There’s a term I’ve coined (in my own head) called ‘beauty inflation.’ It’s the theory that people should stop trying to look more attractive because it won’t actually make them look more attractive in the long run. It will just raise standards of beauty.
In case you never paid attention in economics or you’re just ignorant of things in general (bless you), inflation usually means that the more money everyone has, the less it is worth. It’s why countries don’t just print more money during recessions. (That’s a big word for when lots of people are struggling to get jobs and money. Again, bless you.) In the 1920s, Germany suffered from hyperinflation to the point where people on the street would steal a basket full of money, tip the money out, and keep the basket. Granted, it was a pretty awesome basket.
I figure it’s the same with beauty. Back in caveperson times, people would have been kind of fugly by modern standards. (I imagine. I don’t really know.) There wouldn’t have been hair removal, facial cleansing, makeup, gyms or shampoo. But do you think they cared? Heck no! (Again, this is all an assumption, I don’t really know) Because what did they have to compare it to? Nothing. Slowly, things were invented to make people look better. But everyone wanted to look better. Although, that’s not strictly true. People want to look better than other people. And when everyone said, “Shampoo’s been invented? Brilliant, I’ll look better than my greasy-haired cohort if I use this!” all it meant was that no one had greasy hair any more. (Well, except for Greasy-haired Sue, but no one liked her anyway.) So no one gets credit for having silky soft hair, and if you do have greasy hair you now look weird, whereas before you would have been able to blend in.
We still, however, have a few things left that most people haven’t got around to doing. Nowadays, this would be something like Botox. Almost every celebrity of a certain age uses Botox, because they’re expected to be a certain level of attractiveness above the average person. But some so-called average people are having none of this, and want a slice of the Botox pie for themself. The more people use Botox, the weirder the non-Botox users are going to look, and the more they’re going to be persuaded to use it as well, until pretty much everyone is putting in all this time, effort and money for something that has far less value than it used to.
BAM! Beauty inflation. It’s totally going to be a thing.
So this is my plea. Please stop trying to chase the next level of beauty, because I don’t want it to be like 1920's Germany, except that instead of a cup of coffee costing 20,000 roubles, being considered a correct-looking human being will cost $20,000 in plastic surgery fees.
P.S If you are an economist and you think my economy/beauty parallel is laughable, please don’t hate me.