Thigh gap. Long hair. Thin waist. All are valued as beautiful.

Plastic surgeries. Hazardous diets. Pitiless work outs. All are ways to achieve said beauty.

The makeup ad that promises to look like real skin. The expensive serums that proclaim to lengthen eyelashes. The extensions that are made of real hair. All are ways companies attempt to attract buyers that are looking for our society’s version beauty.

Always gorgeous and thin, models are the epitome of what our society calls beautiful.  Because young girls often aspire to be like the women they see in magazines, a recent campaign invited women to participate in a photo shoot. The resulting pictures were then photo shopped to look like the models on magazine covers. When the women saw these “better than life” results they thought they would desire, they were disgusted with the image they saw. Women expressed that they did not feel like themselves and missed the real them and the quirks they loved about themselves that were photo shopped out as flaws.

When did natural beauty stop being beautiful? When did confidence stop being beautiful?

Confidence is better than any layer of makeup. Confidence is better than any plastic surgery. Confidence is better than any weight-loss technique. No matter what skin color, eye color, hair color, weight or height, beauty is being able to look in the mirror and say that the person looking back is extraordinary. Beauty is being able to comfortably skip wearing makeup once in a while. Beauty is being able to completely love one’s body.