What is Beauty?

The Evolution of Beauty

There is a Photoshop how-to book on plastic surgery I browsed through once. How to make eyes bigger, how to make eyelashes longer, skin clearer/darker/lighter/etc., how to make breasts bigger and waists smaller. How to give someone six-pack abs.

My cousin had a friend who was getting married and sent one of those invitations that included a photo of the happy couple. My cousin's sister (who is also my cousin, incidentally) mentioned that the bride-to-be was pretty. When I looked at the photo, I saw a too-thin girl with a long nose. A girl wearing eye makeup that didn't suit her, a girl whose smile was contrived and unnatural. The girl wasn't ugly, but I didn't think "pretty" would have been the right word to describe her.

Perhaps my standard of beauty is different from my cousin's, and I am by no means a judge of beauty, but it seemed strange to me to call the bride-to-be "pretty".

For some reason I tend to tie (or at least try to) personality to physical attractiveness. There are some relatively physically attractive people in the world who are selfish, who hate. People who aren't kind. And that reason alone keeps them from being beautiful in my eyes.