What makes a person beautiful?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SacredHeartBassist
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I think pales beautiful too.A lot of people are like "you have to be tanned/fake tanned to be beautiful " so I’m glad you’ve resisted that pressure and brainwashing.
Beauty comes in all different skin tones and in my view beauty should be a wide variety of things and not just a “cookie cutter stock standard” look (if that makes sense?).
 
I think the most beautiful thing about a person would be the soul. Depending on the love and virtues that it possessed it during it’s life it should have a exquisite beauty that will be revealed after this life in heaven. When reading about the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin and other saints, the visionary would be unable to describe the glorious sight that they witnessed.
 
Maybe I’m nuts, but I think all those actresses and models look just fine without makeup. They look a different way with makeup; to me it’s like they put on a “uniform” for their job. I spent a lot of time playing with makeup when I was young and studying makeup and photography techniques as a hobby - I was fascinated with Francesco Scavullo books - so to me it’s like painting a canvas to make different effects. The reason some women have been highly successful models is that their faces without makeup are like blanks that can be made up to look many different ways, giving the woman a tremendous range in what types of photos she can pose for. Just seems like a game to me, or art if you will, because the person is going home and wash it all off anyway and sit around barefaced in a slouchy sweatshirt, looking like how God made them.

I’ve seen men and women who were so naturally handsome or beautiful (without makeup) that I could just enjoy looking at them like I’d look at a piece of art, but if they didn’t have a personality I could relate to, then it was pretty much the same as looking at a statue in the museum or a picture in a fashion magazine. In the end it was all about the personality, with some basic cleanliness thrown in because I never liked unwashed smelly people.
 
What makes a person beautiful ?I wonder what answer the various Saints would have given 🙂
 
Studies have shown that people treat attractive people better and assume they’re smarter/nicer.

To be honest, I don’t think it’ll ever change. We can include diversity in body types, faves, races etc, and we should, but there will always be a standard of beauty. That standard can and has changed, though.
 
Last edited:
Lea101 said:
Studies have shown that people treat attractive people better and assume they’re smarter/nicer.
Click to expand...
Studies have also shown that people naturally hold taller men in high regard than shorter men. That hasn’t stopped many thousands of men below average height from being very successful in life.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
…average height from being very successful in life
Click to expand...
Yeah, but they do have a hard time compared to already tall guys/more attractive women.

Also in the romantic aspect. I mean all of us would pick a better looking person over a not so decent person, assuming that they have the same character. And there are plenty of attractive and nice people out there. Unfortunately real life isn’t always ‘Beautiful/Handsome Jerk vs Ugly Sweetheart’, as pessimistic as that sounds.

Looks draw the person in, but after that it’s the personality/morals/etc that gets them to genuinely like you.
 
Lea101 said:
Also in the romantic aspect. I mean all of us would pick a better looking person over a not so decent person, assuming that they have the same character.
Click to expand...
You’re never going to get two people of exactly the same “character”, so this is never going to happen in practice.

Also, what one person finds attractive compared to the next person varies quite a bit, and also varies to a great degree from the general standard of attractiveness, if indeed we even have one standard any more. People’s individual preferences as to what they find attractive in choosing a partner, such as height, weight, body shape, facial features, are extremely individualized and often, culturally based. I saw this happen over and over again in college. Each person had a “type” they found attractive and would basically date variations on that type. The “types” were all over the map, and were often influenced by the family background of the person. A lot of people are unconsciously looking for somebody who resembles their parent of the opposite gender.
 
You’re not wrong here, but I guess ultimately you gotta be special enough to stand out among other “candidates”
 
It happens. My parents looked similar to each other, and my husband and I have a similar ethnic background and look like we could have each been a member of the other’s family.
 
I find myself attracted to guys of my skin tone too. But I hope to God I don’t marry someone that looks like my dad. I would like to avoid anyone similar as much as possible.
 
I had a friend’s husband meet my parents. He thought MY dad was my husband’s father, because he thought they look so much alike. Mostly very similar coloring, and their noses. But, I don’t see it. Different builds, different face and features.

But, having said that I found many men who did NOT look anything like my family/ethnic background attractive. I did find out while growing up that my mother had a preference for tall men, because I tended to be attracted to men who were are on the shorter side, well really just under six foot tall. Mom couldn’t help herself but sniff and announce how short my date was. She wouldn’t be too polite about it. 😆 All of her brother’s and her dad were way over six feet tall, so yeah, what we grow up with seems to influence us at least a little. Some more than others.
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
Oh, pale can definitely be beautiful, but when you’re so white you’re basically translucent (like me), it’s very easy for your complexion to look washed out if you wear the wrong colors. Hence why I gravitate toward black and deep blue tops, while avoiding neons.
Click to expand...
I am so pale, I AM translucent! My skin is white. No freckles. I don’t have enough skin pigment. I never tan! I couldn’t tan! And yet I have very dark hair. My mother was Brazilian and fair (she even had strawberry blonde hair!) and my father was French and dark. Go figure. I have the pale translucent skin, VERY green eyes, and almost black hair. My two sisters have black hair, brown eyes, and olive skin, while my two brothers are very fair.

