Do You Compromise Your Principles for Beauty?
By Kate Sullivan, Allure magazine
I just read a great essay on Salon about an organic makeup-wearing, yoga-practicing mom, who despite knowing about the risks, fell in love with the formaldehyde-loaded Brazilian Blowout. The writer, Jessica Berger Gross, called the treatment her "tiny hypocrisy."
The BB went against her otherwise holistic way of living-and also betrayed her feminist sensibilities (she's doing something dangerous just to be prettier) and even made her feel like she was abandoning her Jewish heritage by eliminating her Jewish curls. But the allure of easy-to-manage hair was strong-and the results were beautiful. Berger Gross had a hard time pulling away, even after the Canadian government issued a safety warning against the treatment. (She lives in Vancouver.)
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In the end, she opts out of future Brazilian Blowouts for her son. "I can't stop thinking about countless women-the mothers, including my husband's mother-who've lost their lives to cancer," she writes. It's easy for us to think she made the right call because her health was at risk. But there are plenty of other beauty services and habits that women are embarrassed about of that aren't dangerous-just uncomfortable compromises of ideals. Should we be quitting those too?
I hate to admit this: I'm an occasional arm shaver. I did it more in college than I do now, but it still gets my goat, because: A. I feel like it shouldn't be a thing and B. I'm not even exceptionally hairy. If I was, maybe I could make peace with this practice. So why do I still go back to a treatment I'm loathe to admit to? Because I like how it looks and feels.
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Recently, I drew a line in the sand and decided that arm-shaving was not part of who I wanted to be. Still, every time I'm holding a razor, there's a face-off: this belief vs. my past behavior. Often the belief wins, but sometimes it doesn't.
On a similar note, whenever I read an interview with an actress who I'm almost sure has had Botox or a nose job where she says she thinks that cosmetic procedures are wrong-I don't always think she's lying. I usually think that she's conflicted. You can love the destination, and not the road you took to get there.
Does anyone else struggle with this? What's your most embarrassing-or compromising-beauty routine?
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
