Quick fixes, zero stitches.

With the growing pressures of gender expectations, the amount of options available for people to improve their appearances goes way beyond just surgery. These are products that I like to call ‘quick fixes’. These quick fixes can be extremely beneficial, however can potentially become addictive or even harmful.

Ready fake products

These products are those that are easily applicable and come ready made. Although not dangerous, these can become addictive if a person starts to use them. Social media often promotes these products and its common amongst beauty pages. This includes:

  • Fake tan. This has become increasingly popular and is sold in every beauty store. With the intention of giving people a sun kissed, holiday glow instantly its easy to see why people would want to use it. It’s often people conclude you look more slim and more attractive if you are tanned.

    Screenshots of tweets about fake tan
  • Fake nails. Fake nails are more so for decoration rather than a confidence boost, enforcing the idea of girly gender expectations. There are social media pages dedicated to this nail art with thousands and millions of followers, showing us just how important it is to some girls.
Instagram pages dedicated to nail art
  • Hair extensions. Another product commonly promoted on social media, society has assigned the idea of long hair to femininity and so putting pressure on women to have long hair. Sewn in hair extensions are the generally more damaging type, however the clip in has been proven to leave lasting effects on your hair. My sister is a regular user of clip in hair extensions, she has suffered from patches of hair loss where the clips have been weighing down and pulling out parts of her hair.
Hair extensions
  • False lashes and lash extensions. False lashes can be synthetic, silk or mink. These products allow you to have thick, long eyelashes instantly. Lash extensions require the help of  a beautician gluing the false individually beside the real making it look real. False lashes come already attached on a band, again both types are promoted on social media with celebrities bringing out their own ranges. Again, assigning the idea of long lashes with femininity.
False eyelashes

 

Developing products

These are the products that change your appearance, but you have to do the work. This could include anything from makeup to either bleach or using mixed substances to achieve a different and better outcome.

  • Teeth whitening. With this, you can opt for the professional, expensive teeth whitening procedure OR opt for the more affordable DIY teeth whitening kits (starting as cheap as £5). With youtubers showing video evidence of a pearly white difference, people have turned to the products themselves. I ran a poll to see how many people would actually try it for themselves, and the majority either had tried it or would be willing to try it. This does however come with some precautions, in the attempt to enhance their appearances by using these products, some people have resulted in bad reactions or burns due to the unknown mixtures in these cheaper versions. Is it really worth it for a whiter smile?
Poll results and the lasting effects
  • Hair Dye. Peroxides, bleaches and colourants are used to create permanent and non permanent changes to your hair. Often people feel the need to go from their original colour to a more vibrant or completely different colour. This is because shiny and voluminous hair is continuously advertised. Furthermore social media goes through popular trends which take the internet by storm, recent ones being grey and unicorn hair. As pretty as it looks, its more damaging than you may think resuling in dry split ends, more breakages and also roots when the natural hair grows back. The things we do for ‘beauty’ hey…
Unicorn hair trend

Common Products

 

 

  • Makeup. As one of the most common ways of altering your appearance, makeup is frequently associated with gender expectations. Women are often expected to look amazing all the time and this is usually how they achieve it. If done correctly, a persons appearance can be altered a great deal. By using certain products such as foundation, contour and highlight, you can enhance or make parts of the face look slimmer, you often see this in the form of tutorials on YouTube. This is something I hope to experiment with in an upcoming blog.
Makeup transformation
  • ‘Waist training’. This trend has become globally popular with the help of celebrities such as the Kardashians. The idea is to wear the waist trainer for a certain amount of time every day, and eventually, your body “moulds” itself into a slimmer figure. Women are under pressure to fill the stereotype of a small waist and big hips and so have turned to this in the hopes of help. However this isn’t as entirely as safe as it seems, whilst wearing the trainer you’re essentially squashing your lungs and ribs, which makes it hard to breathe. Some women have actually passed out from wearing one for too long.
Waist Training

Supplements

  • Skinny Pills. Products like these are often promoted to encourage you to live up to body stereotypes. I would be lying if I said its not intriguing, as I myself have bought raspberry ketones before. Although these pills can make you feel full and curb your cravings, there are said to be some possible side effects. These include; Increased heart rate, high blood pressure,  diarrhoea, sleeplessness and kidney problems. Essentially women are putting themselves at risk to attain gender expectations.
Skinny Pills
  • Bootea. This detox is said to make you loose weight over a period of 14 or 28 days. It contains ingredients that will cause you to urinate more frequently. Although it may cause you to lose water weight, experts say it is unlikely to do anything else. Bootea is successful due to its massive presence on social media, but many say that’s as far as it goes. It can give you some pretty bad side effects including vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal pain. But still, many women turn to it in the hopes of loosing weight and achieving the gender expectations.
The Instagram hashtag Bootea

Although some products are extremely helpful with insecurities, its important to put your health before your appearance because no gender expectations are worth damaging yourself over.

 

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