Beauty is in the Eyes of the Magazine Beholder

They had her all done up.

Digital re-mastering looked good on her. She smiled widely, a pixelated version of herself with perfectly contrasted hair and blemish-free skin.

The reflection in her eyes exposed the silhouette of cameramen at war. Pointing and shooting, cutting and cropping, they dissected her.

“15 Ways to Be a Natural Beauty.”

I call bullshit.

There was nothing natural about her, unless you count the recipes for kelp face masks and brown sugar body scrubs tattooed on the page next to her impeccably constructed face.

The magazine, Everyday Woman, arrived at the doorsteps of every housewife and dressed the exterior of every coffee cart that offered skinny vanilla lattes and butter croissants. What an oxymoron. In the evenings, her face enticed readers to open her up—a bible for falsified beauty crafted the all-natural way.

In the evenings, women bathed in egg whites. With their salmonella coated skin, they kissed their husbands good night. They made sure to sleep on their backs, you know, to prevent face wrinkles and keep the tangles from invading their blown-out hair. With smiles plastered on their faces, they drifted into their beauty sleep, magazines earmarked on their nightstands.

In the shadows of nightfall, that magazine could talk. The beautiful woman, with her pre-crafted face, whispered for help. She was confined to the glossy pages with no means of escape.

Did you know, before the introduction to television, adolescent girls in Fiji had little to no instances of eating disorders? Fijian values and practices actually encourage robust appetites. However, prolonged exposure to television increased disordered eating attitudes and behaviors among these girls. Unfortunately, Fiji is now populated by young women’s skeletons, perusing the coast with banana peels.

“When you’re hungry, you just chew on a peel,” they say. “It’s almost like eating a bunch, but without the calories.”

With banana corpse-covered teeth, their lunches mask the stench of island vomit.

Consequently, the avid readers of Everyday Women have been planning their lavish summer trips. In a few months, they will inhabit the ethnic island nation of Fiji for a vacation. They hear the water there is unprocessed, and the carefree lifestyle of the islanders might rub off on them.