Tags
Advertising campaign, Beauty, Dove, Human physical appearance, Lessons learned, Motherhood, personal, self awareness, Woman
Earlier this week I read a blog by fellow blogger friend, about Dove’s new ad campaign, Real Beauty Sketches. Another friend posted a blog about the same topic on her Facebook page. Interestingly each blog post had a different perspective about the new ad. The Dove ad features back into a professional forensic artist doing two drawings of a person. One portrait was drawn as a woman described herself and the second portrait was drawn as a stranger described the same woman. Hope that makes sense. The commercial was done as an experiment to point out that most women describe themselves as less attractive than the rest of the world sees them.
The response to the ad has been mainly positive. Most women have been moved at the realization women judge ourselves too hard on our looks. Others criticize the ad for not including more women of various ages and ethnicities. However, when I saw the ad I had a different perspective.
I consider myself attractive, fit, funny, smart, cute, entertaining, loving, compassionate, interesting, passionate, but beautiful is not on my list. To me beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Each person has a personal view of what they think is beautiful. My view of what makes a person beautiful is different than what you may think beauty is.
The other day a friend of mine showed me a photo of herself taken for her passport photos. Everyone knows passport photos are taken for the simple reason to make you look terrible, but my friend must have forgotten that. She said to me after she showed my the photo, ”Do I really look that ugly in real life?” After she spoke I was at a loss for what to say. My friend to me is a beautiful woman. She wears little makeup and yet her skin is flawless. Her hair is thick and wavy. She always dresses in ways to flatter her curvy figure, but most of all she is an amazingly kind, loving person. She is someone whose kindness shines through her eyes each time she smiles.
The most beautiful woman I have ever know would not fit the standards of what most people think beauty is. She passed away many years ago. Her name was Lucy. She was a good friend of my mother. What made Lucy the most beautiful woman in my eyes was not her physical beauty. Her beauty was the fact in the twenty plus years I knew her she never once gossiped or talked badly about another person. Not once. She always found the good in everything and every person. I remember expressing my disappointment about a family situation after my mother passed away and I tried to get her to join me in my rant. She wouldn’t do it. She always showed compassion and would see the positive.
When I think of beauty I think of her. So kind. So forgiving Her loving spirit is what made her beautiful. When I mentioned to you earlier that I didn’t view myself as beautiful I wasn’t referring to it in a physical sense.
I was referring to the beauty Lucy had. The internal kind that radiates from within and makes those who are in their presence feel beautiful themselves.
Beauty to me can’t be drawn on a piece of paper it must be felt with the heart.
