It Hurts To Be Beautiful" - True Beauty: From the Inside Out (Part 1)
Interviews with the Good Doctor:
Dr. Robert Tornambe, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon and author of “BQ: The Beauty Quotient”
By Theresa Quadrozzi, A-Muse-In-Manhattan, Certified Life and Leadership Empowerment Coach
Part 1: "It hurts to be beautiful"
“Ouch! Stop!”
I try not to carry too much of the old baggage from childhood with me into adulthood, preferring to leave all or most of in the past where it belongs. But the image of my mother saying, “sorry honey, get used to it – it hurts to be beautiful” as she struggled to pull a hairbrush through the fine, curly hair on my 6-year old head before school came flooding back as I, decades later, attempted to do the same to my wiggly, recalcitrant niece / goddaughter Isabella. She resisted every brushstroke, recoiling in the dramatic display of exaggerated pain that kids put on when they want to avoid the unpleasant at any cost. To gently untangle her relatively smooth locks, I tried every grooming technique I’d mastered through the decades dealing with my long, fusilli-esque curls – but she winced and whinged and whined until I relented.
The memory of my mother wielding a hairbrush, tugging my unruly banana curls into submission, pulling them back into a tight ponytail because, left to their own devices, they “looked terrible” brought tears to my eyes. Not just because I remember how it hurt my 6-year-old head; I also remember how it injured my 6-year old psyche. I remember feeling that my curls must be less beautiful, less desirable than straight locks, and had to be tortured into obedience, into conformity, into behaving contrary to their nature. The Beauty Gods had spoken.
That launched several decades of pulling, rolling, blow drying, setting, wrapping, and sleeping entire nights face down under a hot hair dryer in relentless pursuit of straighter, prettier, “better” hair. Of checking the daily weather forecast, watching the barometer for the humidity level, dreading any form of precipitation. Of tucking my tormented but sleeker locks up into a hat every time I left the house to protect them from the elements. Anything to avoid “frizz”, to take out the “kink” (which has come to mean something very different these days), to get the smooth, swingy look of the girls with pretty hair. Even when perms became all the rage, and my peers were paying hundreds to sport spiral curls like mine, I continued to deny my hair its true, wild nature. I hated it; I was ashamed of it. It was ugly, unpretty, less than. Ask any curly girl of a certain age: she’s sure to have had a similar experience. Years lost in self-loathng, trying to look different, to alter reality and force nature to submit … Many still suffer, and continue to blow dry, undergo expensive, toxic Brazilian/Kerastase treatments …
Soon my hair wasn’t the only feature that wasn’t “good enough”: my non-blue eyes, small boobs, curvy hips, bowed legs, weird nose – nothing was quite right, quite as nice as it could be, should be. When I think of the hours (an hour or two nearly every day), the sweat (buckets full), the money I spent (on gym memberships/trainers, work-out clothes/shoes, bicycles/inner tubes/tune-ups, special foods/diet books/supplements), trying to whittle my thighs to perfection ... in retrospect, liposuction might have been cheaper, less arduous and less painful!
Dr. Bob: Apparently there are no short cuts! When a woman doesn’t embrace the uniqueness of her own personal beauty, if she fails to see her own gifts, if she feels she needs to change, she will go to great lengths to make it happen -
TQ: So … was Mother indeed right? Does being beautiful require effort, energy, agony? Given my experience, my short answer would be: Oh-my-god, yes. For many woman, beauty is a lifelong, arduous, expensive, painful pursuit that never ends. In fact, it becomes more important, obsessive even, to many of us when we begin to “hit the wall” (code for begin to show signs of aging). Apparently, Mother did indeed know best: Beauty can hurt like hell.
Dr. Bob: Without a doubt, women throughout the ages have spent a great deal of time and effort following fashion and pursuing the aesthetics of the day. Some of the practices were – and continue to be – pretty radical and bizarre. Consider Japanese women putting a paste made of bird dung on their face to lighten and soften their skin! While European and American 19th and 20th century “blue bloods” would drink arsenic to achieve the look of blue-veined pallor favored by the aristocracy.
TQ: Kind of like today’s practice of strategically injecting a botulism-based nerve relaxer into your face!
Dr. Bob: In the Middle Ages, European women used to pluck their hairline! To achieve a high forehead, which was considered attractive and regal. Eighteenth-century European aristocracy would wear white wigs and powder their hair; today we dye away the first hint of grey.
TQ: To this day women in west African nations continue to gain – yes, gain – an enormous amount of weight to attract a spouse: a voluptuous figure signifies abundance, fertility, affluence and good fortune in those cultures. While western women starve themselves to emulate the bony beauty of runway models, clothing hangers for fashion designers -
Dr. Bob: Yes, women still go to extremes for beauty’s sake. But today there are many major differences: For example, for perhaps the first time in history, many women have the money and the means and the freedom of choice to make their own decisions. They control the purse strings and can decide what’s right for them. And so, the pursuit of beauty continues …
TQ: As a plastic surgeon, what’s your take on the current pursuit of beauty? I mean, is the foot binding done in pre-modern China to aristocratic girls that much different from the sky-high heels of today’s high fashion? (It’s not pretty when one of them hits the pavement from on high, turning an ankle and scraping a knee on the way down.) Drinking arsenic or applying toxic lead-based make-up to lighten the skin so far from baking in cancer-causing UV rays to tan? Cinching one’s waist (and ability to breath) that much crazier than using liposuction to sculpt one’s figure?
Dr. Bob: Of course there’s a difference: There’s less of a cultural imperative; today’s woman has choices. And today’s procedures are done by highly-trained medical professionals, in sterile, safe conditions with extensive follow up. But it’s funny … When I became a board certified in plastic surgeon by New York State nearly 25 years ago, it was my intention as a fledgling surgeon to help people rebuild their lives after a devastating accident or disease by helping restore their physical body. I trained to reconstruct breasts removed due to cancer, minimize scars from injuries and surgeries, fix faces ravaged by time and bad habits. I envisioned myself as an instrument to help put broken bodies back together, beautifully.
As everyone knows, the practice of plastic surgery has changed a lot since then. By the time I established my practice in the 80’s, plastic surgery had begun to go mainstream in a big way. No longer was it considered vain, excessive, shameful or embarrassing to alter one’s physical appearance for the better (“better” being a highly subjective term), to fix one’s flaws, to change one’s features in order achieve the culturally-dictated fashion of the day. Soon it became almost de rigeur, expected, that women will do what they can, including surgical intervention, to achieve and/or maintain beauty for as long as possible.
TQ: Yes. The ‘70’s brought us the “Dr. Diamond nose,” an expertly-sculpted, pretty little proboscis. I remember so many of the adolescent girls in my neighborhood came back to school in the fall sporting this new nose. And I mean, the same nose. Literally. Imagine, the identical nose on 20 different faces. Thing was, I lived in a very affluent Jewish neighborhood, and many of my classmates had dark, exotic “Sephartic” looks. The pretty, perfect little nose, lovely as it was, looked out of place on many a face.
Dr. Bob: And these days, ironically, many of those same people come to me to reclaim their ethnicity, to “undo” these surgeries which erased the aesthetic bond to family members! Yes - rather than work with the natural, individual aesthetics of the patient, taking into account ethnicity, other features, etc., prototypes such as the WASP-y Diamond nose were applied with abandon to the faces of far too many patients. Like some Platonic ideal. We still see this today, in patients requesting celebrity features: Angelina Jolie’s eyes, Julia Robert’s lips. Fortunately, modern plastic surgery has been trending away from this practice; rather than trying to recreate someone else’s look on every body, I try to respect and work with my patient’s natural beauty, to enhance the unique aspect she already possesses. I feel this is a much more responsible application of plastic surgery.
TQ: Which is a great thing. Especially since, ironically, plastic surgery has been making some very unflattering headlines recently. In this age of “Nip ‘n Tuck”, “The Swan”, the reprehensible “Bridal Plasty”, the public mostly hears about accidents or excesses - people who become addicted to altering themselves, such as Michael Jackson, Octomom, Heidi Montag, Joan Rivers, the Cat Lady -
Dr. Bob: Well, thankfully, this trend towards self-obliteration and excess, rather than going mainstream, appears to be abating. I mean, it’s so obvious that these people need something other than more alterations to their external selves – something much deeper than skin deep. I think doctors do patients a tragic disservice when they agree to perform unnecessary, repeated, over-the-top procedures that frequently veer towards the grotesque.
TQ: For a while we were seeing enormous breasts, pillow lips, faces practically petrified with botox. When and why do you think things went so, well, extreme?
