Vanity, thy name is Pinoy

When Pinoys talk about vanity, it’s like talking about the whole virgin and whore paradox: We seem to hold it as an essential thing, but at the same time, we think of it with disdain. It’s as if we love the idea of looking good, and yet we loathe making it obvious that we have a vain side to our personalities.
So why is it that Pinoys love to be books with great-looking covers, even if their pages are full of good content (to stretch the metaphor to painful lengths)?

Click here to read more at the Philippine Online Chronicles
“Vanity,” by A. Pagliaricci, c/o Flickr.com

Skin deep: The importance of good looks

While good looks may not mean everything, first impressions do count – as well as being good-looking (or at least presentable) for our loved ones. However, it’s not just about good looks, it’s about good looks in the overall sense.


Read more at the Philippine Online Chronicles

“Venus” by John Robinson, from Flickr.com

Gandang Filipina, kayumangging-kaligatan: Going or gone?

White has many cultural notions built into its state as a color (though white’s state as a color itself is always good for an argument between kids, scientists, and artists). One of these notions is that there a certain aesthetic, a purity that defines it as the “good color.”
Unfortunately, that reputation for being a preferred color seems to have become an issue of skin in our country as well, with lighter-skinned people being preferred in terms of beauty over brown-skinned beauties.
Are Filipina beauties, the Kayumangging-Kaligatan, becoming a “rarity” because “being white is right?”

Go to the Philippine Online Chronicles for the full article

“For Glory,” by Lemuel Cantos, c/o www.flickr.com

Article - The politics of beauty, Philippine edition

The politics of beauty, Philippine edition

It’s been observed that Filipinos don’t see their own kind as beautiful,  in the sense of putting down people who have the perfect Malay aesthetic. Instead, what we seem to see as beautiful are, well, people who either have a pleasing mix of Caucasian and Malay ancestry, or those who are truly Caucasian in the way they look.

And even if we ourselves don’t look Caucasian, beauty products being sold can “help” us be more “white”: skin whiteners, skin cleaning solutions that make us look less oily (to the point of stripping essential oils from our skin), and hair dye for hair color that is more in the genetic lineage of Caucasians.

So what’s this all about? Why do we have, for want of a better term, an ideal for beauty that isn’t Filipino at all?

Read more at the Philippine Online Chronicle