BEAUTY IS EVERYTHING!

In today's world we are constantly bombarded with photoshopped images of jaw-dropping models, Goddess-like celebrities and gorgeous popstars, all looking perfectly flawless like a very rare and beautifully cut diamond.

The quest for beauty has been an eternal theme throughout history and women have gone to endless trouble to achieve the ideal beauty of the age. Pick up any fashion magazine today and inside you'll find a women's fantasy world reaching out to the reader promising her that if she makes herself look like this or that, she'll become this ethereal creature of allure and temptation. I mention this, because most campaigns in fashion magazines connects to sultry topics of beauty.

For instance, whenever there's a campaign for a new shade of lipstick, sure enough the model or celebrity will feature beautifully crafted bee-stung lips that appear to be dying to be kissed by some handsome stranger.

Basically, the beauty products advertised on TV, on billboards, and magazines are either things women really want or desperately need to make themselves feel better. This is all about morale boosting. Advertising beguiles women who have fallen to fertile soil. The sell has to be perfectly soft so as to create a feeling of promise.

Women have to go through all kinds of daily rituals to appear more improved, but in the last few years the treatments to attain youth-like skin have gotten even more bizarre, indeed.

Camila, the Duchess of Cornwall, endorses a bee venom mask touted as the natural organic alternative to Botox. The face mask contains a bee venom ingredient that promises to immediately lift, tighten and firm facial muscles.

Then, there are beer baths being offered by hotels in Prague. The beer is heated to over 30 degrees Celsius and helps sweat away toxins, leaving the skin glowing and refreshed.

Of course, if you don't fancy that, there are fish pedicures, where you dunk your feet into tanks with toothless carp; leech therapy which Demi Moore swears by to detoxify her blood; snail secretion cream that claims to reduce wrinkles and improve the skin; or how about sheep placenta hand décolleté treatment. This trend came straight from LA and stimulates cell growth on the hands and cleavage, making it appear more firmer and plump. Victoria Beckham and Kim Kardashian are supposed to be fans of this.

There's been a lot of heated debate over the years about whether all this high-powered advertising and pressure to look perfect is responsible for having an affect on women's health. I don't want to get into all that now, but, what I will say is that a woman must be realistic about herself. A person wasting herself away to achieve a size 0 isn't going to look like a supermodel. Women who are vulnerable must learn to appreciate their natural form and beauty. Even models don't look anything near like the photographs they appear in. These have been touched up with photoshop within an inch of their lives.

Though women are presented with this strong ideology on how they should look or how they want to look, I believe women should just enjoy beauty and fashion and not take it too seriously.

Dressing up and looking better should be just fun!