Dr. Bob: Because we could! Technologies improved, procedures became safer, women had disposable income to spend on themselves … My practice really took off during the go-go 90’s, when plastic surgery as an essential and expected beauty aid became de rigeur. This raised the beauty bar exceedingly high; people’s expectations of perfection through surgery also went through the roof. Expressing the thin but busty feminine ideal of the day – the supermodel glamazons, the Sports Illustrated girls, the Victoria Secrets angels - breast implants took over as the most requested form of plastic surgery in the US. (Technological breakthroughs brought the safer saline implants to market, replacing the questionable silicone versions.) Again, as lovely as these women– a tiny sliver of the population – looked, to set the beauty bar for every one in this narrow zone was ridiculous, cruel, impossible. But that didn’t keep women from taking drastic, expensive and even dangerous measures to try to emulate it.
TQ: It still shocks me, the lengths to which women (including myself) will go to improve their looks …
Dr. Bob: That’s the crazy irony- most women don’t realize or appreciate how gorgeous they already are! I never understood how women could be so blind to their own natural beauty, of their own “natural resources”, if you will -
Going forward I hope we see far fewer bee-stung lips, DD breasts, etc. I turn away about 20% of the people who come to me. Why? Because during our consultation, I quickly see that making changes on the outside can’t repair what’s truly ailing them on the inside: It can’t mend a broken heart, fix a failing marriage, find a spouse, recover lost years. Because real change occurs from the inside out …
TQ: Some of the surgical procedures you perform – face lifts, liposuction, etc. - seem pretty invasive. What’s the risk factor?
Dr. Bob: Actually, today we’re encouraging less invasive procedures, and newer technologies allow us to perform far fewer of them and still get great results.
But it’s true – any surgical procedure entails some risk and a certain amount of down-time for healing. In my book, The Beauty Quotient, I list the different procedures available today, surgical as well as non-invasive, and outline what they entail in terms of time, money, pain, healing, and expectations. Knowledge is power: it allows you to make educated choices based on tried and true facts. This also makes for realistic expectations, on a physical and psychological level.
TQ: What do you mean, “realistic expectations, on a physical and psychological level”?
Dr. Bob: As I mentioned, I actually turn away about 20% of the people who come to me for plastic surgery.
TQ: You really turn away patients?
Dr. Bob: Sometimes it’s very apparent that a woman or man is coming to me to fix something beyond the reach of a nip, tuck or needle. No matter what I do for them, no matter how good the work or how great they look, without addressing deeper matters of the heart and soul (low self-esteem, a belief in their “unloveability”) and not just the skin, these people will never be happy or satisfied.
A New Approach: From The Inside Out
TQ: This insight inspired you to offer these people an alternative.
Dr. Bob: That’s right. Rather than turning these people away, I’m now partnering with a hand-picked team of experienced, licensed/certified experts who also assist people in reaching their true potential – physically, personally, professionally, emotionally – by helping them look and feel their best, from the inside out. We offer a complete health and beauty packages including self-mastery/life coaching, nutritional counseling, personal training, personal style, hair and make-up make-overs, with support every step of the way. We don’t dictate; we work in tandem with clients, hearing their aspirations, addressing their challenges, considering their jobs and lifestyles, and ushering them through the process of change, to whatever degree they decide.
TQ: Funny thing is, these complete wellness/beauty packages help us get back to our original Isabella, the bold and beautiful, confident and carefree child we once were. We begin to strip away the layers of negative, disparaging commentary we heard externally and recorded internally as kids, and replay ad nauseam as adults. We uncover a sense of who we truly are, and who we truly want to be. Freedom!
What’s a plastic surgeon’s role in this brave new world?
Dr. Bob: Right in line: Today the trend is towards procedures that enhance and accentuate a woman’s natural gifts. I love the topical treatments … Far less invasive, these procedures don’t aim to dramatically alter a person’s individuality and uniqueness, just polish it up.
TQ: Maybe we can all learn something from my 9-year-old goddaughter!
Dr. Bob: I love this quote from one the modern history’s most gorgeous women, Audrey Hepburn. She devoted much time and energy, especially in her later years, to UNICEF; in 1992, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Her beauty evolved with her, shining through despite her years and struggle with cancer. Here she epitomizes an even true expression of beauty: pretty is as pretty does.
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers
through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.
If you share this with another woman, something good will happen . . You will boost her self esteem,
and she will know that you care about her.
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