Where’s Natural Beauty Gone?

Where’s Natural Beauty Gone?

These days, seeing thin/slim models on billboards, adverts in shop windows, and on TV adverting clothes, you cant escape the bombardment of thin is beautiful and “being thin is better and it makes you happy” message that it portrays.

But recently this hasn’t just been the only thing that I have feel, bombards us women, and men to some extend. I have been watching a lot of TV recently, and the amount of adverts for beauty products to make ourselves better and more appealing I would have said is more bombarding than seeing thin ‘role models’ every day.

The Ads-

Make up ads that include voluming of eyelashes such as the "Max Factor" advert, hair products that includes hair dye, hair volume shampoo, hair spray that reduces frizz, and of course all the waxing adverts, such as "Veet" , "Garnier" , "L'Oreal" , and "Maybelline", I find makes me less inclined to buy them, even with Cheryl Cole or Kate Moss saying they work wonders.  

 All these types of ads I am fed up of seeing. I know most people would just tell me to not watch it if I hate it that much, or just change the channel, but looking more closely, I realised what all this beauty advertising was doing.

By adverting to maximise the thickness of your eyelashes, dying your hair for more bright and healthy look, making it look like you have more head hair, getting rid of curls or frizz, and of course having no hairs on any hairy part of your body, is basically what they are trying to make one do by advertising these types of products.

Not just this is an issue, but all these things is making us change ourselves just to be within the category of beautiful, or how I see it, as everyone else.

That massive point of time when hair straighteners banged out onto the high street, and every teenager wanted them for Christmas. Is that meaning that retailers and hair companies want every woman to have straight and thin hair? 

 The stupid thing is, that you have so many hair products that say to maximise your hair, and yet others totally contradict that and say to minimise it. Hair straighteners and so many hair shampoos and hair sprays after washing your hair, reduces volume and frizz of the hair. And somehow the only way to have volume is by using a crap load of hairspray, products like matt clay or wax, or backcombing your hair.  What is wrong with leaving your hair to go it’s own natural way?

As for hair dying, well, I do realise that hair dying is a way of expressing one’s self, for instance people who have purple or blue hair, but dying one’s hair a natural colour like a lighter shade of brunette, when you already have brown hair is silly. Just wait for the summer, you will get natural highlights sitting in the sun for free. The same with dying hair blonde, lets face it, dyed blonde will never look as natural and good as natural blonde hair. But again, what is wrong with your natural hair colour?

 Making your face more noticeable with the entire make up is also silly. I do realise the reason we wear lipstick and lipglosses, is to make our lips redder. From this, more appealing towards men as it appears we are in heat (if you want to go back into human history). That makes sense to me.

As for the eyelashes and eyebrows, well…. First the eyelashes. Piling on the mascara to thicken, lengthen and maximise eyelash length, width and other things, I feel is just silly too. Yes a bit of mascara especially for pale lashed women to brighten up the eyes agreed, but all the lashes everywhere, some look like dragqueen lashes, bigger than the actual eye itself. As for fake eyelashes, well that’s worse. Having bigger lashes, more lashes and thicker lashes aren’t going to get you noticed, or if it does, it’ll be in the wrong way. What’s wrong with the eyelashes you have anyway? 

 Same with eyebrows, the ‘in’ eyebrows are either thin or thick and bushy. I agree keep them neat, but drawing on your own eyebrows every morning in pencil… that looks weird and again, fake. What’s wrong with the natural curvature of your eyebrows anyway? 

I have nothing wrong with keeping yourself looking neat, tidy, pretty and wanting to look more attractive, but in my eyes, buying all this product to make one’s self look more attractive, and what is seen as ‘better’, I feel is totally the opposite. Is the plain palette on one’s face not enough? Is the natural colour of your hair, skin and lips not attractive enough, or how the hair on your brow, eyelids and head not growing in the correct way?

Beauty products, hair, skin whatever else you name it, is to enhance yourself and supposedly make yourselves look better than you already are. In doing so, making you feel that what you start off with before slapping on all the stuff, is not attractive. This results in one needing to use these products.