I really don’t care what color skin or hair a person has.

Yes, you are right. There is a difference between beauty and attractiveness. I tend to think the first comes from within and is the best and obtainable by all, whereas the second is a roll of the genetic dice and how well one cares for oneself.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Maybe I’m nuts, but I think all those actresses and models look just fine without makeup.
Click to expand...
I don’t think they are physically attractive at all. No one would put Cindy Crawford on the cover of a magazine looking like that if they wanted a “beautiful woman.” However, they might have a beautiful soul. I don’t know because I don’t know them. Well, I know the Kardashians a little because I did some PR for them, but I don’t really “know” them. I’ve been in their homes and worked with them on PR is all. Kim Kardashian isn’t nearly as “bad” as some would have you think. I think she’s a pretty good friend, daughter, sister, mother, and wife. Their mom, Kris, is a very spiritual person.

Even though I don’t think the women look attractive without makeup, I think if they have inner beauty, anyone who is their spouse, friend, etc. is going to eventually see them as beautiful no matter what.

I was born in LA and I live in West Hollywood (Hollywood Hills). My mother worked in PR with celebrities. Now I do. I see “stars” on a daily basis. Many live in my neighborhood. Johnny Mathis lives next door to me and always has, or he will again once his house is renovated. He is GORGEOUS! Inside and outside. Courtney Cox used to live down the street. Anyway, we are a pretty superficial city overall, and most of us make sure we are “camera ready” when we go out. Makeup on, hair and nails done, dressed well, even if casually. I don’t know how anyone got those photos of celebrities without makeup. Coming from the gym, I guess.
 
Last edited:
egretps said:
But, having said that I found many men who did NOT look anything like my family/ethnic background attractive. I did find out while growing up that my mother had a preference for tall men, because I tended to be attracted to men who were are on the shorter side, well really just under six foot tall. Mom couldn’t help herself but sniff and announce how short my date was. She wouldn’t be too polite about it. 😆 All of her brother’s and her dad were way over six feet tall, so yeah, what we grow up with seems to influence us at least a little. Some more than others.
Click to expand...
My mother also did not like short men. She had been taller than average when she grew up and did not like the guy to be shorter than her. I was a few inches shorter than my mother and didn’t find shorter men to be unattractive, except for the fact that some of them had a chip on their shoulder due to being short which caused them to act like Napoleon and caused me to object to their personality, not their size.

The deal breaker for me was always bald men. I did not like bald men (Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas excepted). Very few of the males in my family or extended family were bald. I have met other women who like bald men and some of them have noted that their own fathers were bald so they are used to it.

I would note that my husband was about the polar opposite, lookswise, of 90 percent of the men I had dated prior to him. I was always going after short thin guys with long straight hair. My husband is a tall fat guy with a great head of short curly hair.
 
Saxum said:
Good genetics
Click to expand...
My youngest brother looks like Adonis when he’s clean-shaven, but you wouldn’t know it because he insists on wearing this really nasty beard.
 
Last edited:
Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas. Yes!

It’s the “comb over” that I don’t like. A beautiful head with curls, long locks, or clean shaven is still a beautiful head to me. I am inclined to think women are more beautiful with long hair. But I’m just as wrong as I am right in my own opinion! I see actresses with nearly shaven heads like Danai Gurira and it’s proof positive that beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder. There is some objectivity, as well as subjectivity. She is beautiful with or without hair. (But even she isn’t flattered in every photo even though she has regular features, is young, healthy and very fit.)

It helped that my dh wanted to, and attended Mass with me while we dated. The only other Catholics I dated weren’t interested. Even if they attended with their own family. 😦 The Protestant boys were slightly wigged out about it. Who can blame them? Dh was also good to waitstaff at restaurants and events. This made my dh the MOST attractive man I had ever met.

Many factors make someone ‘beautiful’, including that ‘golden mean’ or the marquardt beauty mask.

I do think that when people are steeped in sin, the concept of beauty leans heavily on people as objects/parts and the fleeting/temporary more than appreciating them as persons with a sense of the eternal.
 
Last edited:
Tell your brother he’s doing a disservice for the rest of us!

BTW he won’t always look that way, effortlessly, tell him that too.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top