TresSugar

Très Bizarre: Plastic Surgeon Sculpts His Perfect Bride

TresSugar — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:15:00 -0800

This story is très bizarre and très depressing. When plastic surgeon Reza Vossough met his future bride Cany, he identified a few areas for improvement - specifically, her chest, thighs, eyes, lips, butt, stomach, and forehead. Lucky for Reza, once he and Cany got married he performed eight procedures that would turn his 33-year-old wife into his "perfect woman."

Speaking about his work, Reza said: "It's almost like being God - you have the ability to change nature." No promise that it will look natural, however. And don't feel too bad for Cany. She seems pretty happy, explaining that when you marry a plastic surgeon, "the scalpel is your friend."

I guess the old adage that you can never really change someone isn't true in this case.

Do Tell: Has Anyone Said Something About Your Looks You Never Got Over?

TresSugar — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:15:00 -0700

A former British Elle editor talks in the Daily Mail today about a passing comment her mother made to her at age 10 that colored the way she saw her body for the rest of her life.

When Sally Brampton was 10 years old, her mother showed her a photo of herself in a bathing suit and said, "I think you're getting a bit chubby." From that point on, Brampton would battle with a body that, although "perfect" by the prevailing cultural standards, always seemed too big to her.

Many of us have experienced a comment about our looks that stung. Although we may not have developed eating disorders or issues about the way we look, given that women are told that our looks are of paramount importance to our acceptance, we probably never forgot the comment or how it made us feel.

Has anyone ever said something about your looks you never got over? What do you think about when you remember it?

Say What? The Brits Know the Truth About Beauty

TresSugar — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:00:00 -0700

“The English at heart know that beauty is a cheat; it is an unfair advantage, a distraction from the real qualities that you want in a girl: the ability to fry a breakfast with a hangover, have sex in the rain without complaining, flatten an intruder with a left hook, sink a pint, tell a joke, take a joke, be a brick, be a mate, be a mum."

- Reporting from the south of France, British columnist AA Gill explains that while French women might have the chic, unattainable beauty thing down, English women know that a free spirit is a beautiful thing, too. Perhaps the male writer's extensive musings on the differences between women is just another way to say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

It's Complicated: How Women Determine Facial Attractiveness

TresSugar — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:00:00 -0700

It's no surprise that how women determine facial attractiveness is complicated. Unlike many men who may give a woman's body a once-over, and then look at her face, deeming her attractive or unattractive, women, when checking out a man's face, tend to evaluate it on two levels, according to a study that was just published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The first level women use to evaluate men's faces is sexual: they zero in on features like the jawbone, cheekbones, and lips. Then, they look at the entire face for how pleasing the overall aesthetics of the face are.

Researchers set out to prove this dual-process theory by asking two groups of 50 heterosexual women to look at pictures of men's and women's faces.

The first group was given pictures of men and women and told that some of them would be hypothetical dates (sexual) and others hypothetical lab partners (aesthetic). They rated them as attractive accordingly.

For the second group of straight women, they were given the same images, but the faces were split in two with the upper and lower halves shifted in opposite directions. Even with the opportunity to view female faces sexually (that is, feature by feature), the women still rated the attractiveness of female faces aesthetically, and their ratings correlated with the hypothetical lab partner ratings of the first group. When images of men's faces were split in two, however, their rating's correlated with the hypothetical date of the first group, that is, sexually.

The next stop for researchers? Figuring out how cultural differences and hormones play a role in the mechanics of female sexual attraction.

Source

Glamour Magazine's November Issue: Plus-Sized Beauties

TresSugar — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Glamour magazine learned that it pays to feature so-called plus-sized models in addition to the typical size 0 variety in their pages. (I say so-called because these women look pretty average sized to me!)

They got so many positive reader responses from their nude picture of model Lizzie Miller (sporting a little familiar-looking-to-most women pooch) that they've decided they're going to feature Miller and other curvy models like Crystal Renn, Kate Dillon, and Amy Lemons (shown above) in their November issue. They, too, will be in their birthday suits.

Are you looking forward to this issue?