All I can say is, as long as one’s hair is clean and not greesy, combed and tidy, with no split ends, surely that’s all that matters? Same for the appearance, as long as someone’s face is well presented, clean and fresh looking, there is no need for covering the face up with make up surely?

What happened to natural beauty?

For example, whenever I see a woman with really curly hair, I think “good on her” because she hasn’t gone out of her way to purposely get straight hair and look like everyone else. This is the same if I see someone with no make up, which is rare I must admit.

Art-

Looking at portrait photographers, who take pictures of people in their natural state, show how beautiful people are naturally without photoshopping, airbrushing and more importantly no products used.

An article in the daily mail the other week showed a series of pictures of a woman with different stages of make up on. Despite the article being about how much make up a women’s husband found attractive on her, it was very inspiring to see the differences between how much make up she wore and differences between them all.

I think everyone can agree with me that on everyone there is a limit when make up just gets slutty, trashy and just darn right ridiculous. Her husband preferred the forth picture, dolled up, however I feel that she looks a lot better in the first (no make up), and third image (a night out make up).

Personal Experience-

One of my family members uses so many products on herself its unreal! Fake eyelashes, thick eyeliner, bright red cheek blusher, slightly oranged foundation, with at least three layers of it on her skin. The whole of her dresser at home is full of products for hair, skin and all the rest. It’s mental, its ridiculous.

The funniest thing is that all her friends have seen her like this- piled up with lots of products. It was only at uni when there was a fire alarm going off in her halls in the middle of the night that everyone had to wait outside. With it being night-time, she obviously had taken all the make up off. None of her friends recognised her at first, because she looked like a completely different person without make up.

Personally if that happens, it should be a wake up call that you are wearing too much make up. That story just proves to me how different make up and products can make you look, as well as how “fake” it can make you appear.

In total opposite to my family member, I personally have never worn a lot of make up, or used hair products and the like. When I have worn make up, its light mascara, and a bit of powder foundation on my face. As for hair products, I wash my hair with bog standard shampoo (that is no shampoo that enhances brightness, shine or strength of hair etc), then rinse and blow dry. As for dealing with body hair, its all natural apart from under the arms.

I have no reason to slap on make up, wax my legs or hair spray my hair into position, apart from maybe covering up a few spots when I go for an interview or a family gathering such as a wedding. Even at Christmas I didn’t wear any. Skin products I too don’t use many, I wash my face with scrub and moisturise after, and drink lots of water for a clear complexion.

In my experience, putting on make up just makes me feel like I am wearing a mask on my skin, and I got my current partner of 3 years without making myself up.

I was teased for not wearing make up in school, and I even get jip from that family member still just because I am not like everyone else. Maybe that’s the reason why I don’t wear make up and stuff, is that because I didn’t, I have accepted what I have naturally. Plus piling it on doesn’t suit me, believe me, a school experience went wrong once is enough proof. What is the funny thing, is that by actually wearing make up despite taking it off for bed, one is damaging the skin, blocking up pours and aging one’s self. So somewhere down the line, from no wearing make up for years, I will look better than my family member.

It is not seen yet what our generation of product wearers will look like somewhere down the line after decades of piling it all on. And don’t even get me started in the fake department about using sun beds, fake tan and all that side of it. But I would have thought that by letting one’s skin breath and giving it natural sunlight, air and cleansing, that it would look better later on in life?

In conclusion-

I have rambled, complained and wouldn’t be surprised if I have annoyed some people who have read about how bad it is to product yourself up. All I am saying is that there is no point in making yourself look picture perfect in the bathroom mirror or shop window before entering the world outside, because as soon as you turn your head, start walking, the wind blows or the sun comes out, your perfect look is going to be ruined anyway.

All I am also saying is, what is wrong with natural beauty/wearing no make up? Have we all turned against ourselves and not liked what we see in the mirror? Is it that bad that we have to cover our faces up and half lie to whoever we chat up? We all may not have the perfect model look, or what we all see as ‘good-looking’ in others, but we do all have something, that someone else doesn’t have. We all have something that is attractive to someone out there, its just that someone seeing it in you.

