Because You're Worth It

L'Oreal has consistently told women that they are worth it. Maybelline tells women maybe we're born with it, or maybe it's Maybelline. But what is this ethereal "it"? It seems "it" is beauty, or at the very least, the ability to feel beautiful and, in turn, feel satisfied, wanted and self-confident. L'Oreal tells us we deserve those feelings (which we can attain by way of buying and using L'Oreal products) and Maybelline says it's possible we naturally possess that beauty and confidence, but it's equally probable that thanks to handy Maybelline(!), we buy our way to that confidence. Both these slogans evoke empowerment and serve as a confirmation that even if we don't feel beautiful, we deserve to (and what woman doesn't want to hear that?).

In Nancy Etcoff's chapter "Beauty and Bait" from her book Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, Etcoff's explanation of the phenomena of beauty and attraction sheds light on the logic and appeal of these slogans. Ultimately, we do feel empowered when we feel we appear beautiful. She says: "Attractive people do tend to be more at ease socially, more confident, and less likely to fear negative opinions than are unattractive people. They are more likely to think that they are in control of their lives rather than pawns of fate and circumstance” (47).

Below is an ad for L'Oreal, in which the company isn't selling any product in particular, but rather a message, by way of actress Kerry Washington. In the ad she says: "I feel most beautiful when I feel most empowered....beauty comes from knowing who you are." In essence, L'Oreal is selling the idea of confidence, naturalness and worthiness to feel beautiful without explicitly selling products which provide or enhance that beauty. In this case, beauty is about how you feel inside, not how you look outside. Ironically, the empowerment meant to be exuded in this advertisement, and reflected in the L'Oreal's slogan itself, is external. We are told we're worth it, as though there exists the possibility of not being worth it (or the possibility that, without being told, we wouldn't know we are worth it). In fact, in the mid-2000s, L'Oreal changed its slogan from "Because I'm worth it" to "Because you're worth it." Thankfully, L'Oreal has empowered us, since we may be incapable of empowering ourselves...



Tertullian would take great offense to the concept of this ad. We know this is not purely an altruistic message from L'Oreal-- it tells us we should feel beautiful when we feel empowered, and we feel empowered when we look beautiful (using L'Oreal products). In On Ugliness, Tertullian admonishes women who gain empowerment through temporary physical application or modification: "In fact, those women who torment their skin with make-up, or stain their cheeks red and extend the line of their eyes with soot sin against Him. There can be no doubt that these women dislike what God has created..." (160). These messages--which, on the surface, say the same thing--(feel empowered because of who you are not what you look like) conflict because we know L'Oreal's ultimate goal is to have us buy their makeup, so we can feel worth it. 

We see Tertullian's pronouncement echoed in the "Dove Evolution" video we watched in class (where the message is essentially: look how we've distorted beauty). At the end of the Dove video, there is a title card for the "Dove Self-Esteem Fund," after a message that says, "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted." The paradox here, once again, is that the creator of these "self-empowering" messages are essentially using simple, natural, internal beauty to sell products which are non-natural and enhance outer beauty.






If we've distorted the idea of beauty by Photoshopping and airbrushing, then essentially we've stepped away from "naturalness." In class, Anna asked us what we thought "naturalness" meant. Some said "not being fake," others said, "abstain from affectation (in the form of makeup or cosmetic surgery)," and still others said naturalness was an exhibition of inner beauty. It seemed unanimous that, amongst the girls in our class, natural beauty was perhaps more desirable than affected beauty. We don't want to look like we're trying too hard, even if that means trying hard to not look like we tried too hard. There exists an appeal to seem inherently beautiful, to seem, hopefully, "born with it."

Consequently, our empowerment is reflected through our actions as well as our upkeep and attraction, which falls in line with Umberto Eco's discussion of physiognomy. Though in Eco's chapter it's used while defining ugliness, physiognomy is simply "a pseudoscience that associated facial features with character and moral dispositions" (On Ugliness, 257). If we can alter (or at least alter the perceptions of) our external facial features by minimizing their harshness or "ugliness" with the application of makeup or plastic surgery, then according to the idea of physiognomy, we've altered and enhanced character and moral perceptions of us as well. 

In the United States, where, as Etcoff points out, "our efforts to please good-looking people...are one way we reinforce beauty as a form of status," pressures to feel "worth it" are perpetuated by external forces including cosmetic companies which use "self-empowering" messages to ultimately empower you to feel beautiful on the inside, and perhaps consequently, exhibit that on the outside. Try as we may to distinguish inner from outer beauty, it is easy for us to make snap judgements about someone based on his/her outer appearance. By way of portrayals of worth, companies like L'Oreal have appealed to our ultimate desire to feel worthy of "it." Beauty, therefore, becomes commodified even in commercials which say "beauty comes from knowing who you are you."

Works Cited:
Eco, Umberto. On Ugliness. New York: Rizzoli, 2004.
Etcoff, Nancy. Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty.