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upworthy

beauty standards

@chrissyjpowers/TikTok

This guy gets it.

One woman was so floored by her husband's kind and poignant words regarding the unfair beauty standards women continue to endure that she decided to record them. And people can’t get enough of the clip.

“Tell me what you just said, it was so brilliant,” says Chrissy Powers in her TikTok video. “I just looked at a picture of ... Jennifer Lopez. And I said, ‘How does she look that good at 50 something?’ And you said ...”

“I said she spends millions of dollars on herself to look like that ... That's the problem with patriarchal culture,” he responds before diving into an incredibly insightful, totally uplifting speech.

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Pop Culture

TikTok's scarily precise, too-real beauty filter has people rightfully freaked

Women should not feel 'devastated' by their real faces, yet here we are.

The Bold Glamour filter on TikTok takes social media filters to a whole other level.

First, allow me to introduce myself—and my "Bold Glamour" alter-ego—via TikTok:

Freaky, right?

Normally, I'm good with the way my face looks. (One of the gifts of your late 40s is fully embracing your face in all its glory.) But I was surprised to find that the longer I used that filter, the more…well, homely my real face started to feel. There's just no way for my real face to compare to the model-like one in that video, because this filter isn't just a faux makeup job. It basically gave me plastic surgery, botox and a Photoshop airbrush to boot, and as overdone as it is, looking in the mirror after making that video really did trigger some insecurities about my real face that I didn't think I had.

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Photo by Trevor Buntin on Unsplash

My daughter asking me why I wear makeup led to big conversations about beauty.

"Mommy, why do you wear makeup?"

I don't remember how old my first daughter was when she asked me that question, but I do remember feeling unprepared for it. Such a simple and reasonable question seems like it should have a simple and reasonable answer, but as I looked at her young face, I thought about how my answer could shape her entire view of women and beauty and her own self-image.

The full truth of why I wear makeup is complicated, as I'm sure it is for most women. I started wearing makeup mainly to cover up acne as a teen, but I remember being younger and feeling intrigued by eye makeup on magazine models. I started to mess around around with eye shadow and eye liner because it was fun to "paint" my face.

I like wearing makeup and always have. It truly can be fun, but I'd be fooling myself to believe that societal standards of beauty don't also play a significant role in my choices now. I wear makeup because it makes me feel prettier and more "put together," even when it's just a quick five-minute routine. It makes my skin look better and brighter and it brings out my eyes. I think of it as enhancing my beauty rather than creating it.

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Bridgerton actor Nicola Coughlan in 2021.

The internet, for all its many wondrous things, can also be a cesspool of body-shaming, both outright and insidious. We see this most persistently perhaps with celebrities, who take on the role of dissection subjects regarding their weight. Whether being deemed “too thin” or “too fat,” comments about a public figure’s weight seems acceptable to some, simply because they signed up to be in the spotlight. But our better judgment knows this is not the case.

Nicola Coughlan, who plays the plot pivotal role of Penelope Featherington on the hit Netflix show “Bridgerton,” is no stranger to being inundated with this type of harmful, completely unnecessary feedback from fans.

So much so, that she recently posted her own truly heartfelt plea to her Instagram, asking for people to stop commenting on her body. Though we've seen multiple celebrities justifiably speak out against this, it’s hard not to be moved by her words in a whole new way.
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