What can I do to be Beautiful?

It was in the lounge in the office a couple of weeks ago and some of my colleagues were leafing through a local soft sell magazine aka as gossip magazine when the attention and discussion zeroed in on a local celebrity who they believed had done some breast job and tummy tuck procedure. The discussion suddenly veered to the claim that a former first lady had died in the process and how dangerous the procedure could be. One person was of the opinion that it was the repeated process that caused the problem and others felt generally people should not tamper with the way God (nature) has made them. Now the gist got very interesting because I tuned in at that time.

I ventured to say that all of us are guilty of the same ‘offence’. This you would believe got different reactions, voices got raised, and everyone wanted to say something. Of course no one agreed and I had to defend my position. Round the room were four or five young girls (I am included in this young girls bracket by the way) all with ‘fake hair’ done in different ways extension aided braids, weave on extensions and some also with color highlights, acrylic nails etc. I told them that I believe that we are all doing the same thing: enhancing our beauty but the difference is in two categories: what we need to enhance and to what extent we want to take it.

No matter what anyone says or how you put it, it falls into these two classifications. Everyone said “No way” “I do not think it is the same”. Some of us only know and believe the old traditional way of doing 500 crunches three times a week (no pain no gain era) with a trainer or all by ourselves and in this new world of no pain much gain and only with a slight incision while we sleep, we wake up to brand new structure of flat tummies and no fat thighs. Are the people who go for collagen injection (botox), cosmetic dental procedures , tummy tuck, breast enlargement etc any worse than we are (those of us who want to keep ourselves the way God made us with just slight tampering here there) any less different? Some of us are so ‘righteous’ and we become the person in the biblical parable who wanted to take out the splitter in her brother’s eyes while carrying a log in her own eyes.

This is not advocating for cosmetics surgeries or no cosmetic surgery but really how come we do not think things through or see things from a different position from where we are? When I look at the whole scenario I come to the conclusion that while some procedures may be more costly, more invasive, more risky, they are all the same thing whether it is to colour hair for N4,000 ($50) or to put extensions for N10,000 ($80 -$100) or acrylic nail and pedicure for N2,500 ($20) or tummy tuck for $5000 and above, they are ultimately similar in nature and have one aim – to enhance the way we look or appear first to ourselves in our belief on the image we want the world to see. All of them are artificial and that is the main point of my view on this whole thing.

While most contemporary Christian women will argue with me on the need for this but this is not about need at this time, it is about accepting that we are all guilty of the same offence and that the fact that someone chose a more drastic procedure does not mean that the person has gone way down the ladder than those of us who stayed with hair extensions and acrylic nails. Even taking our lounge discussion further, I told my colleagues that all of them carry some level of risk. I know people who would not try extensions because they think it is a fast way to get the HIV virus (yes, you can have your own needles) but nevertheless, it has that risk. For people that have permanent acrylic on, nail infections is common and all of these can lead to death sometimes. So dying on the operating table during a tummy tuck or the silicone pack bursting (in the boobs) and the effect being fatal are simply differences in the level of risk but all be it, they are risks.

A Christian sister (yes Christian) had a somewhat interesting twist to this discussion. She believes that the inclination to deem some cosmetic procedures acceptable and others extreme has an ugly root: envy. According to her, “If I can’t afford the procedure or I am nervous about the surgery or my husband, (boyfriend, partner I added these classes) doesn’t want me to have the treatment, then I may arrogantly label what I can’t have as extreme”. Certainly, I am inclined to agree with this sister, however, I think culture also has a bit to do with it. Some of us are so well brought up that such invasion will be unheard of while the other ones are considered part of ‘daily living’ and because that is the way we were brought up, anything more is outrageous and bad.

Again I must emphasize that this is not advocating for invasive and extreme beauty enhancement procedures but rather our view and reactions to the people who have undergone such procedures. We should not feel more superior or more righteous than these people. I think the bottom line is that people will make personal choices and decisions although we may differ in what should be considered real beauty enhancements or real beauty in the first instance. Our choices however, do not make us better than the very next person whose choices vary from ours.