SO true. SO false

Dear reader,

Which brands do you use most often? Which magazines do you read with concentration? How many advertisements have left you wistful for the promised effect? How many of these products have actually worked for you? How much closer are you attaining that sense of perfection after all this?

Advertisements are one of the most influential factors while a woman is questioning her appearance and forming an image of herself, sadly most of these ads tend to make you believe that you aren’t perfect but there is something you can do about it. Very few of these ads tell you how beautiful you are, and that is what we bring forth in this letter.

Fair and lovely. Timeless perfection .Get Slim and make yourself beautiful. Lingerie for perfect figure. Age miracle creams for when your skin is the only part of you that makes you feel old. Perfect curves. Flawless complexion. These are a few of the many advertisement gimmicks women fall prey to. This happens because we are convinced that we’re “worth it” and deserve everything that will bring us closer to the false sense of perfection created by the Photoshop geniuses of the beauty industry. And hence the never ending quest begins.

It is often said that grass is always greener on the other side, and we my friends are the classic example of that. How many of us have even considered ‘why?’ while staring crazily at an ad of our favorite model endorsing a certain product because it makes her look better, makes her look more perfect- we don’t know why we want it but we do. While there is nothing wrong with aspiring to look like your role model there is a problem with the idea that you will only be beautiful if you look like her. This is how the ad professionals design the ads to subtly exploit us. These ads are tailor made to make women feel incomplete without the certain product that is being promoted. Ads make women want more, and in this pursuit for ‘more’ we tend to develop low self esteem and promotes insecurities. The world isn’t black and white and neither are these advertisements. There are a thousand shades of grey in the world of advertising; hence they are neither totally true nor false. The advertisements tend to shape our lifestyle, though the results may vary from person to person and different women will have different reactions. ‘BB every woman you want to be’- it promotes the idea that having a blackberry will somehow help you to be every version of you and implying that without it you wouldn’t be able to!

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the feel good ads- Fun fearless female: embrace the woman you are, Love your body, be you be the star, anti zero heroes, it’s about shape not size. These ads help women experience the fact that the real you is beautiful and it’s not about fitting into a particular mould. ‘Real women real beauty’, that’s their motto. But because of the false sense of perfection we don’t see many of these feel good ads. We should want and demand more of these, a higher self esteem a better self image thinking that we are beautiful they way we are- because we are worth it.

So don’t let them ‘introduce you to you’ be you, because real women are real beauty.

By: Anukriti Arora, Nanki Josiya Singh, Sayori Mukherjee, Sreeja Basu