What is beauty?

For as long as I can remember, my standards of beauty have been determined by fashion magazines and, to a lesser extent, Hollywood. It's the glossy magazines that decide how long I wear my nails, how I style my hair, and how I do my makeup. So it's absolutely amazing to me to see segments of society that seem completely unfazed by the same fashion-conscious concerns that I have. They have their own standards, and their own ideas of beauty. I started thinking about this when I was doing the blog a couple of nights ago about Dancing With the Stars. Now, in any fashion magazine, the hair and makeup, and certainly the ensembles, of the professional dancers would have been ensured that the wearer wound up with a dark slash over her eyes and a big "don't" above her head. But in ballroom dancing world, that's the way to look. The same with pageant queens. And square dancers. And preppies. And the women from New Jersey or Queens or Staten Island who are always portrayed in the movies with huge hair and long nails. [No offense to any of these women. I know this is an awful stereotype. There are women who look like this in every part of the country]. When I see the whole big hair/scrunchy/long nails thing, I try not to judge. I am almost envious. These women live in a bubble, and clearly haven't had an update since the 80s, but they are oblivious. They think they look great, and so does everyone around them. What more could a girl want?