The JIHAD of Cosmetic Perceptions.....

India’s leading news channel for 3 years in a row was doing a segment on what our silver screen’s leading ladies look like behind the layers of treatment and make-up. Besides the obvious ludicrousness of Anushka’s new lips and the pitiable raggedness of Kareena and Rani without their make-up, the obvious thought that stays behind is the question on what drives the thriving investment in appearance excesses.

   

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has projected that the market size of Indian cosmetics industry which is currently (2012-13) estimated at Rs. 100 Bn, will double to be worth Rs. 200 Bn by 2014 due to emergence of a young urban elite population with rising disposable incomes and increase in working women looking for lifestyle-oriented and luxury products. And, According to a global survey conducted by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, India was ranked fourth in the list of top five countries in the world for the number of people going for surgical and non-surgical procedures to enhance their features. The survey included the top 25 countries representing 75 per cent of all procedures performed by board certified plastic surgeons in 2009. Overall the estimated number of procedures done in India in 2012 was 1.14 million, which amounted to 6.2 per cent of the world’s cosmetic surgeries. It is a big jump for India who was not even in top 20, 10 years ago.

These present a very potent and rich market and the sharks, now having tasted blood, want more. How did we get here and how can this be exponentially grown? India has a female population of 615 million with 50% between 0 – 25 years of age. If we can somehow get all of them to spend at least Rs. 100 a month, that’s Rs. 738 Bn a year in potential revenue. And of course, the more the more the merrier! And, why not! When, all that it takes is the ability to create two sets of perceptions that play with basic human instincts and insecurities thereof.

Most cosmetic marketing is centered on drawing and fueling a male fantasy and thereafter chop away at the female sense of self-esteem. And this is not much of a secret and millions of pages have been written on this. Take a look around at some of the cosmetic advertising – they are all centered on a benchmarking of appearance perfection (dry hair, dry skin, skin marks and the likes) and how you (or your ladies) can get to that image manipulated and make belief perfection enabled by the product or service on sale. If you can make a woman appear, appear being the operative word, as the perceived outcome of your product or service, and make it convincing enough, there are two seeds of doubt you have sown. In the mind of the woman you have successfully sown the question of ‘can I get there’? And, in the mind of the male you have successfully sown the seed of desire ‘that’s what I deserve or should aim for’. In essence you have defined the acceptable standard of beauty, based almost entirely on leveraging perception to manipulate an evolutionary imperative.

Evolution, in many words, dictates that opposites attract based on the desire of the fittest offspring! The fittest that can survive in the big bad world! The process of advertising and marketing focusses on redefining the idea of what is fittest. Once the definition of fittest is penned down as fair and flawless skin and, for some reason, silky long hair, the entire basis for social outlook has been transformed. To survive, you no longer need physical and intellectual acumen and adaptability. You just need to look like ‘this’!

That is the first part of the transformation that will ensure that an origin of ever flowing money is created. The next part of the problem is to sustain and reinforce that belief on an ongoing basis so that, like most broadcasted messages, the desire and insecurity is never diluted – keep that stream alive and growing. The website Heart of Leadership posts a survey report that finds more than 90 percent of girls – 15 to 17 years – wanting to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance. Now that is what represents (with counterparts across age groups) a solid stream of women trying to look better and therefore spending. How do you keep that need and desire alive and growing? Make sure that every target is sufficiently exposed to an endless stream of images that portray the benchmark of beauty and associated success. This is really where our plastic beauties come to play. Surgically appropriately implanted and painted in the right proportions to cover the natural flaws, any woman can be made a goddess of the perception of beauty.

What one fails to notice is the fact that the end product does not exist naturally in reality. It never ever has as against the cosmetic industry that has flourished since the days of the alchemists’ concoctions. After so many pages and sermons of this fundamental wisdom that nature survives through flaws and perfections balancing each other, common sense and truth still loses the battle to the apparent lure of the perception. Small wonder it is that under the paint of cosmetic portrayal hides a monster that is self-destructing with every layer that is added and washed away.

No one is born knowing that fair and flawless skin and long and silky hair do not make a beautiful you. It is gradually fed into your blank slate neurons until you are indoctrinated to the core or eliminated from the race. The pursuit of beauty has, over the years, assumed the proportions of a subconscious religion – something that everyone believes in and it does not take too much depth and intellectual smarts to achieve – it only takes money. And the more money you can spare, the greater the conviction of your religious alignment; most often to the point where the individual loses of the distinction of reality and doctrine. In many ways you can compare this with religious fanaticism. It is a jihad of the cosmetic capitalists against the common sense and natural order of things.