Guest Blogger: Lizza- COSMETICS AND ADVERTISEMENTS

What Happens to Females Who Buy into Cosmetic

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“Being beautiful is, in American society, the most important role a woman should fulfill.” This concept of women and beauty has been believed for centuries. “Medieval noblewomen swallowed arsenic and dabbed on bats' blood to improve their complexions; 18th-century Americans prized the warm urine of young boys to erase their freckles.”  (How appealing is that?)

Sadly, the above statements are true.  Beauty is considered as essential for women, and women go to great lengths to reach what is viewed by society as the acceptable standard of beauty.  As consumers, females fall victim to marketers’ alluring advertisements. For example, in cosmetic ads, females are portrayed as flawless and confident; their lustrous hair shines and bounces, their faces are blemish and wrinkle free, and their eyelashes extend to their eyebrows.  Therefore, when a person buys the cosmetic products being advertised by these perfect women, they, too, will look perfect after use, right?  Or is it all just a cruel business technique that is used to make money, but diminishes the confidence of females in the process?  

Confidence

Confidence is defined as “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities.”  Through this definition, it becomes apparent that beauty is one of those qualities that individuals have to appreciate about themselves in order to feel fully confident. So in essence, it makes sense why marketers would specifically target females with their cosmetic ads.  They are simply trying to help boost females’ confidence by “showing them” what their magical cosmetic products can do to enhance the females’ physical appearance. This is what they would say (how kind of them!), but, studies have shown quite the opposite effect.

It has been observed that over 40% of females feel self-conscious after viewing an advertisement.  That is close to half the population of females.  Many argue that the other 60% must just be confident enough for it to not take a toll on them, meaning that the 40% already had issues with lack of confidence and insecurity beforehand, so that’s why they feel that way.  However, in actuality, for the other 60% who do not report having feelings of self-consciousness, it has been proven that “advertising’s influence on women is quick, it’s cumulative, and for the most part, it’s subconscious. ”Therefore, females’ confidence is constantly in jeopardy with more than half of them not even recognizing the lack of it in themselves until it is too late.

Fake, but still Real

These statistics can also be likened to the idea that most females these days are aware of the airbrushing aspect of advertisements, but that has obviously not helped with the decrease of confidence females experience when they see these ads. Even though they are aware that the perfection they are seeing is fake, that does not stop them from feeling envious and wondering why they never look that good.

Even I, myself, sit there in jealousy of the Pantene girl’s gorgeous hair and wonder why my ten years of using Pantene has never resulted in such beautiful locks. It’s a normal thing to do. It’s human nature to compare ourselves to others.

False Expectations

I recently had a cousin who saw a commercial for acne cream that supposedly cleared your skin of any blemish within seconds of applying it. Celebrities even testified of its miraculous power in diminishing all marks from their face at an incredible rate, and beautiful girls were shown washing their faces and smiling as they dried them off to find perfectly smooth skin.

 I laughed at my cousin when she said she wanted to buy it and told her that these were all airbrushed people who were saying these things to sell the product to people who would believe it, such as herself, apparently. She responded by telling me that she was aware of that, but she would be grateful for any difference it made in her skin.  

It turned out that this product, in order to get rid of all blemishes, first brought all blemishes to the surface.  Thus, after only one application, my cousin’s acne was ten times worse, making her look like a pepperoni pizza.  When she called me on the phone, crying, her words were “Why did it do this to me, but not to the people on the commercial?  I guess I’m just not as pretty as them!”  

As illustrated in the above story, advertisements create false expectations in females that cause them to question their own beauty. People in the advertising business would try to justify this by saying that they make it known on their advertisements that airbrushing and enhancement techniques were used.  But take a look at the mascara ad below.  Yes, it declares that she is using lash inserts, but look how small and unnoticeable that part is.  Do they really expect this to help females recognize the unrealistic beauty in the ad and stop false expectations from being created?

Poison to the Brain

Experts have explained that the minds of young females are “more malleable and impressionable” than those of older females, so even when they know that advertisements are airbrushed and enhanced, the constant exposure to these ads tells their minds that this is how they should look, and if they don’t, then there is something wrong with them.  It becomes psychologically abusive.

 It’s things like this that directly correlate with lack of confidence in females, and it applies to females of all ages. It’s not always just an issue with lack of confidence either.  For some females, the loss of confidence can lead to more serious issues like eating disorders, depression, and even obsession with want of cosmetic surgeries.  Females are literally suffering because of these cunning cosmetic ads that dance around in their heads and convince them that they are not pretty enough.

Time for a Change

I understand that advertising is a means for making money, but there has to be an alternative that does not end up harming consumers’ confidence, and instead elevates their value and self-worth.  It’s about time to display more honesty in the marketing world so that the customer does not build up unrealistic expectations, only to be disappointed. Right now it’s all just a deceptive game with too many players getting hurt.  Have cosmetic companies and their advertising cohorts really become so wrapped up in the pursuit of money that they don’t care to think about the well-being of their customers?