Manufacturing Ideas of Beauty

The beautiful have always had it luckier than the rest. Their very state of being "beautiful" is an indication that they were lucky enough to be at the very intersection of space and time when their features met the reigning standards of beauty.

It is awfully hard to figure out if our modern standards of beauty are biological or have evolved through a lifetime of social indoctrination. A common method would be to look at the standards of beauty through generations and see which features have persisted, or look across cultures and look for the common indicators of beauty. These indicators would most likely be biological, while the culture-specific would vary. Another way would be to study children before they have reached the age of indoctrination, and somehow tap into their idea of beautiful and ugly.

This is what researchers have been doing for decades now, and they have come up with some findings which are not conclusive but give us a general direction. But I wish to move away from away from the evolutionary underpinnings of beauty, and focus on the market factors, as they seem to play a large part in our ideas of beauty, and unlike our primal instincts, are almost in our control. (For the sake of simplicity and being hopeful, I refuse to consider a world where fads evolve with no control by the humans whose activities created them.)

It is important to understand the factors that affect our concept of beauty, because it is a fundamental and pervasive idea that almost directly affects the human psyche. Research – and you can back it up with anecdotal experience – has shown that the good-looking do have it easier in life. They get paid more and are on average more successful than the rest. It makes complete sense to seek to understand why the beautiful are "beautiful." But what if you could dictate beauty standards? 

The cosmetics industry, like any good industry, has tapped into this to create massive demands. With sales of over $63 billion in the European Union alone, it has an unparalleled presence in the marketplace. And having saturated wealthy Western markets, they have moved on to conquer the developing countries.

We need to understand the immense power that the cosmetics industry has over the public. There is a feedback effect that complicates the idea of beauty. What you see around you helps create a concept of beauty in your head. You then embrace those ideas, which leads to their persistence. Thus if someone can control what you see, they become the power brokers, and possess enough influence to change the lives of billions.

Article Author: Priyank Chandra

Engineer. Economist. Teacher.
With an interest in psychology, sociology, mythology, technology, obscure movies and music, environment and writing.

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