Spring Break
Beauty and the Brit: cosmetic culture
Amber Davies
Issue date: 11/13/07 Section: Forum
"Look after yourself." "Take care." In England, these phrases are equivalent to "See you later." Strange, then, that the British tend to woefully neglect the actual practices of looking after and taking care of themselves. Just look at their teeth.
I think it's fair to state that, until recently, the typical British approach to grooming and general "self-love" has been largely functional. If it doesn't hurt and doesn't trigger audible groans of repulsion from passers-by, it doesn't "need" cosmetic attention.
Clean: yes. Scrubbed and presentable: yes. Decorated: not really. That's excessive - that's a waste of time and money - that's silly.
The practice of "treating oneself" in any way has long been seen as vaguely... well, a little bit naughty. British culture advocates putting your head down and just "getting on with it" - doing your job, whatever that may be. This attitude tends to frown upon any kind of "pampering," dismissing it as frivolous. A widely held position is that one shouldn't need to be rewarded in any way just for going about one's day-to-day life. In fact, a common accusation levelled at beauty parlours is that they're "a bit American" - meaning "self-indulgent and excessive." For some reason, the concept of spending time and/or money specifically on one's appearance or comfort is considered to be just that.
Like so much of today's culture, this mentality probably stems from "The War" (as WWII is referred to by the generation that lived through it). Minimum "fuss" and maximum "making do" could be the national maxim. In fact, this was literally true for some time: the slogan "Make do and mend" was coined during the War. This encouraged the country's people to skimp and conserve resources, particularly clothes - hence, "mend." This way of thinking extended itself to our existing attitudes concerning "beauty" in general for the next half-century and beyond.
England is slowly getting out of this mindset. Once again, we are taking cues from the USA in terms of "being good to ourselves." We are lagging behind, as usual - but, like the cappuccino learning process that I was marvelling over a few weeks back, the majority of Britons could now distinguish between a French manicure and a Brazilian. (Well, at least one is European...)
I think it's fair to state that, until recently, the typical British approach to grooming and general "self-love" has been largely functional. If it doesn't hurt and doesn't trigger audible groans of repulsion from passers-by, it doesn't "need" cosmetic attention.
Clean: yes. Scrubbed and presentable: yes. Decorated: not really. That's excessive - that's a waste of time and money - that's silly.
The practice of "treating oneself" in any way has long been seen as vaguely... well, a little bit naughty. British culture advocates putting your head down and just "getting on with it" - doing your job, whatever that may be. This attitude tends to frown upon any kind of "pampering," dismissing it as frivolous. A widely held position is that one shouldn't need to be rewarded in any way just for going about one's day-to-day life. In fact, a common accusation levelled at beauty parlours is that they're "a bit American" - meaning "self-indulgent and excessive." For some reason, the concept of spending time and/or money specifically on one's appearance or comfort is considered to be just that.
Like so much of today's culture, this mentality probably stems from "The War" (as WWII is referred to by the generation that lived through it). Minimum "fuss" and maximum "making do" could be the national maxim. In fact, this was literally true for some time: the slogan "Make do and mend" was coined during the War. This encouraged the country's people to skimp and conserve resources, particularly clothes - hence, "mend." This way of thinking extended itself to our existing attitudes concerning "beauty" in general for the next half-century and beyond.
England is slowly getting out of this mindset. Once again, we are taking cues from the USA in terms of "being good to ourselves." We are lagging behind, as usual - but, like the cappuccino learning process that I was marvelling over a few weeks back, the majority of Britons could now distinguish between a French manicure and a Brazilian. (Well, at least one is European...)
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