Beauty Demands

With hairdressers in the UK currently closed for lockdown again, we republish Anna Cermakova's 2017 post on the important role of hair.  How often do you think about your hair? Every morning looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking is this going to be a ‘good/bad hair’ day? How often do you change the colour of your hair? How often do you substantially change the length or style of your hair? When is the time right for such a change? I have personally been quite unadventurous with my hair for most of my life and never really worried until it started to grow grey… I have always had long or longish hair and never even considered having a really short ‘boy’ haircut; not that I don’t like short hair but it never even occurred to me to try and have a short haircut — so established is the custom for many women to have their hair long. One of John Tenniel’s illustrations of Alice in Wonderland (1865), which is part of the ‘visual’ of the GLARE project I am working on, triggered a

The enforced move to online work and social interactions over the last year have increased appearance pressures for many, so it seems a good time to revisit Heather Widdows' 2018 post on New Year's resolutions and self-improvement.  Shutterstock. Heather Widdows , University of Birmingham After the feasting of Christmas, January is a time of detox and self-denial. It’s when people start new diets, begin new exercise regimes and make new year’s resolutions. We promise ourselves that we will do better – that we will better ourselves. But all too often – at least in the West – this means improving our bodies. While losing weight or gaining fitness can be a good thing, these types of resolutions – “I will lose five kilograms”, “I will join a gym”, “I will stop eating sweets” – mark a significant change from previous generations. Traditionally, new year’s resolutions were about improving one’s character – the inner self, not the outer self . For example, an extract of an