A Picture is Worth a Thousand Filters

Adorning oneself is innate.

In the world of beauty, there are quite a few things to be said about it. Let's see for example, "Beauty is as beauty does; as beauty gets." "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." "God does not ugly and he ain't to fond of pretty either." The list goes on. As you could imagine, of all the things that are to be said about beauty, the popular saying that "beauty comes from within" is one that resonates with the masses. This blog ndogo aims to vibe with inner beauty.

No bath like a vichy!

I don't know about you, but I can recall a time when women making themselves beautiful was liken to preparing a fine cooked meal.  Ya know? You talked about what you were gonna cook, who it was gonna be prepared for, what grocery store you would go to, the recipe, the preparation, the serving and the response! In the history of women beautifying themselves, the beautification process was similar. Let's see, there were rituals of milk baths, dead sea salt soaks to Calgon taking us away to vichy showers and sea kelp masques. Women would compliment that cleansing ritual by wearing support under garments to enhance their figure to look svelte or voluptuous. At times, they wore gloves, pumps and so on to take their beauty to another level. 

Classic "Beat Face."

Make up application went from dramatic as Marilyn Monroe or Dorothy Dandridge look to classic and timeless as Audrey Hepburn or Lena Horne. Now the hair, ahh the hair. A hairstyle is to a woman's image what tableware is to a fine prepared meal. No matter how good that food is, no matter where you bought your groceries from and no matter the recipe, if the food is not served properly on a clean table, with clean plates, flatware and glasses; nobody will eat it. The same can be said for a woman's beauty when the hair is compromised! Regardless the clothes, perfume, body type, shoes, nails and makeup; if her hair is hit, everything else is compromised.

In the American cultural of "getting ready," women did what they had to do to ensure a delightful presentation. For, adoring hair to women was as innate as brushing teeth, thoroughly cleansing the va-jay jay and arm pits! It was vital to our image back in the day.  We did what had to be done. Fast forward to today. Sweet Brown's "ain't nobody got time for dat," seems to be the theme of "getting pretty."  I understand times have changed. Nobody wants to spend all that time getting cute. 

But think, have you ever heard an artist say, "Ain't nobody got time for drawing?" To me beauty is exquisite, intricate, unique and individualized; like art.  In order for beauty maintain it artistic value, it needs some tending to. Beauty also need to be appreciated. Appreciation of beauty will be simply defined as things that one can do done daily to appreciate the beauty they have. Things we can do daily to appreciate our beauty today are the same things we had did in the past, like make time for it. 

The epitome of inner and outer beauty. The
incomparable divine Ms. Lena Horne.

We made time for beauty in "real" time. In the day and time of "ain't nobody got not time for dat," beauty does not get tended to. No sir-ree. Instead, beauty gets filtered. Regardless of how popular selfies are now, no amount of filtering will be able to hide the reality of neglect and un-appreciation of beauty. Filtering can not hide reality. 

That is right, at some point you will be seen in real life. Reality will return as the "go to" source for where people will turn when they want to see beauty. Yeah buddy, the days of Stepford Photos are coming to an end, while the return of reality is near. The social network world of filtered photos will be replaced with the reality of what one sees in real life. "Real life" will get you your "likes" "unlikes" and "comments." Real life will reveal the truth about one's beauty. Real life will reveal who is unkempt, fake inflated and filtered. The screens of television, computers, tablets and cell phones that are connecting us via the world wide wide web will fade to black. No more face time, Skype and Tango. We will have no choice but to return who and what is before us in real time.

Kim Kardashian

I am all for the beauty that technology brings. I am all for what technology allows us to share at our leisure at the touch of a thumb. Yet, I cannot ignore the super duper advantage we as humans have over all this technology and what it allows us to do with beauty... see it in real life!