From cinching with corsets, to Chinese foot binding, people have gone to great lengths and through great pains to acquire their era’s standard of beauty. As we are well aware from era to era that standard and the requirements of beauty change, sometimes drastically. During times of great poverty being fat was a thing of beauty because it meant you had money enough to eat- with regularity and well. Conversely in our times it seems the more money you have to eat in great restaurants the less you actually eat and the thinner you should be! Ironic huh? With the advent of the Internet and global commerce and marketing, a single concept of beauty (based on the Western- Anglo aesthetic) has  emerged resulting women around the world wanting to be lighter, blonder, thinner African and East Indian women lighten their skin and stay out of the sun, Asia women surgically remove the folds over there eyes to have a more round appearance, the modifications are endless. However even with the ubiquitous air-burshed ideal looming over women (and men) from billboards, peering out from fashion magazines, and flicking by out television screens telling us all what we should want to look like, within every country there still is a cultural standard of beauty that is ever present. You might not agree with tribal scarring, neck lengthening or the like but as the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Check out some of the latest culturally specific beautification treatments that are hot trends in other countries!

From Senegal Gum Tattooing…

From Japan Bagel Heads…