We can clearly see what adverts do to try and make us buy their product, and make us feel left out, and make us all look a certain way and like each other. We know also that its not ‘cool’ to not wear make up, but for me, if you have to cover yourself up just to feel pretty then you aren’t comfortable with how you look naturally (in my opinion).

Pamper yourself, jazz yourself up, enhance your features, just don’t drown them. By all means get bath products and soak yourself in bubbles, and put cucumbers on your eyes, but using something to modify your look, that’s suppose to make you look better, I have longed asked myself- does it make you look better? 

So next time you are sticking on your fake eye lashes, brushing on the layers of foundation, even spraying tan on your arms, maybe getting the razors out to shave your legs, or putting cream in your hand to put in your hair, think- do you really need this to make yourself look good? Because if most of us answered “yes” to this, then we are all in some massive big trouble as a human race somewhere down the line, and is proof that we all have serious issues with ourselves.

Moving Image Formats about Food- Blog 7 (Dr Oetker)

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Dr Oetker adverts 
(starring Catherine Steadman)

One thing I'd like to clear up before we start- yes everybody the actress within the Dr. Oetker advert is Catherine Steadman. She is the woman starred in the "Things are changing" O2 adverts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvkLxeRfpNI), 

 played character Joan, Catherine Howard's friend and maid in series four of "The Tudors TV series", 

 as well as starring in an episode 'Duke of Edinburgh Awards' of "The Inbetweeners" as character Daisy. 

The Advert-  

 The most recent advert that Catherine Steadman has done is the baking accessories for Dr. Oetker- (

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvkLxeRfpNI).

The ad shows a female and male friends cooking together, but throughout the decorating stage of making cupcakes, they get a little competitive. After putting on swirly icing ontop of the fairy cakes, silver balls, and flowers to make them more attractive to eat, they offer them to friends and possibly family that they are entertaining for the day.

The Feel of the Advert- 

I love this ad, mainly because it makes you want to get actively baking within the kitchen again. It's also a wonderful way to make baking exciting, especially for kids, as the end of the ad shows a lot of young children nabbing the cupcakes off the plates. It's very tit for tat this campaign, showing that you can never make a cake or pudding look too much, too pretty, or too yummy to eat, that there is always going to be that feeling of 'my cupcakes look better than yours'.

My Personal Experience- 

Again from watching this advert, it got me wanting to try out more baking, or rather start to look into baking my own things instead of buying them in the shops. Since seeing this baking advert on TV for the last few weeks I have attempted shortbread, chocolate cupcakes with icing/frosting, chocolate rice crispy cakes, and am still waiting for cooking apples to come down in price so I can try and do apple crumble. It wasn't just me though that got me wanting to try out cake cooking, my partner actually fancied fairy cakes one night, and we just ended up making our own. 

As much as the campaign for Dr. Oetker's accessories for baking gives you ideas to try out yourself, by using the actual product, yes it is a good idea to make your cakes look nice, but I know that this variety of cooking things are expensive, and due to my financial situation, I wouldn't be able to afford a can of spray icing for like £4.19 ($6.35). Looking on the online website (http://www.oetkeronline.co.uk) they do have a lot of great things to satisfy your sweet tooth, but at a price. But to have the best, you have to spend more- that's always been the way, so until I have the money, I will be making my own icing and cake mixes, but always have Dr. Oetker's accessory collection in mind. 

Happy Baking

Moving Image Formats about Food- Blog 6

Lurpak butter ads 

Lurpaks butter adverts have always been rememberable, the most famous one was with the butter man in the 1980s and early 90s. 

 The Adverts (Chop Chop advert)- 

 

Recently over the last few months, we have seen new adverts for the butter. An interesting collaboration of shots showing different techniques in the kitchen- as the song goes..

