The 'Miracle' Of Today's Beauty Makeover.

Folks, art has a new canvass and it's the face of today's woman. It is absolutely captivating to see how much difference can be wrought on the facial attributes of a woman simply by the aid of colours and brushes. The advent of modern facial and body makeovers have gone a long way to imbue many a woman with confidence that was previously lacking in them. Many husbands now pass by their unrecognizable wives at social functions, albeit in an innocuous fashion. This new look is absolutely trending.
As commendable as this development may be, it has surely come with a lot of downsides. Gone are the days when 'beauty' was easily within reach, money wise. To showcase today's 'beauty', one may literally have to break the bank, leading our ladies into all manner of lascivious behaviour to fund this obscene lifestyle. All kinds of products and processes are now available not only to augment but to radically alter the appearance of the modern woman, so much so that the beneficiaries(or is it victims?) are sometimes unable to recognize themselves before a mirror. Not only do some of these routines come with ridiculous prices, they are often addictive and create a feeling of hollowness in these adherents of the extreme beauty faith who habitually invoke the spirit of beauty, whenever and wherever they fail to indulge themselves in the fetish exercise of these unwholesome beauty rituals. This is even without a recourse to the health implications of some of these activities.
Of all these practices, arguably the most repulsive is the idea of natural hair attachments popularly referred to as 'human hair'. I know that I tread on very slippery and dangerous terrain in making this a subject of discourse but then it must be discussed. I must also admit that the use of these human hair(s) actually holds a somewhat captivating allure but I still struggle with the uneasy feeling of holding or breathing down hair which origin and circumstances of extraction are unknown to me or the user. There's something particularly eerie about a man lying next to a woman wearing 'dead' hair that once belonged to someone else. Dead because it now receives no blood supply and cannot possibly exude the radiant shine concomitant with living tissue. It is funny to give one's self to a Nigerian woman who relishes Peruvian hair, why not go to Peruvia and get a woman?
Seeing that our ladies have a fixation with long hair, I would advocate that they purchase the artificial alternatives, the really pricey ones are just as good. Why would a woman want to wear hair that was dropped off at some Indian temple? For all we care, some of these hair(s) come from the morgue. It is the height of vanity for someone to wear another person's hair inorder to enhance beauty. Most of those who do this never even stop to reflect on their actions but are more concerned with their banal display of wealth. Who even knows what negative spirits may be lurking in some of those hair(s)? Maybe that constant migraine isn't medical afterall? I hardly think a woman whose hair was forcibly shaved off in Mexico to satiate the beauty needs of African women will go home and sleep.
Any woman who seeks to show-off should carry an expensive handbag or engage other apparel that not only scream affluence but style as well. Adorning brittle dead hair should be a no-no for any woman of great personal esteem and appreciable hygiene proficiency. No man worth his salt should be excited about sleeping beside such hair either.
There is also the revolting attempt by women to render their skin pigmentation different from what they were naturally born with by the use of man-made substances otherwise called 'bleaching'. Though this practice is very old, it has been elevated to an alarming level and a new art form by a world seemingly fixated with 'fairer' as more beautiful. Unlike in ages past when there were many barriers to international communication, the advent of cable television and the internet has redefined our purpose and existence and rendered the world a global village. Our young ladies right from infancy are inundated with images from abroad of lighter skin entertainment heroines whose outward personalities they are all too willing to emulate without a corresponding attention to their talents.
Also, unlike in the past when bleaching was frowned upon by the elite and was nearly the exclusive preserve of the lowly, seeking societal acclaim by cheap anatomical improvements, it now cuts across class and social status. Indeed, the children and spouses of the bourgeoisie appear even more complicit in this new wave of beauty revision. Funny enough, when you ask some whether they are bleaching, the usual answer is a defiant "no". At best they claim to be 'toning', forgetting that the fine line that separates bleaching from toning is in the application, for while one is tastefully done to moderate and reverse the darkening effects of tropical sunlight, the other represents a crass attempt to be who one is not.
Yesterday, I was out at one of Abuja's social terminals with a female friend of mine, a television personality and one of those that has proudly retained her skin complexion, all she was doing was making mental notes of the female traffic. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that she was taking a headcount of those who were dark-skinned. In her own words "every woman is fair these days". I always knew that the situation was bad, her comments confirmed to me that it's now of an epic dimension. She should know.
According to an online news portal, an Algerian man is suing his wife for deceit and intentional fraud and he's claiming twenty thousand dollars to boot. He claims that he's going through psychological suffering. Quoting the portal; "Reports say that the man claimed that she was very beautiful and attractive before. However, when she washed off her painted face and left the real one, he did not want to be a buyer anymore. The man went to court to implement the return policy. There is precedent for the unnamed groom's case. A man in China was successful in suing his new bride who failed to tell him she had plastic surgery before he conceived an ugly child with her".
Though this may be extreme seeing that most marriages enjoy consummation after a period when the bride and groom are deemed to have experienced a certain level of physical interaction, it is nonetheless worrisome. As if making a choice wasn't already hard enough for the men, added to undeclared character deficiencies, we are now increasingly having to contend with physical shortcomings orchestrated by extreme embellishments and modifications to the female body by an adventurous and conniving clique of women who have taken the search for esthetic appeal in an image based existence to ridiculous levels. It is almost of tragic proportions that unlike in the past, today's man now has to exercise extreme circumspection in his quest for an ideal soulmate.
If and when he locates a prospective candidate, he must now interrogate issues of her character, faith, ideology/worldview, physicality and even sexual preference(s), all these coupled with adverse economic realities. Any wonder then that a vast majority of our young and single population are still enmeshed in a perennial and often elusive search for a life consort? On the flip side, their married male seniors and even contemporaries in pursuit of only fleeting moments of pleasure with an ephemeral essence are the ones 'having a ball', literally.
Some women now resort to body modifications instead of requisite character adjustments believing the former to be a shortcut to their desires. They often forget that while beauty may attract, behaviour retains and even sustains. The beauty routine must be the plus, not the main event. A woman who is all looks without substance is like a well that has been dug so deep, decorated with the most exotic of ornaments, yet has no water. Thank heavens that plastic surgeries are still beyond the economic reach of most of our nubile population, I shudder to imagine the abuse to which it would have been subjected.
To the ladies, you can wrap any man around your little finger, all you need do is to understand the essentials. You need not go overboard or work yourselves to the bones, keep it simple and chic. Trust me, that's an informed opinion. Even for a loaded automated teller machine(ATM) to dispense cash, you must press the right buttons. Everyman has a pin code, you must have the humility to find it. Those(men) who don't, belong to a psychiatric asylum, spiritual retreat, or both.


Okey Joe Emenike