Is personal grooming a necessity or just vanity?
Introduction:To make a mark in the corporate world, you need talent and hard work. You bring along a wealth of knowledge and experience that makes you what you are, defines your personality but is that all that it takes to make an impression at work place or at personal acquaintances? It should be indeed but when you are asked to look your best too, you are left wondering what matters the most – your inner beauty or the outward grooming?
A Delhi based poet recently made a mark with her poetry on body hair and being shamed for not staying well groomed. The poem is all about how a girl is judged based on her personal grooming effects, ignoring the pain she has to go through to get them done. Glamour has become more of a necessity than vanity these days. Even at job you are sometimes required to follow a list of grooming necessities in order to fit in.
It would matter to you if you are treated like an ugly potato so there is no point denying that you are comfortable with not grooming yourself since you don’t want to. But shouldn’t that be just for vanity instead of being made a necessity?
Necessity:1. Enhancing personal: If you dress well, keep yourself well groomed, look clean and fresh all the time, there definitely is positive vibes around you. You look pleasant, feel pleasant about yourself which in turn makes people around you reflect the same. You are respected and appreciated for looking presentable all the time. There is no harm in making your outward beauty do the talking sometimes. There is a lot to be said about first impressions. Grooming plays an important part in making the first impression a pleasant one.
2. Cleanliness is next to godliness: Just getting yourself a pair of branded or designer clothes will never do the work unless you are clean and groomed. The art of cleaning and grooming your body makes you comfortable in your own skin which makes it easier for you to be comfortable in whatever you are wearing. Personal hygiene also comes with grooming, which if ignored can be very disappointing to the people you meet.
3. Feeling confident: Personal grooming is more about making yourself feel better and confident than about impressing others. We wear good clothes and spend time tending to our looks for our own satisfaction. If you are sure that you look impeccably clean and fresh, your body stays relaxed and you feel confident about yourself. The same could be said about wearing comfortable clothes. Clothes that fit well and lets your skin breathe are always the ones we wear to work. Subtle colors and light make up also does the same trick for women as clean shave and mild perfume does for men at workplace.
4. Sparing time for yourself: In the busy sphere of life, sparing some time at a beauty salon to take care of your personal grooming needs is actually the luxury time we give ourselves. A day at spa does so much good than just cleansing our skin and getting rid of unwanted facial hair. The latter is painful indeed but a few sessions and you get used to it. It is also not the kind of pain that lasts hence all the worrying and apprehensions are only for beginners or lazy men and women who would rather spend the weekend on bed, eating out of junk takeout food and wasting away.
5. Healthy body and mind: By keeping oneself well groomed and cleaned, you also learn to stay healthy. A simple effort of washing hands, keeping the nails trimmed and manicured can prevent you from a long list of health issues. Keeping hair clean and regularly washed prevents dandruff and lice issues. Greasy uncombed hair is a put off everywhere you go. Dental hygiene also comes in personal grooming, which in turn helps you maintain good dental health. Body odor also must be dealt with since they don’t just make others around you uncomfortable but also could be pointing toward health issues or unhealthy lifestyle – both of which needs help.
Vanity:1. More than necessary attention towards look: Since grooming has become an important factor in getting yourself to fit in, youth are spending too much time and money on grooming products and treatments. Right from school days, girls are told to wax unwanted hair from hands and legs. It sure is painful for teens to start waxing at that tender age. When you should be studying, you spend hours at salons or locked in your room trying beauty products.
2. Shaming: Once you are out of school, even before you set foot on the doorsteps of college, it becomes an unsaid rule that you need to be well groomed or be ready to be body shamed in a group of kids who flaunt their façade like fresh out of a magazine cover. Bullying, ragging and body shaming becomes intense sometimes, forcing those who might not be ready for it to take special care of the grooming list. It is surprising why personal grooming is not already introduced as subject at high schools.
3. Hygiene and grooming is not the same: One can take care of all sorts of personal hygiene but choose to not remove unwanted facial hair, not thread and pluck off eyebrows, not to swear by beauty products that promise you a shade or two fairer skin. In the name of hygiene too many unnecessary vanity instructions are being put into rulebook. One cannot and should not be forced for these vanity practices unless the field like glamour industry calls for it.
4. Giving in to product advertisements: Beauty products for fairness, anti-aging, hiding dark spots and what not are being endorsed like they are an absolute must for successful career. One of the famous racist advertisements for Fair & Lovely gives you the shortcut for “good job, own house and well settled life” – just a fairness product does that? They are selling these ads and we are falling for it. Hair removing creams have chemicals that harms skin, even the priciest ones, and yet they are endorsed because they know how we will fall for it.
Conclusion:Grooming does make you feel good, after all the efforts and pain you have to endure it does pay off well, only if you know that’s what you wants. We feel good when we have set our own expectations to feel good about. Smooth skin, clean reflection and tidy hair is a good sight indeed but the same doesn’t apply for all. It should not be made a medium to be judged upon.
One can stay clean and hygienic without going through painful waxing sessions or flaking the face with layers of concealers. Personal grooming is a necessity in many fields of career because they want you to look good and presentable, feel confident and determined. If you can convince them that you are happy and confident in your own skin, you do not need vanity to be successful.