“chop chop chop chop chopping

dice dice dice dice dicing

peal peal peal peal pealing

we’r cooking up a rainbow today

healthy doesn’t have to taste hum drum

blend blend blend blend blending

mash mash mash mash mashing

roast veg brash brace burning

we’re cooking up a rainbow today

chop chop chop chop chopping

we’re knocking up, fixing up, whipping up, we’re cooking up a rainbow” 

 

All sorts of vegetables and fruits and foods are prepared and cooked within the kitchen for different meals. This just shows you not only how to cook things and what you use when dealing with a type of food, but of course how and when to use the butter Lurpak.

(Proper Good Food advert)-

 The most recent advert that came after this was the ‘proper good food’ ads in 2012/2013-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ox1tMRyyk . Like the previous set of adverts, this also displays cooking different meals, greasing glass dishes, opening tins, melting ingredients on the pan, grating cheese, cutting carrots and putting a meal together and cooking it in the oven. The main advert on TV is the one showing how to make cheesy pasta dish and cottage pie. 

With the ads mentioned above, as well as looking briefly through Lurpak’s history of ads, the main theme isn’t necessarily about the butter itself, but about food and cooking, and of course using Lurpak butter within your cooking.  

 

(2011's advert)- 

This involved 'The Kitchen Odyssey' theme- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj-HOzHarMU , which involved a man’s decision about what to have for breakfast before going to work. it ended up with him cracking open two eggs, melting some Lurpak butter in a pan, cooking the whisked eggs in the pan to make omelets and then grated cheese on top. 

 (2010 advert)- 

This was about a woman baking cakes- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WFfj8n-PTE , The women baking cakes attempted to bake a chocolate and what looks like to be almond cake. Quick, but simple. The second ad in 2010 was about making pies- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eMLOkyC7wM.  This involved a man attempting to make mince pie. I found this quite amusing this one not because it’s a man trying to cook, but because his reactions and how he just puts on the uncooked pastry in bits is the exact thing that first time cooks trying this would do. Very familiar. 

 (2009's adverts)- 

This year had a series of adverts displayed the different uses of the butter;

The first was the ‘Saturday is breakfast day’ with making pancakes in the advert- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbCxzuDQikQ&list=PLFCE7462A2E55273C, which involved the story of using Lurpak butter with any type of breakfast you had on a morning. The laziness of staying in bed, suggested the concept of looking forward to breakfast because of the use of Lurpak. 

 The second ad to be shown in 2009 was the potato ad- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmxgnhdKnek . This displayed information about the potato from growth to use. After that, it showed a male making jacket potatoes, and instead of showing all the different toppings like baked beans, cheese or even tuna on top of the baked potato, all that was shown was he putting on Lurpak butter. This stated that by only putting on Lurpak butter it would make your jacket potato taste good enough to eat plain. 

The third ad to appear for Lurpak in 2009 was the mushroom ad- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02J9S2Qq0CA&NR=1&feature=endscreen. This ad had the same principle as the potato ad, showing how mushrooms grew in the wild, giving some factual information about them, and then stating that by cooking them in Lurpak butter in a pan, would be enough to enjoy. 

The forth 2009 ad was about ‘lighter’- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Ew4HRfysw&feature=endscreen&NR=1. This ad opened up the option for cookers who wanted to eat but watch their weight, to use butter but not have to worry about the after-effects of having it. Lurpak lighter advert gave it’s butter fans the confidence to cook but to not worry about calories or what they were eating.

 

Other throughout the years such as the ‘bread’ ad in 2007, and the Lurpak spreadable ad in 1996, shows that this is a company dedicated to showing that Lurpak butter should be in everyone’s kitchens. 

My Experience- 

After looking into these adverts, I love the reoccurring theme of cooking within them over the last 15 years. The message behind them is clearly ‘with Lurpak it makes cooking easier’, as well as Lurpak making meals taste better. It’s wonderful to see adverts celebrating healthy food and home cooking. Brilliant use of close up shots to show the cooking itself, the textures of the foods, and the beautiful colours of cooking mixtures. 

