Nov 20, 2012

What is the Definiton of Beauty?

As time goes by, Asian’s perspective of beauty has changed over time. Not only the way we dress up, but also the way we look like. To chase after beauty, some people spend lots of money on cosmetic surgery to change their face, such as eye-widening surgery to make their eyes’ look bigger and rhinoplasty surgery to make their nose looks taller and straighter. Here are some pictures of Korean girls who did surgery to change their face or even body.
What a MAGIC right? Those girls not only look prettier but also look younger even though they spend lots of money. From the pictures above, is not hard to find out that all of them did the surgery to make their single eyelids to double eyelids, which did make their eyes look bigger. I found a video called Asian Double Eyelid Surgery, which describes a teenager girl, a young boy and a woman who decided to do this surgery.


From the video, the teenager girl said that she feels insecure with her Asian face while the young boy tried to be included and be similar like others. Which is sad that they felt that way and suffer those pains from the surgery. Racism seems like is the key for Asian teenager who live in foreign society to do this surgery.


We could not deny that eyes are one of the most important parts of the entire body. In the modern society, Asian people think that the color of eyes could play a very important role in the beautification. Asian’s retailers found out the market of colored contact lenses, which cater to people’s demand, to make customers’ eyes look larger and more stand out without high cost and pain. I owned two pairs of colored contact lenses before, one named NEO Chocolate and another named 3 Stone Angel Grey.

This is the pair of lenses called NEO Chocolate, which can let my eyeballs look bigger and nature.
This is the pair of lenses called 3 Stone Angel Grey,  that have three opaque layers that make the color contact lenses look more realistic and make me look like a half-breed. 

However, what do "half-breed" means? The "half-breed" means that, most Asian people have darker eyeballs color while western people have lighter eyeballs color and Asian female think that lighter eyeballs color would be more stand out with makeup rather than darker eyeballs color. Here are some examples of different Asian girls wearing different colored and decorated patterns.


What does "looking good" means in general in Asia? As the South Korea fad and Japan fad spread around Asia,  from Lancome's first video make up artist, Mr. Phan, a Vietnamese-American blogger concluded that Asian girls "like the whole innocent doll-like look, almost like anime". Here are two videos teaching people how to create a big dolly eyes which is simple and without high cost. 

There are countless videos of tutorial for dolly eyes and most of the "teachers" wear colored contact lenses to match the makeup on their face to look refreshing. Some girls even own different colored contact lenses to match their makeup, here is one example:

 
Do people indeed look more attractive with other eye colors, such as blue, green, brown, grey and purple on their eyes instead of their own eyes' color in Asian society? As colored contact lenses fashion fad spreads out, more and more people accept wearing those lenses and get addicted to them. Some people may be uncomfortable without wearing colored contact lenses when they are going out because they are un-confidence that their eyeballs may look smaller. 

When searching "colored contact lenses" on the online retailer "Taobao" (a website as same as Amazon in Asia), there are almost 300 online stores that sell all kinds of colored contact lenses, which indicating this object has a huge market in Asia.
The first online store shows on the search page sold 8291 pairs of colored contact lenses within one month. Reading the descriptions of those lenses, they advertised that black colored contact lenses has well “light transmission” and “comfortable”; brown colored contact lenses is “match your eyes color” and people’s eyes are not only look larger but also look nature, beautiful; and grey colored contact lenses “matches whatever your clothes and makeup”. The owner of this shop stimulate consumer spending though a way that, if customer buys any two pairs of colored contact lenses, he/she can get a bottle of solution for contact lenses for free. This marketing strategy might actually promote customers to buy more colored contact lenses in one time.  
There is a most concerned problem, which is whether those lenses are safe. Putting normal contact lenses into people’s eyes is not a big deal, but some people might be hesitated about putting lenses with decorate pattern and color that would be harmful to the eyeballs. Every store claims that they are selling qualified colored contact lenses. However, unlike U.S., in Asia, there is no law to restrict people has to have prescription to buy contact lenses, therefore the quality of colored contact lenses that are selling in the online market could not be guaranteed.  And the range of prices is varied in the market too. Some are a bit of expensive but some are extremely cheap. 

From 5060 reviews of those customers that purchased colored contact lenses at the store that mentioned above, some reviews said those colored contact lenses are “good and beautiful”, “it should be qualified with receive”,  “it is okay but doesn’t show much color”… whereas some review said they are “not very comfortable indeed”, “the shipping is too slow”, “too thin, too small”... reading though all those reviews which are interesting that most of the reviews leave messages about they would buy colored contact lenses here again even there are some negative reviews over there.
Colored contact lenses might seem like simple but indeed connect to the Asian culture. What they might define beauty are those who have the dolly-look like, which have big eyes look like childlike. Wearing those lenses might increase someone's self-confidence but it is hard to stop wondering about the placebo effect on them because people around the customer are all wearing them which make this object looks like normal. And by the advertisement tells what magic effect of those colored contact lenses have, making people think that they do look good with those lenses' help. When American people wants to get tanned but Asian is putting all kinds of sunscreen products and whitening products on their faces; Western people thinks that full lips are sexy but Asian people prefers cherry lips that they think is cute... The definition of beauty maybe ambiguous between people and people, but looking good definitely weights a lot in Asia.

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