EP170. The shocking definition of beauty

This is the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and on it I spend a lot of time asking what the green part in green beauty actually means. But interestingly, although I've talked about the toxic marketing messages used by the mainstream beauty industry to sell products, I've never before questioned what the word beauty actually stands for. In fact, it wasn't until the podcast interview we released last week when I interviewed Sean Russell of Scandinavia and the B Corp Beauty Coalition that I suddenly thought to myself, what does this word beauty actually mean? Because Sean made the very interesting and very valid point that the beauty of our natural world is far more important than our societal standards of beauty. We also know that those societal standards are unattainable and they're unrealistic. So is it time to redefine what we mean by the word beauty? How would that affect all of us? Settle in for this short episode as I go slightly philosophical this week. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmeyer, chartered environmentalist, biologist and CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. I host the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and these are my green beauty opinions in which I share my main takeaways from the podcast interview we released last week and set you a challenge to make the green beauty sector a better place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest episodes, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So in my quest to define beauty, I first of all headed straight for the dictionary. And interestingly, Google's inbuilt dictionary didn't disappoint. They defined beauty as, firstly, a combination of qualities such as shape, color or form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. So far, so good, right? But then the example they gave was I was struck by her beauty. And secondly, their other definition was for a beautiful woman. With the example, she was considered a great beauty in her youth. Now, before I unpick this monster, I do want to add that obviously there are many different dictionaries online and they all provide slightly different definitions for the word beauty. However, when I looked them up, I listed all their websites. All of them provided examples that commented on a woman's appearance. That includes The Collins Dictionary, Dictionary.com, the Macmillan Dictionary, the Merriam Webster Dictionary, who in fact even gave the example she was a great beauty in her day. So it seems like everywhere we look, the word beauty is inextricably linked to a woman's appearance. At least it is according to the writers of our dictionaries. But it goes beyond that, because those definitions suggest that a woman's beauty is fleeting and is linked to being youthful. Now, I guess we all knew that this was out there, but to see it actually defined like that in the dictionary feels quite shocking. And it's so heavily entrenched in ageism and sexism. It shows the level of societal brainwashing that we're going to have to unpick in order to change the beauty industry. It also shows that we definitely, definitely need to redefine the word beauty. Now, Shaun's point last week is that beauty should be our appreciation of the beauty of the natural world. In fact, he said there is no greater beauty than that of our planet. And of course he is completely right. It's important to remember that the societal standards we've set for ourselves are just that. They're things we've told ourselves we must achieve in terms of our appearance. And those standards, they change over time. Back in the 1100s, the in trend was to pluck your hairline back as far as possible and to pluck out your eyebrows to give you a permanently surprised look. Textbooks refer to this as the pious egg look. And then Western society went through several hundred years of covering themselves in white lead to be as pale as possible. And nowadays, of course, we do things like wearing fake eyelashes and drawing on cat eye makeup, which may well be a source of great hilarity in future history books. We get so hung up on how we should look and these standards are so fleeting and more importantly, they damage people because they damage self esteem. And that makes it really hard to enter the beauty industry when your definition of beauty isn't one of appearance, but is instead one of health. So one of the first hurdles that students at Formula Botanica come up against when they enrol with us is that they suddenly discover that they aren't allowed to make medical claims for their cosmetic formulations. And this does sometimes come as a shock because our students typically come to us to learn how to formulate skincare that will tackle certain skin challenges. And beauty products simply aren't allowed to do that anywhere in the world, as defined by the cosmetic regulations of every single country. So then you start dealing in euphemisms to describe your products and to pretend that you're tackling the outside the appearances, when really what most Indian natural formulators want to do is create better skin health for their customers. And our continuing focus on everyone's appearance then just perpetuates the definition used for the word beauty. It turns out that Shawn isn't the only person who's noticed this outdated definition of beauty, though. As one of the major cosmetics houses, Coty launched a campaign earlier this year called Undefine Beauty, where they've reached out to all the major dictionaries to invite them to change their definition of the word beauty. Bizarrely, though, Coty doesn't provide an alternative for what they're looking for. Instead, the campaign aims to undefine rather than simply redefine beauty so that no one feels excluded by the definition or the examples that accompany it. Honestly, I can't imagine this is particularly helpful, so I'm not surprised that the campaign doesn't seem to have gained much traction. So instead, let me propose an alternative to the dictionary entry for beauty, as Katie doesn't seem to have managed I think when it comes to us, beauty should be defined as a fundamental celebration of our humanity. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you look like, it doesn't matter what your age is. All of us are beautiful and no dictionary definition can ever take that away from us. So my challenge to you for this week is to join me in redefining beauty. Let's appreciate the natural beauty of the world around us first and foremost, as well as the inherent beauty of our humanity. And next time you use the word beauty, do so consciously and purposefully with meaning. The meaning of words can evolve over time, but only if we change the way we use them. So let's change the way we talk about beauty. Thank you for listening to my Green Beauty opinions. Remember to visit the Formula botanica website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you haven't subscribed yet to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, please make sure you do so now in your favorite podcast app. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode.