and simply asked people, mainly men, for directions. She was shocked at how rudely the men treated her. Some just ignored her and others made nasty comments. She had never experienced that before. And yet, that may be the common experience of unattractive women and it works both ways. An unattractive woman who, through diet, exercise or cosmetic surgery, changes her appearance for the better will experience a different, better reality...the one that beautiful people take for granted.
I hope the following examples of the power of beauty will also be a bit of an eye-opener for you: • Physically attractive women are more likely to marry. College students were rated for beauty and then followed up several years after graduation. 34% of the beautiful had married, 28% of the good looking, 16% of the plain and 11% of homely • Attractive women are more likely to marry successful men • Adults often treat attractive children differently (usually better) than unattractive ones. • Persons higher in physical attractiveness are perceived to have more positive characteristics overall, as well as happier and more fulfilling lives • Physically attractive persons are perceived to be more intelligent, sensitive, kind, interesting, sociable, and more likely to attend college than their counterparts of low physical attractiveness • The less physically attractive a person is, the less the person is liked • Experimental research shows that persons of higher physical attractiveness receive a significantly greater frequency of positive looks and smiles than do those of lower physical attractiveness • The likelihood of a peer being perceived as mentally disturbed or mentally ill increases as the person’s physical attractiveness decreases • Identical CV’s were sent to personnel offices of major corporations and employment agencies. The only difference in the CV’s was that the applicant’s photo was either high or low in physical attractiveness. The photo was of the same female but a makeup artist enhanced her attractiveness in half of the photos. Those prospective employers who received the CV with the highly attractive photo of the applicant offered starting employment salaries of 8% to 20% more than those salaries offered to the applicants of low physical attractiveness • The more physically attractive persons date more, have more friends, and have happier marriages. They experience less social anxiety, possess and exhibit greater individuality and are better adjusted socially • Both males and females expect those higher in physical attractiveness to do better work than those lower in physical attractiveness. Furthermore, once completed, this work is rated higher than the identical work done by a less physically attractive person • When in need of help highly attractive people receive more help than people of low physical attractiveness • Both for legal crimes and social offences, the physically attractive are treated more leniently, given milder punishment and in civil cases receive more favourable outcomes and receive larger amounts of money. However, the physically attractive are punished more severely for crimes of embezzlement and swindling This list is not exhaustive and there are hundreds of other examples of how beauty benefits those who hold it. Is this the beauty secret? That people will treat you differently if you are beautiful. No, that isn't much of a secret, although beauty has a much greater impact than most people realise. Is it any wonder then that women are willing to consider cosmetic surgery to attain the ideal? Supposedly 90% of cosmetic surgery patients are happy with their surgery, especially if a procedure corrects a feature that has been an issue throughout their life. Cosmetic surgery is useful and can be used to best advantage after you know THE beauty secret but it is not in itself the beauty secret. People often talk of beauty secrets and there are a range of modalities to improve your appearance but there is truly only one underlying beauty secret. An increase in beauty can also confer some of the advantages outlined above. However, it can be very expensive to transform average features into beautiful features.
What you really want to know is 'How to be attractive' and this is really what the beauty secret is all about. In Beauty Secret Part Two I will explain the reason why beauty holds such sway and THE secret of beauty but if you want move on and learn about how to create 'The perfect female body' click
here
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