A friend recently brought to my attention this new trend (correct me if I’m wrong, and this has always been a thing…) of contouring Asian faces to look more stereotypically Caucasian. The video I found gives tips on how to make flat Asian noses more prominent, to look like this (picture from original post):
And there are many many other videos like this out there. As someone who really has no experience with makeup, I didn’t quite know what to make of it. Is this a form of internalized racism? Or just artistic expression?
A quick search on Google for Asian beauty standards or makeup tutorials will spit out a ton of advice on how to lighten Asian skin, get creased eyelids, and make cheekbones more prominent. Then there’s the trend of coloured contacts and blonde hair amongst East Asians. These beauty fads and standards exist not only amongst Asians living in Western countries, but in Asian countries as well.
Aside from makeup, plastic surgery has become very popular in East Asia, especially “nose jobs (rhinoplasty) and eyelid lifts (blepharoplasty)”. The article by CNN (link above) states that “one in five South Korean women from 19 to 49 have undergone cosmetic surgery, according to a 2009 survey from market-research firm Trend Monitor. That’s reportedly compared to about one in 20 in the United States.”
These statistics are more alarming when the article describes how often these surgeries are performed on young people who pressured by their parents to go under the knife.
Below are some before and after photos of nose jobs and eyelid lifts:
Are these beauty standards a form of internalized racism? Or are they harmful and oppressive simply like every other form of beauty standards? Or is this really a non-issue and just human tendency to have what we don’t have?
These are questions I struggle with myself. Comment below with your opinions and experiences!
(Plastic surgery link from CNN courtesy of Sirapatsorn Ruayrungruang Andrea. Thank you!)
HaHa… I find this quite funny. Since Asians are trying their best to look more like Western while having some of Asian beauty. As Korean, there are plastic surgeries and jokes that were made that I had to go through some plastic surgery to widen my eyes and heighten by noses to look even beautiful. Well whatever! There are recent picture or video that I saw that some Koreans are trying to increase their noses through flour (that you use for making bread) to stick on your nose and do makeup along with it. Don’t understand why people try their best to do plastic surgery or makeups even though they look pretty without them.
Hi I found a related article from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/25/health/asian-beauty/
It basically talks about plastic surgery in Korean and how it serves to meet white beauty standard like nose job and double eyelids.
However, for my opinion, I have always been wondering if lighter skin and double eyelids are western features. I mean, if you trace textbook or artworks way in the past before “the east meets the west” through trade and Internet, brighter skin and big eyes have always been portray as beauty standard in Asia.
It certainly is controversial, Are Asian beauty standards imitating White beauty standard or are they just beauty standard that have been long existed in Asian culture?