What does it mean to be beautiful? How can it be defined – and how can it be achieved?
On the surface this may seem like a flippant question – even shallow. People who ask it are often accused of being vain or self-centred.
Honestly, most of us don’t ask the question at all – at least, not out loud. But in the online space, the stats tell a different story. Every month, in South Africa alone, more than 12000 people ask Google this question:
What is Beauty?
People really want to know the answer … and Google seems like a good place to turn.
Here’s the short answer, according to the world’s largest search engine:
beauty
ˈbjuːti/
noun
-
a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.
-
“I was struck by her beauty”
-
-
a beautiful or pleasing thing or person, in particular:
Notice how vague the first line is? A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.
In a nutshell, then, it would be safe to say that beauty is something we find pleasing. That means anything could be beautiful. All it needs to do is to please our senses – any of them.
So a flower may smell beautiful … and so may a cup of coffee (especially first thing in the morning!). But if you don’t like coffee, or if you’re allergic to flowers, those smells may not be beautiful to you.
In the same way, a person who strikes me as beautiful may seem plain to you. Or the other way around. For many of us, what we find truly beautiful in someone else is not so much the way they look, but who they are. We call it their inner beauty, and it’s a topic we’ll dive into in a lot more depth in the weeks to come.
The one thing we can all agree on is that the true beauty debate is one that has raged throughout the centuries – and one that has as many opinions as there are people alive … if not a few more.
That’s why we thought you’d enjoy this snapshot of Beauty Trends Through the Ages: