#and i feel like i've seen this convo about historical beauty standards but never the idea of making oneself look non-human

[interiorlulus]

You know, sometimes I think about the 'strange' beauty standards of the past (plucked hairlines, brows and eyelashes, blackened teeth, etc, etc...) and I wonder if while definitely being a standard among the upper class, those standards were actually genuinely meant to enhance beauty. Now, I understand that many seemed derived from traits meant to accentuate wealth and social class* (pale skin due to no exposure to the sun) and characteristics that were found beautiful (plucked eyebrows in Europe to simulate how light blonde hair would typically have the eyebrows blend in, same with eyelashes). But I also wonder if they weren't also there to make the person look... alien even back then, and by alien I mean, beyond the looks of an average human, not necessarily due to attractiveness. You know, bc so much seems to center on concealment and removal, if not full on modification of ones natural appearance. In the European middle ages or Heian Japan (to give some examples), wouldn't these type of appearances serve to make the upper class (nobility) seem like a genuinely different type of human than the rest? Not necessarily driven by a desire for beauty enhancement, but the creation of physical (appearance) divide.

* Current day is the same: how many influencers that have botox-fillers-veneers-nosejobs that just... don't look that great or look odd are pushed down everyone's throats as THE beauty standard? At the end of the day, this is more a show that they can afford these procedures rather than these procedures looking good.