Tag: beauty standards

  • ‘Barbie botox’: Doctors horrified at latest TikTok trend

    ‘Barbie botox’: Doctors horrified at latest TikTok trend

    A new trend known as ‘Barbie Botox’ has been unleashed on TikTok. Women are getting Trapezius Botox in order to elongate the neck and shrink the shoulders, so it makes the person resemble a Barbie doll. The hashtag #barbiebotox has over 9.4 million views on TikTok according to Forbes, while #traptox has over 22.5 million views, with clips of popular influencers and reality tv who have gotten the procedure.

    TikTok influencer Malibutoast who has over 195 K followers, shared clips of herself after having the procedure done, with users worried in her comments about whether the trend would encourage more insecurities among women on social media.

    @malibutoast Lmk your thoughts #botox #trapeziusbotox #selfimprovement ♬ original sound – Malibutoast

    ‘Wake up guys new insecurity just dropped,” wrote one user.

    “Damn now I have to add… trapezius to the list of things I need to fix about myself ” another wrote.

    Isabelle Lux, another TikTok influencer who credits herself with coining the phrase ‘Botox Barbie’ detailed her own experience of getting the treatment with CNN:

     “It came from the idea that you would look more like a Barbie when you get it done, which I don’t think is a bad thing. It elongates the neck, slims the shoulders and creates a very delicate physique when it’s done properly.”

    Speaking to the news organisation about the growing backlash she was getting on the internet, including being called an ‘anti-feminist’, Lux defended her choice by pointing out that women shouldn’t be belittled for wanting to look a certain way.

    “The desire to look a certain way has for centuries been seen as silly, a waste of time, waste of money and pointless, especially for women,” she told CNN. “But when a man wants to look a certain way, it’s scientific, it’s cool. I think that we need to stop belittling women for things that they’re interested in, including looking a certain way if they want to. It’s not silly. Like, it’s real.”

    But many plastic surgeons are condemning the trend, explaining that the procedure was coined in order to help those with excessive neck pain, with a side effect of creating the illusion of a longer and slimmer neck. Speaking to PEOPLE magazine, New York City dermatologist Dr Amy Wechsler pointed out that Barbie’s features are unrealistic and these cosmetic procedures won’t make a noticeable effect on women.

    “Someone years ago explained that if you take a Barbie doll and make it into an adult woman, the measurements are not really realistic. So I don’t love jumping on social media trends because they often don’t have any basis in science,” she explains. “I think that’s human nature to try to wanna copy a trend, but usually what happens — which is good — is that the trend will fizzle out if it’s not a good idea or if it’s not healthy.”

    “The #BarbieBotox trend is more about slimming,” Wechsler adds. “If you relax those muscles it can make a big improvement in the feel and the look. But if someone doesn’t overuse that muscle, I don’t think it does that much.” 

    Speaking to CNN, Dr Parisha Acharya warned that incorrect administration of Botox could weaken the muscle completely, and then effect your ability to hold up your neck properly. She expressed concerns about the trend going viral on social media, especially when younger audiences are watching:

    “I think a medical procedure should be treated as a medical procedure. And in the UK, (the aesthetics industry) is unregulated. So shockingly anyone can administer botulinum toxin injections. That could be a beautician or hairdresser with no clinical experience, no anatomy knowledge. It really does worry me.”

    Dr Acharya also pointed out that the trend took the wrong message from the movie ‘Barbie’ which advocated for women to stop trying to mould themselves to appease the patriarchy, and start accepting their bodies as the way they are:

    “It was very pro-feminism, and (women) were moving away from sexualizing our bodies and thinking of them as just objects,” she stressed. “I don’t like the fact that this trend is using Barbie to say we should have slim necks. We should embrace ourselves for who we are.”