Despite not using Lurpak butter, it has definitely made me change my mind about what to have for dinner after seeing some of the recent adverts. The ‘proper good food’ advert has made me want to have cottage mince pie one evening, and the advert with the catchy song “chop chop chop chop chopping…” etc has given me an insight into instruments and equipment within the kitchen unit, how to use them and what to use them for. 

Lurpaks advert campaigns get you excited about cooking and eating again, which, in my opinion, we all need to start doing again. 

THE REAL WOMEN CAMPAIGN- TRUE OR LIE? Blog 3

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I have blogged previously about Dove and Ann Summer’s real women campaigns and how they have done us British women proud. But unfortunately for this ‘real women’ campaign, not all are true to their word about showing real women in real women ads. 

Marks and Spencers real women campaign was exposed in 2012, displaying that their marketing campaign for the real women wasn’t real at all. Apparently they had done shoots starring real women wearing their products, and then reshot the photo shoots using models, having them pose in the exact same ways as the real women in the previous shoots. The fact that the models had no wobbly bits and were thin and perfect looking, was a complete insult to not only what the campaign was suppose to stand for, but British women. 

For me personally, despite not shopping at M&S for clothes, it still made me think that the company didn’t want to show real women to us at all. It was almost their way of saying, ‘we don’t think that British women are beautiful enough to star in our adverts’, which is totally cruel! 

The campaign was to promote their new underwear line to hug, hold and slim down women’s figures. After reading into this story, it showed that the real women who did originally model the new line weren’t pleased with the shoot mainly because the underwear in which they modeled didn’t fit them at all. One women said the bra was not her correct size, and another said that one of the hugging body shapers were too small. Surely modeling clothes of any sort must be shown with a true light, displaying how a product fits the body and which how it holds and enhances? If it doesn’t show this, then what is the point? 

 

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On a side note, looking at the recent Christmas 2012 advert to promote their winter range, the advert was, I thought very sexist. Despite including a downs boy in the children’s part of the ad, that didn’t excuse them for hardly showing any of the male clothes ranges. 50-60% was women wear, followed by the children collection, and then there were maybe two shots of a male model, modelling a suit and a winter jumper. That’s just sexist. 

  With M&S real women campaign failing to impress and then their next advert being sexist, lets just say that this company for their marketing isn’t in my good books at the moment. They are trying to win back the British public’s vote, but I feel its doing more harm than good.

Moving Image Formats about Food- Blog 5

Hey all, I have reviewed a TV series this time. My interest in history has influenced me to research this TV series. Hope it is of appeal and fascination.

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The Supersizers Go /The Supersizers Eat

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About the TV Series-

Roman all the way through history to the world war and to modern day, these two series go through each period to have a taste literally of the food that has changed so much. 

Starting with a pilot episode called Edwardian Supersize Me, journalist and restaurant critic Giles Coren, and broadcaster and comedian Sue Perkins peared up to present and experience the different type of diets throughout the eras.

 The first season (May/June 2008) ‘Supersizers Go’ involved Wartime, Restoration, Victorian, The Seventies, Elizabethan era, and the Regency age. The second season in June/July 2009 however, saw them experiencing The Eighties, The Medieval Period, The French Revolution, The Fifties, and Ancient Rome in ‘Supersizers Eat’. 

The Experience-
 
Dressing the part, and eating their way through the centuries, they explore and reflect the effects of such diets, and see the effects on the body through heath checks before and after each experimental week. Despite not cooking the food themselves, instead having specialist chefs and cooks coming in, it is interesting to see the development in the foods and reasons why we ate and drank what we did in specific periods.  

  
I will be reviewing each episode in separate blogs possibly as I feel that reviewing both whole series which has 5 plus episodes in would make this blog rather long. 

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Another TV show that this duo did together is ‘Giles and Sue Live the Good Life’ back at the end of 2010. This will be reviewed at a later date also. 

