From Arabianbusiness.com : “Middle East beauty industry to hit $2.9bn in 2009″
Excerpt:
According to official statistics, the sales of cosmetics and perfumes across the Middle East touched $2.1 billion last year.
The sector enjoys the highest per capita consumption in the region with an average purchase of around $334 (AED1,227) per person.
The largest market is Saudi Arabia estimated to be worth more than AED7.3 billion, while the industry is expected to exceed AED3.3billion in the UAE by the end of next year, according to EPOC Messe Frankfurt, organisers of the Beauty World Middle East.
UAE = United Arab Emirates.
It’s too bad that the article does not mention specifics about best selling products. A close friend, who is now living in Dubai, tells me about the incredible popularity of skin whitening creams – perceived to give darker skinned women a boost in their careers and love life, just like in India.
Also, plastic surgery is rampant in the Middle East, amongst wealthy, upper crust women: the most popular procedure? Rhinoplasty (nose jobs) to give them a more “Western” appearance. Botox and liposuction are also on high demand.
Watch the commercial from Fair & Lovely for their Middle Eastern market:
(Remember: Fair & Lovely is owned by Unilever, the parent company of Dove and its “Real Beauty” products. For more on Dove’s hypocrisy and duplicity, check out this older post.)
The Learning Channel (TLC), owned by Discovery Commmunications, has a new reality TV series called “Toddlers & Tiaras” about little girls and boys competing in beauty pageants.
The show’s description, from its official site:
On any given weekend, on stages across the country, little girls and boys parade around wearing makeup, false eyelashes, spray tans and fake hair to be judged on their beauty, personality and costumes. Toddlers and Tiaras follows families on their quest for sparkly crowns, big titles, and lots of cash.
The preparation is intense as it gets down to the final week before the pageant. From hair and nail appointments, to finishing touches on gowns and suits, to numerous coaching sessions or rehearsals, each child preps for their performance. But once at the pageant, it’s all up to the judges and drama ensues when every parent wants to prove that their child is beautiful.
(Emphasis mine)
WTF????!!!????
For more jaw-dropping, check out the photo gallery with the before-and-after photos of the children (needless to say, they looked so much better BEFORE):
The image above (left) comes from the catalog of the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen, which is selling resin models of “Venus with Apple” and Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.” Not actual 100% faithful reproductions, but rather, reinterpreted ones. Read: slimmed down.
The blog author weighs in:
Can you BELIEVE this? The catalog is full of these, the “Three Graces”, Rodin’s women, and a poor “Hebe, Cupbearer of the Gods” who looks like she’s been given silicon breast implants.
This is hilarious: it’s revisionist art history, as done by the Photoshop-happy editors of Vogue.
On the touchy subject of implants, Playboy’s policy seems to be don’t ask, don’t tell. We plotted each model’s bust size (chest circumference at the fullest points) and cup size (breast volume) for all years that data were available (early ’90s to now). While busts have shrunk faster than your 401(k), cup size has remained a buxom C or D. We don’t think evolution can explain this phenomenon.
In the first-ever study of food advertisements in UK magazines, researchers found them filled with sugary, salt-filled options often contradicting the health messages the articles were trying to put across.
This kind of sexualization of ‘tween girls – defined as those between the ages of 8 and 12 – in pop culture and advertising is a growing problem fueled by marketers’ efforts to create cradle-to-grave consumers, a University of Iowa journalism professor argues in her new book.
“A lot of very sexual products are being marketed to very young kids,” said Gigi Durham, author of The Lolita Effect. “I’m criticizing the unhealthy and damaging representations of girls’ sexuality, and how the media present girls’ sexuality in a way that’s tied to their profit motives. The body ideals presented in the media are virtually impossible to attain, but girls don’t always realize that, and they’ll buy an awful lot of products to try to achieve those bodies. There’s endless consumerism built around that.”
Whenever I discuss the issues of beauty, self image and the media – in a critical way – people instantly mention the Dove campaign for “Real Beauty,” invariably saying, “Wasn’t that wonderful, for a change?” Yes. And no. Because (a) it was heavily retouched in Photoshop by Pascal Dangin (b) Dove is owned by Unilever, which sells Slim Fast and the #1 skin whitening cream brand in Asia (c) the ultimate purpose of the ad is to sell a product – and smartly so, by differentiating the brand with the illusion that what they care about is real beauty (their sales shot up 700% in the UK with the – albeit retouched – Pro Age campaign showing older women). For more on Dove’s corporate hypocrisy, check out this earlier post: “An Egregious Example of Corporate Hypocrisy: Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign.”
Indeed, if you examine it closely, a Chomsky quote would be really appropriate regarding Dove’s “Real Beauty” (Photoshopped) campaign:
One of the ways you control what people think is by creating the illusion that there’s a debate going on, but making sure that that debate stays within very narrow margins.
Now, criticism aside, once every blue moon a campaign comes out carrying a positive, empowering message to womenwith no strings attached. No products to sell. No corporate image to make-over. Just pure, undiluted positivity. It’s the case of the award winning PSAs by the wonderful organization Girls Inc.
Their YouTube page does not allow embedding the video on external sites, so click on the link below to open up the video in a new window:
Remember Jessica Alba’s heavily Photoshopped Campari ads? There are more where that came from, and Eva Mendes and Salma Hayek are in some bizarre scenarios.
“Forget facials and pedicures. Today’s new moms want tummy tucks and breast lifts.”
Excerpt:
The fact that more women are turning to plastic surgery worries Shari Graydon, author of In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You.
“Apparently, the pressure on new mothers to care for the every need of a completely incompetent and utterly defenceless newborn while stumbling around in a perpetual state of sleep-deprived hormonal overload isn’t enough,” she says.
Giving plastic surgery a name like “mommy makeover” is just clever marketing to women whose body image is suffering, Graydon says. “Calling cosmetic surgery, whether it happens two years or two decades after a woman gives birth, a ‘mommy makeover’ is a cynical attempt to normalize medically unjustified radical intervention.”
Graydon also says mothers who have plastic surgery send a mixed message to their children.
“You can’t convincingly tell your kids, ‘You’re beautiful just the way you are,’ if you’re risking major anesthetic yourself to remake your body after it does what it was biologically designed to do.”