Oh Snap! Venezuela Rules the Universe

TresSugar — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Miss Venezuela Stefania Fernandez was crowned Miss Universe 2009 last night at the Miss Universe pageant. The Donald Trump-led franchise, which has been televised since 1955, definitely gets a lot of attention for bringing together the world's "most beautiful" women (read: tall, thin, great bathing suit body). Despite the objectifying nature of beauty pageants, they don't seem to be going anywhere soon. How do you feel about these contests?

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Are You Less Likely to Buy From Someone Beautiful?

TresSugar — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:00:00 -0700

A recent study out of Australia concludes that young women are less likely to buy something if they think the sales people in the store are more beautiful than they.

Because women are "biologically competitive," says Bianca Price of the University of South Australia, these tentative shoppers perceive beautiful women as "direct social threats" even if the product has nothing to do with beauty. In the end, they would rather buy from someone "unattractive." (I wonder if this study informed the "unattractive" sales staff that they were part of some unflattering research!)

This conclusion, she continues, may contradict the success certain brands have when they get beautiful celebrities to endorse their product, but according to Price, "[w]omen may not consider celebrities a direct social threat, but they might consider the girl at their local shopping center to be one.”

So let me get this straight - women are biologically determined to be competitive with each other; women are so intimidated by beautiful women that they won't buy something from them; and if you're shopping, you're a woman, but if you're part of the sales staff, you're a "girl." I'm not buying it!

American Apparel Managers Told: Fire the Ugly People!

TresSugar — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:33:57 -0700

An American Apparel store manager sent Gawker an anonymous email claiming that controversial CEO Dov Charney was at it again.

The oft-sued Charney, this manager claimed, was demanding that underperforming AA stores send in photos of their sales staff to him so he could determine who wasn't good looking enough for the store. What would happen to these possibly hardworking folks who didn't enough resemble teenage Lolitas? Just guess:

"He made store managers across the country take group photos of their employees so that he could personally judge people based on looks. He is tightening the AA 'aesthetic,' and anyone that he deems not good-looking enough to work there, is encouraged to be fired."

If this allegation is proven, just wait for the lawsuits to roll in. (It's illegal, remember, to discriminate based on looks.) In the meantime, I guess I'm going to have to get my assless pantyhose from another purveyor. Perhaps the old school Frederick's of Hollywood?

At Last - The Miss Plastic Hungary Beauty Contest

TresSugar — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:00:00 -0700

"Ever had plastic surgery to become beautiful? Are you proud of your body? Would you like to put yourself to the test?"

If so, asks this website, perhaps you should enter the Miss Plastic Hungary beauty pageant where women age 18 – 30 (if you’re above 30 you’re in the “dame” category) can compete against other women who have gone under the knife.

In this Bizarro World contest, unlike in other beauty contests, having gone under the knife is not grounds for disqualification - it’s a contest requirement. Botox, by the way, doesn’t count. "The entry requirement," says Reka Bodis, press director of the pageant, "is a surgical procedure done under general or local anesthesia." It's quite “natural,” she continues, to stage such a contest now that so many beautiful women get plastic surgery and prices are more affordable. Hungary is a tourist destination for many in the UK, where plastic surgery prices can be prohibitively expensive.

The contest is open to non-Hungarian contestants as well as Hungarian beauties and debuts October 9.

Scientists: Women Getting More Beautiful, Men Remain Same

TresSugar — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:00:00 -0700

A cadre of scientists has determined that evolution is driving women to become more beautiful while "men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors."

Scientists claim that attractive couples (based on ”objective assessments of physical attractiveness”) tend to have more children and those children are more likely to be female. Those adult daughters may marry and mate with attractive men, have lots of daughters . . . and so on and so on. Over generations, the scientists conclude, women have become steadily more aesthetically pleasing.

What do nonscientists think of these findings? If the comments section of this article is any indication - not much! Responding to the claim that women are getting more beautiful, Elizabeth Payne wrote, "Not where I'm living they aint......!!!!" What does Graham Mitchell think? "Women are getting more beautiful? Yes. And alcohol is getting stronger." Ha!

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