The Ed.
Well-Known Member
Barely a day goes by at Salon Geek HQ when I don't come across an article (as I spend hours trawling and researching!) that lays some of the blame at the (beautifully manicured) feet of the beauty industry for making women feel insecure. With a huff and a puff...I'm blowing this theory down.
As an industry, we can sometimes find ourselves lumped together with the media, TV, film and fashion industries and propagated as tyrants in the modern world with one objective: to make real people feel bad about themselves. Its not fair, nor is it true, but often the beauty industry can come under fire for offering up unreasonable and unrealistic standards of beauty.
Here at Salon Geek HQ we can get quite passionate about this debate. The simple fact is that we provide a service to support men and women in their quest for whatever they believe is beautiful. We dont tell them what to do. We do not define what is beautiful. We may advise them when requested but we see our role as one of mediation and possibility. We are here to work with women and men, not against them. We work to make women and men feel beautiful in their own skin according to their own preferences, not ours. Our aim as beauty therapists is to make the most of everyones natural beauty according to their own wishes.
We do not deny that we work largely with an exterior beauty but why is there a belief amongst our critics that exterior and interior beauties are dependent on each other and that we are responsible for both? Just because someone maybe knock-out beautiful doesnt mean that they must be ugly on the inside. Just because some people go to beauty salons to be waxed, buffed and blow-dried does not mean they are superficial.
Those that criticize our industry seem to think that we believe only in the importance of exterior beauty. In fact, the opposite is true: it is because of what we do that we are in the perfect position to understand that inner-beauty is the only real truth. We do exactly what we say on the tin: we work with men and women to make them achieve a level of external beauty that they want as individuals. In doing so we enhance confidence, strength and self-belief.
If only we had the power to influence internal beauty in the way that the critics suggest! We wish we could make all men and women beautiful on the inside too. In fact, most of them already are. Those that arent well, we can hardly take the blame for that, right?
*steps down from soapbox*
Until then...geek on!
The Ed.
As an industry, we can sometimes find ourselves lumped together with the media, TV, film and fashion industries and propagated as tyrants in the modern world with one objective: to make real people feel bad about themselves. Its not fair, nor is it true, but often the beauty industry can come under fire for offering up unreasonable and unrealistic standards of beauty.
Here at Salon Geek HQ we can get quite passionate about this debate. The simple fact is that we provide a service to support men and women in their quest for whatever they believe is beautiful. We dont tell them what to do. We do not define what is beautiful. We may advise them when requested but we see our role as one of mediation and possibility. We are here to work with women and men, not against them. We work to make women and men feel beautiful in their own skin according to their own preferences, not ours. Our aim as beauty therapists is to make the most of everyones natural beauty according to their own wishes.
We do not deny that we work largely with an exterior beauty but why is there a belief amongst our critics that exterior and interior beauties are dependent on each other and that we are responsible for both? Just because someone maybe knock-out beautiful doesnt mean that they must be ugly on the inside. Just because some people go to beauty salons to be waxed, buffed and blow-dried does not mean they are superficial.
Those that criticize our industry seem to think that we believe only in the importance of exterior beauty. In fact, the opposite is true: it is because of what we do that we are in the perfect position to understand that inner-beauty is the only real truth. We do exactly what we say on the tin: we work with men and women to make them achieve a level of external beauty that they want as individuals. In doing so we enhance confidence, strength and self-belief.
If only we had the power to influence internal beauty in the way that the critics suggest! We wish we could make all men and women beautiful on the inside too. In fact, most of them already are. Those that arent well, we can hardly take the blame for that, right?
*steps down from soapbox*
Until then...geek on!
The Ed.