By SUZY TURNER features@algarveresident.com
Suzy Turner has lived in Portugal for 22 years and works as a freelance writer. As well as putting pen to paper for the Algarve Resident’s fashion section, she contributes to the parenting, beauty and travel columns and is also the Features Editor.
LIVING IN a society obsessed by appearance, I was curious to find out what the general consensus is regarding beauty.
Apparently, beauty can be calculated by proportions and symmetry (one study even showed that symmetrical men make better dancers!) and in ancient Greece, it could even be summed up using mathematics.
However, when choosing a mate, apparently we do (albeit, subconsciously) look for those with as many ‘attractive’ characteristics as possible because these usually signify health.
For instance, it is believed a high forehead signifies intelligence due to increased brain volume, large eyes further apart give greater clarity and vision, longer and darker eyelashes offer better resistance to the weather, a narrow nose gives better air filtration, a narrow face shape means the person has less fat, and so on.
Such factors, supposedly, equal fertility, intelligence and longevity.
However, studies by scientists at the Face Research Laboratory at the University of Aberdeen showed that it’s not all science.
They proved that many women are attracted to men purely because other women find them attractive!
People Magazine annually launches its Most Beautiful People list and last year it was topped by the likes of Scarlett Johannson, Jennifer Anniston, Halle Berry, Jennifer Garner, Katherine Heigl, Jennifer Lopez and Helen Mirren.
I asked my colleagues what their idea of beauty was by asking them to give me the names of the female celebrities they think are really beautiful.
“It’s a very subjective matter.”
“I haven’t met all the women in the world so I can’t say who is the most beautiful.”
“Beauty isn’t just about looks. I wouldn’t want to call anyone beautiful just by looking at them”.
“The women that are beautiful are the ones that wake up looking as good as they did when they went to bed!”
Keira Knightley, Kate Beckinsale, Kylie Minogue, Sharon Stone, Jessica Alba, Joan Collins, Sophia Loren, Dawn French, Iman, Alek Wek, Helen Mirren, Jane Fonda, and Rachel Hunter were just a few of the names mentioned.
The best answer, in my opinion, was ‘those girls from the Dove advert’.
I found this to be the most comforting answer because these girls aren’t famous actresses or models and they don’t all necessarily fit the stereotype of being bombshells.
They are just girls just like you and me … and after all, aren’t we all beautiful?
