Is Vanity Killing Us?

"Vanity is my favorite sin" Al Pacino.

Western society is riddled with many menial issues and ironies. One that comes to mind is our obsession with outer appearance. As a nurse I am well aware that our society is not obsessed with inner health and beauty; yet from birth we are grilled that we must improve and obsess about our outer beauty. Be it by wearing designer clothes, getting our teeth whiter, having a wrinkle free face, having a smaller nose or a bigger bust. We are never happy with what we have and the "grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" phenomenon. When half the world is starving and living in poverty, to us happiness is fitting into a zero jean size. Going under the knife to enhance what others tell us is beautiful is normal and terms like breast augmentation have made their way into normal conversation. Is this what happens to a society that no longer has to deal with life threatening issues like civil war anymore? Instead we go to war with the body that we are born with?

Since the invention of the corset and high heels its been an uphill battle for women and now even men are feeling the pressure to sharpen and create a certain look. Today men are committing to the gym more than ever, not to be fit but to have huge, useless, rippling muscles. Seeing men at the spa is no longer an anomaly and "metro sexual" is the newest sensation. This obsession with looks has been going on since the beginning of time but how much further we will go? What will be the new craze? Will all companies have a plastic surgery plan instead of a retirement plan?

As our society becomes more and more "beautiful" the more insecure we seem to be. I admire women who have the confidence to wear no make up and feel great about it. Most women feel that wearing makeup accentuates their features but have you ever thought about how influenced we are as to what we accentuate? We plump our lips and widen our eyes, again because the magazines tell us that this is beauty. If we were told that dry flaky lips were the new hot thing would we just throw out our lipstick? Are we just putting on a mask everyday that hides our true beauty? Beauty that is not and can not be defined by the media and the powerhouses that own Vogue.

Now to take this a step further I was watching "The Hour" today and there was a bit on Adria Vassil new book 'Eco-holic'. She was saying that the average person uses at least 9 personal beauty products a day (shampoo, shaving cream, deodorant, make up etc) that's over 125 chemicals that we "slather on our faces, rub into our scalps and brush into our teeth" everyday. She was saying that only 11% of those chemicals have been tested and verified as safe. There are also tons of chemicals that have been proven to be carcinogens that are in these products (parabens: an ingredient found in breast cancer tumors, phthalates: a perfume in everything linked to liver cancer and talc: used eye shadow, etc and is often contaminated with asbestos). These products are absorbed into blood stream and can stay with us, potentially causing life threatening illness. The Canadian government has just passed a law stating that all of these ingredients have to be listed however if only 11% of all beauty products have been tested are we safe? Are we consumer savvy enough to read a list of 100 ingredients and decide for ourselves if beauty is worth the risk?

We are obsessed with trying to achieve the cookie cutter look of perfection that we see in a magazine or in Hollywood. It seems crazy that knowing that personal beauty products could be cancer causing would never stop women from "putting on their face" or men from shaving their "12 o clock shadow". If we are willing to risk our lives to go through surgery to rid ourselves of our double chin I don't think anyone would blink an eye at using carcinogens on our skin. I'm as guilty as the next and love my MAC makeup products but I am going to try some new organic products on the market. I thought it was interesting food for thought, after all: we all know that vanity is one of the seven deadly sins, the irony remains that we didn't know how literal the term deadly could be!

http://ecoholic.ca/
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/current/goods_ecoholic.php

Also, my cous just sent me this awesome website where you can search any beauty product and it lists all the ingredients, states which are cancer causing etc and ranks its risk level on a 10 point scale. I guess I will have to try to stop using MAC as most of their products are full of carcinogens and rank 5-8/10! Yikes:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/index.php