  • ‘A patient revealed she was kicked out of her house by her husband because of her stretch marks’: Shaista Lodhi

    ‘A patient revealed she was kicked out of her house by her husband because of her stretch marks’: Shaista Lodhi

    Actress and aesthetic physician Shaista Lodhi appeared as a guest on the ‘The Talk Talk Show’ where she spoke about her career as an aesthetic physician, who provides cosmetic medical surgeries to celebrities, politicians and the general public. She spoke about the dark side of her career, revealing that young women and girls come to her after being bullied by men about their features.

    The ‘Samjhota’ actress said that many young girls and women visited her clinic led by insecurity about their features, after their husbands send them pictures.

    “Those pictures were given to them by their fiancés,” revealed Shahista. “Then I tell them that they should get rid of this man first. Can you imagine? It’s such an insult for a man to tell you to look like this woman.”

    Shahista shared another horrifying instance where a patient came with her husband, who jokingly asked the surgeon to make his wife look like her. The actress recalled feeling outraged and wanting to lash out at the man.

    “You can see the way women are treated in our society,” lamented the ‘Pardes’ actress. “That girl was sitting in a corner and politely laughing while I wanted to slap him right away. But that woman kept silent, even though it must be torturous for her to stay with such a man who keeps taunting her with things like ‘Tumharay baal hain’, ‘tumharay boaht ziada baal hain’..”

    Shahista Lodhi said women are consistently scrutinized and made to feel inferior because of their looks, and bullied by their in-laws over things like their skin coloror body type. She went on to point out that these things don’t prove that there is a problem with women, but it is men who have complexes.

    Shahista further stressed that if people want to get plastic surgery, they should, but never at the cost of their insecurities.

    When asked about she deals with women coming to her wanting to change features, Shahista spoke about the time a woman came to her clinic asking to remove her stretch marks because she was kicked out her house- which completely shocked the actress.

    “Three days ago a woman came to me and said she recently delivered a baby, and her husband kicked her out of the house because of her stretch marks. And the woman had been staying at her mother’s house for the past 20 days.

    “I tried in any way I could to console her and tell her she’s earned this. Allah made you a gift, and you’re not alone in this. How could a man tell you this!”

    Shahista re-called the woman begging her to fix her marks so she might save her marriage, and the actress said “If you think fixing your stretch marks would save your marriage, then its better such a union never happened!”

    Kudo’s to Shahista for taking such a powerful standard against imposing such beauty standards on women- and reminding them that its not worth fixing a marriage where you are imposed into taking such measures.

  • ‘Rosy glow, hazel eyes, no curly hair’: Rishta demand has internet in stitches

    ‘Rosy glow, hazel eyes, no curly hair’: Rishta demand has internet in stitches

    Are rishta aunties looking for a suitable woman for men or do they want Miss Universe to become their bahu?

    Rishta proposals that come to light are getting increasingly absurd. A tweet is going viral on the internet in which a woman shared a list of demands by an aunty. Included among the ludicrous list are demands that the girl must not have curly or short hair, must have completed her bachelors at the age of 22, as well as have no scars on her face or hands.

    She should also have a “rosy glow” and light coloured eyes, with a concession made for hazel eyes.

    Are you looking for a wife or for a robot, maam? And the sheer audacity of demanding unachievable perfectionism in a woman, while this man couldn’t even find a woman on his own? Twitter was in fits on how unabashed and demanding the rishta circus was for women.

    https://twitter.com/strawb1erry/status/1688609914330230784?s=20

  • Abhi bhi mai jawan hoon: at 81, Martha Stewart models for a sports magazine and we are here for it

    Culinary icon and lifestyle guru Martha Stewart has made history at age 81 as the first elderly person to pose for the front cover of the swimsuit magazine Sports Illustrated.

    Gushing about her experience on the ‘TODAY’ show, Stewart opened up about how she at first felt she wasn’t the right person to pose for the cover, but then chose to do it with confidence:

    “I like that picture,” Stewart said with a giggle on TODAY. “I’m sort of shaking because it’s odd to go to an island and then get changed into nine different bathing suits in one day in front of all those people … it turned out OK.”

