Pretty Please

I know some women who say, "I want the natural look, no make-up for me" and yet others who can't make a move without their bottles of cosmetics or injections of various skin aids. It hasn't anything to do with attracting anyone, it has to do with personal need. Everyone desires to be good looking. Well, as much as possible. Amongst women that I am aware of, there are few, if any, who don't put some effort into looking their best. While they may not use injected substances or apply colour to achieve that end, they do something. Those who leave their hair "natural" use conditioners or get special cuts or that natural and rather horrible product that turns grey or white hair into a rusty hue that bespeaks old hair. Face products are always used, perhaps not to add colour but to deter dryness or give shine. No woman or man can truly say "it's just soap and water for me". Then we come to those who love lip and nail colour and here's where the palette is vast. And really, none of it is worth fretting about. These days of joyful choices in shades and a certain rebellious feeling of abandonment of former rigid "rules", we see in magazines, boisterous glitter, lethal lashes, slashing brows and eyelids that can't possibly blink, lips that defy reality and fingernails that couldn't do a lick of housework.  Faces seeking their "natural" look can find any number of products in ranges to fit any skin tone. And what is the harm in it? People who shake their heads at making up,  trip off to Africa or India and other exotic locales, whose history is embellished with body painting, tattooing, and coloured make-up of all sorts and find it intriguing entertainment. In these societies, "make-up" is largely what we use it for today: attention getting. A kind of look-at-me,-here-I-am. Whether for religious or warring purposes in the past or merely as pure decoration, depends upon the user. In trying to look our best, we want to be "the prettiest one of all" just the same motive as Snow White's stepmother sought. Why? Pretty is success. It's a hard fact for the plainer folk that most of us are, to accept that fact. Everyone wants to look upon something beautiful. Be it our politicians or actors or musicians, we all admire beauty. It's a natural need similar to seeking pretty views of sunsets or forest glades or sea waves. The achievers in our societies are people who, from their earliest days, inspired admiration. "What a beautiful baby". "Isn't he or she cute?" Who got the dates, who got away with everything more than others, who got the jobs first, who became prom queen or king, who were the TV faces chosen, who rose to the heights? Not the homely, unkempt ones. And the worst of it is that males are forgiven their sometimes flawed appearances and called "interesting" or "of character", while women of that ilk are turned away and given unkind names. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" we are told. That eye usually doesn't want to look on something plain or just plain ugly.  The "eye" of every beholder, discriminates and almost always chooses "pretty" - just as we all do.