What is the Meaning of True Beauty?

In ancient Greece, the most sought-after hair color was blond. Not many Greeks were naturally blond, so light hair was probably perceived as beautiful because it was so exotic.

People have been playing, "kitchen beautician" since the Middle Ages, when various foods were used as beauty aids. Curdled milk was applied to acne, cucumber juice removed freckles, while boiled nettles produced a smooth, even complexion.

It's a shame that extensions weren't available during the Heian Period when a Japanese woman's beauty was judged by the length of her hair, since the ideal was considered almost two feet longer than her waist. We're assuming that ponytails were a popular hairstyle back then.

In Renaissance Italy women created the ultimate red lip and cheek stain by mixing cochineal, sandalwood or cinnabar with wax or grease. The application process was complex, but the red color lasted for over a week, even if she washed her face every day.

Despite being called the "Golden Age of Spain," having a tan was a serious beauty faux pas back then. In an effort to maintain a porcelain complexion, young women would eat clay, even though it often caused anemia or chlorosis. In the late 18th century, members of The French Court such as Marie Antoinette also obsessed over having flawless alabaster skin.

They faked it with thick layers of white powder (made out of everything from white lead and talc to pulverized bone) combined with wax, whale blubber, or vegetable oil to give the face makeup a greasy consistency that adhered to the skin.

Lipstick was considered an essential item for female nurses in the armed forces during the Second World War, both to remind women that they were ladies first and military second, and because it might have a calming effect on the male soldiers.

A 1991 study showed that female politicians who employed Hollywood makeup artists and photographers were 30% more likely to win elections, simply by grooming her eyebrows, wearing certain colored blouses, and smiling. Too bad that strategy didn't work for Sarah Palin.

Beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. It's about knowing and accepting who you are.

Unearthing fragile or broken parts of one’s past is not denying the nourishment that too existed
It is not denying the beauty nor the countless blessings that were also given.

We've written about the science of beauty once or twice before, but something about this subject still attracts us.

The vertical distance between the eyes and mouth, and the horizontal distance between the eyes are key determinants of the "ideal" face.

The perfect female face, according to researchers at the University of Toronto, has a distance between the pupils of 46 percent of the entire face, and a distance between the eyes and the mouth that is 36 percent of the distance from the hairline to the chin.

College students who were asked to rate photographs of 10 male and 10 female faces found portraits showing the left sides of faces more aesthetically pleasing than those showing right sides.

Better-looking people generally earn more money and marry better-looking and higher-earning spouses than their less attractive counterparts.

Psychologist Maria Agthe found that good-looking applicants for a graduate scholarship received less favorable reviews from raters of the same sex.

By monitoring the academic intelligence and physical appearance of more than 17,000 people from childhood up to early adulthood, researchers at the London School of Economics found that in Britain, good-looking women have IQs 11.4 points above the average, and attractive men have a higher IQ of 13.6 points.

An experiment led by British psychologist Benedict Jones of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland found that women are drawn to men who are smiled at by other women.