    “You know, that was kind of a request I have never had before,“ the food writer chuckled. “And to be on the cover at my age was a challenge. I think I met the challenge.”

    In a statement, MJ Day, the editor in chief of Sports Illustrated, said that women like Martha Stewart were legends who had forged their own career, so it was important to have her as representation of the type of women shaping the future:

    “Martha Stewart is a legend. The definition of a great female entrepreneur who built a dynasty against insurmountable odds. While the industry wavers on its arbitrary notion of beauty, our issue has stayed the course, showcasing the women of today, the women shaping the future. This year, we’re featuring an extremely diverse group of women starting with our cover models, who are collectively the most unapologetic women from different walks of life who continue to forge their own paths on their own terms.”

  • Proposed French bill will require influencers to disclose filters used on their pictures

    A new law proposed by the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire will soon ban social media influencers from uploading photos without mentioning re-touches or filters they have added to them.

    The new law seeks to curtail cosmetic surgery, keeping in mind its ill effect on the mental health of teenagers. The law states that any new picture or video uploaded will also include the filters added to it in the caption or description, while all promotions of cosmetic surgery will be banned.

    Penalty for revoking this law could include up to two years in prison and $32,525 in fines, while the influencer responsible for breaking the law would also be banned from using social media or profiting from being an influencer.

    Speaking to a French website, Le Maire said that the law was not an attempt to restrict influencers. It was to create a system that protects them as well as consumers.

    This is not the first time France has taken strict measures to tackle the rise of inaccessible beauty standards. In 2017, the country passed a law requiring any commercial photo that has been re-touched to change the model’s body to be labeled as ‘photographie retouchée’ (retouched photograph).

  • ‘Why do we want the models to be white and sultry,’ Zara Shahjahan on fake beauty standards

    ‘Why do we want the models to be white and sultry,’ Zara Shahjahan on fake beauty standards

    Pakistani fashion designer, Zara Shahjahan, called out social media users over demeaning comments related to beauty standards.

    The designer explained how she and her team were left with no choice but to hire models from Turkey. “Let’s talk about these pictures. So I had a shoot in Turkey. My team left a day earlier and the day me and the model had to leave, Turkey announced 15 days of quarantine. We were left with no choice but to hire models from there,” she wrote in a social media post.

    Sharing a picture of a model from her recent campaign, she wrote, “I tried to find girls who look South Asian and finally found these two very stunning Mexican models who flew from LA for the campaign. We were very happy, the campaign look really beautiful and we launched, but what happened after is quite disturbing.”

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    “These pictures started getting a lot of hate. ‘They look like maids’ is one comment which disturbed me the most,” the designer added.

    “Are we these people? Why do we want the models to be white and sultry?” Zara questioned.

     She concluded her post by thanking God for her loyal customers, “Thankgod for my loyal customers who know my brand and the collection was sold out but I don’t seem to get the irritation of a lot of women to these two pictures.”

  • Huda Kattan does not want to endorse unrealistic beauty standards

    Billionaire make-up mogul Huda Kattan has urged people to stop using photoshop and look beyond unrealistic beauty standards by sharing an over-edited version of a picture from the campaign of her newly launched beauty line GloWish to show what the picture would have looked like after editing.

    “We’ve had ENOUGH of the over-editing, photoshop and not showing enough realness!!! So we thought we’d look in the mirror and start with ourselves,” she wrote in the caption of the post.

    “Here is a not so, ‘perfect’ photo from our GloWish campaign shoot and I thought it would be really interesting to show you guys what it would have looked like had we chosen to photoshop and try to sell unrealistic beauty expectations,” she added.

    Huda Kattan has launched a third beauty line entitled GloWish which consists of everyday makeup essentials.

    Earlier, this year in April she said that she has “had enough” of filters and photo editing, as they have warped modern beauty standards into something “unrealistic”.

    In 2018, Pakistani superstar Mahira Khan requested  Zara Shahjahan to not photoshop her pictures from the shoot as she endorses the idea of embracing natural beauty standards.