So if you love food and history, check this out!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=supersizers+go&oq=supersizers+&gs_l=youtube.1.0.0l10.187.187.0.1819.1.1.0.0.0.0.217.217.2-1.1.0...0.0...1ac.1.q8Z0sVaZZxs 

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=supersizers+eat&oq=supersizers+eat&gs_l=youtube.3..35i39j0l9.34298.34682.0.35307.5.4.0.0.0.0.144.387.2j2.4.0...0.0...1ac.1.OMnT8Kh-IYE

Moving Image Formats about Food- Blog 4

Hi everybody, I have bought more food films, so I have a few more things to review.

 No Reservations (2007) 

About the film-

The film stars Catherine Zeta John as character Kate, a busy career woman as a Head Chef in a successful restaurant. After her sister dies in an unsuspected car accident, leaving her with her orphaned niece (Abigail Breslin), she has to balance her work, being a new parent by looking after her niece as well as everything in between. Due to her absence from work, insisted by the restaurant manager, she is temporarily replaced by a new young male chef, Nick (played by Aaron Eckhart). Once Kate returns to work, there is conflict and tension between the two. After the passion for food and cooking, as well as looking after the niece Zoe, the two chefs are spiralled in a whirlwind of romance as well as a love/hate relationship. 

The Feel of the film-

 

Despite family loss and romance fuelling this film, it is all centred around the passion and love of food and cooking. I admit that food does take a slight back seat within this film, it is however used to turn negative situations into positives. Character Zoe is finding it hard to live with her aunt, and missing her mother, so Nick and Kate use the influence of food, and the curiosity of learning about it, in order to create a friendship between them all. There are a few moments between Kate and Zoë where you can tell they are both thinking the same thing- about the mother/sister who died, as well as that they both miss her. 

 The romance element to the film is gradual, having the main characters come together through the care of Zoë as well as trying to out do each other in the restaurant kitchen. It is nice to see two people coming together over something they are interested or passionate about. Most films just have two people falling in love for other reasons, whereas in reality people do normally get together because of things they enjoy. So it is enjoyable to see Catherine and Aaron’s characters have some sort of ground to them, and despite their professions not being an average person’s job, it still has average people’s problems and feelings about things. On the other hand it is quite exotic, falling in love over the aspect of food- oohh.

As for the food aspect to the film, it is amazing the food that is created within the story. The feel of food is up-market, expensive and small portions. Kate is stuck to find food that her niece likes, which I found quite funny as she has spent so long cooking elaborate dishes, average food has gone from her mind. but with the help of Nick, they all find happiness in life together, through the use of food. 

The overall feel of the movie had me in debate. some aspects had dark and upsetting undertones, however others were light, with a family good feel to it. 

 

My personal experience-

My favourite pieces to the film were when the characters were cooking or the scenes that were set within the restaurant kitchen. I feel that this is because, I find not only cooking amazing, but also the face-paced cooking environment brilliant to watch, learn from and work in. Looking at the kitchen scenes just makes me want to go into cooking and food servicing even more. I have had experience working within a café environment, and have got into cooking more recently, so seeing the set up and the work within the kitchen set filled me with passion and urgency. 

As well as this, looking at the food that they were cooking has given me a taste of high-class restaurant food. I have not had many chances myself to try really expensive or mouthwatering dishes, so seeing what goes on back stage and, what and how they make it was very interesting. What was of a fascination to me was what happened when a customer sends a meal back to the cook or chef. I do realise that the reaction of Catherine’s character was done for the film and entertainment only, but it did make me wonder, how chefs and cooks do react if that happens. You put heart and soul, time, sweat and energy on making a meal for someone, and they have a problem with it or don’t like it. I sort of know how they feel, now I am getting better at cooking (my partner is enjoying my meals), I don't want there to be anything wrong with the food I cook. I am now going to feel bad about sending food back to the kitchens next time I'm eating out. 

Overall a good film, and it defiantly hints as using food as a coping mechanism, as well as what food means to different people.  However I would have liked for there to have been more descriptive and expression of food within some scenes. A good film with a dark undertone which displays a comfort in the love of food, and an insight into the food and restaurant business.