How Does Where You Live Shape Beauty Standards?
Blonde in LA, Balayaged in Newport, Bare Faced in Vermont
I started this thread a few days ago and wanted to chat more about how where you live shapes beauty standards. Share your thoughts in the comments.
The first time I realized how much where I lived impacted how I felt about beauty was right after I left Los Angeles (the first time). I lived in LA twice, once during a brief stint in acting school (college years) and then again in my late 20s. To put it bluntly, there was no place I lived where I was more unhappy with myself than LA, and I didn’t realize it until I left.
I thought about things like getting a nose job. I looked in the mirror and didn’t really like what I saw. After leaving LA I lived in New York City before moving back to Rhode Island. I felt a different kind of pressure in New York, spending money I didn’t have on blowouts and expensive haircuts. When I moved back to Rhode Island, the focus turned more to highlighted hair and a nice tan (for the summer).
Four and a half years ago when we moved to Vermont I was surprised by how the beauty standards impacted me, in a completely different way than anywhere else I had ever lived.
So many women (of all ages) had gray hair. Most wore no makeup. Their faces had lines on them, and freckles, and sun spots. People had real teeth, sometimes crooked, mostly not super white. There were lots of hairy legs and underarms, nails without polish or manicures. It was so fucking liberating. I had never lived anywhere with people who looked so human.
And slowly it started to impact me, not just in my behaviors, but how I saw myself. I stopped worrying about the lines on my face or if my legs were shaved. I didn’t care about leaving the house without makeup. I mostly stopped wearing it. I went from using 8-10 skincare products to washing my face with water and putting on some moisturizer. My bi-weekly mani/pedis turned into short unpainted fingernails.
Not only did I get back so much of the time I had spent on my appearance, but maybe more significantly was the realization that none of it resulted in more self-love or inner peace. When I stopped giving a shit about the wrinkles on my face and the hair on my legs I gained something far more valuable— deeper connections, meaningful experiences, and more self-love than I’ve ever had in my life. No beauty product or procedure could ever compete with that.
I know this conversation is far more nuanced, there’s age, intersectionality, economic factors, how we interact with digital media, cultural norms, and more. I want to hear your thoughts and perspectives.
How does where you live influence how you feel about beauty—and yourself?
I feel like one of the good things about the internet is being able to cultivate some degree of this for ourselves! I follow mostly gardening accounts and I've never cared less about my nails. But I mostly really notice it as far as the bodies I follow. When I see diverse bodies in my feed looking beautiful and confident, it goes a long way toward finding the beauty in my own. Sometimes (since I've curated my feed) I'll catch myself out of the blue thinking something nice about my soft lil tummy or hips and be like wow we've come a long way!
I know so many people feel more pressure to look perfect when they live in Paris, but I feel the exact opposite. I feel less pressure to look perfect and more freedom to look like me. There’s a certain sensual beauty here that can only come from authenticity.