When did beauty become so samey?

When did beauty become so… samey?

I read an article by Lisa Armstrong in The Telegraph today about Nicole Kidman’s recent British Vogue shoot.

Armstrong describes the images as “beyond the realms of airbrushing” and questions what they reveal about our increasing pursuit of hyper-perfectionism. In a shoot ostensibly celebrating a 59-year-old woman, Nicole Kidman appears so perfected that some might argue she is barely recognisable.

The article introduced me to a term I hadn’t heard before: homogenised beauty ideals.

It describes the way our ideas about what is considered beautiful are becoming increasingly narrow and uniform. Instead of beauty reflecting the glorious diversity of human faces, bodies, ages, cultures and characteristics, we are repeatedly presented with one remarkably similar ideal.

Smooth skin. Full lips. High cheekbones. A small nose. Big eyes. A slim but curvaceous body. A flat stomach. No visible signs of ageing.

We’ve always had beauty standards, of course. But social media, filters, cosmetic procedures, airbrushing and algorithms now allow one particular look to travel further and faster than ever before.

The more we see it, the more “normal” it begins to appear.

And when the same type of face and body is repeatedly rewarded with attention, visibility and approval, it can quietly change how we see ourselves. Features that once simply belonged to us begin to look like problems to solve. A perfectly ordinary face can start to feel inadequate. Ageing becomes something we are expected to fight. Difference becomes something to correct.

Perhaps the most insidious part is that it can feel like personal choice.

We may believe we are simply choosing to improve ourselves, without always recognising how heavily those choices have been shaped by what we see around us. When thousands of women are being encouraged to want the same lips, jawline, waist or wrinkle-free forehead, it is worth asking:

How freely did we choose this ideal?

Homogenised beauty ideals don’t only affect how we look at ourselves. They also reduce our ability to recognise beauty in its many forms. Character, individuality and the evidence of a life lived can become harder to appreciate when our eyes have been trained to seek sameness.

There is something particularly troubling about seeing this applied to older women.

What message does it send when even a woman as famously beautiful as Nicole Kidman cannot simply be seen with the face of a 59-year-old? What does that teach the rest of us about which women are considered worthy of being visible, celebrated and placed on a magazine cover?

This isn’t about judging Nicole Kidman or women who use filters, colour their hair, wear make-up or choose cosmetic procedures. None of us exists outside the culture we live in. We are all responding, in different ways, to the messages we have absorbed about appearance, ageing and worth.

It is about becoming more conscious of those messages.

Because perhaps reclaiming the gaze begins with asking:

Who taught me what beauty is?

How much of what I dislike about myself did I learn to dislike?

And what might I see if I looked at myself through eyes that had not been trained to search for flaws?

Reclaiming the gaze is not about forcing ourselves to love every part of our appearance.

It is about widening the lens.

Making room for faces that move. Bodies that change. Skin that carries time. Features that tell us where we came from. Beauty that is distinctive, human and entirely our own.

Because the alternative to homogenised beauty is not imperfection.

It is individuality.