Which One Do You Like Better?

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If you're a woman and you don't live in a place without television or printed matter, you know of the Dove "real beauty" campaign. Still not sure if you're familiar with it or not? Well, Dove's "real beauty" campaign strives to show women how they really are. I'm online and I see hairstyle makeovers, women who have gone from long to short. Since I kinda chopped mine a little unevenly in the bathroom the other day, I'm interested since the only way to go with my hair now is up, lol. The first women didn't even register. The second woman, though, most certainly did. The before picture shows a beautiful woman who looks honest to me. She looks like a person who cares about people and the environment. I can picture her having her own fabulous garden. I see her being a foster mom to animals in need and ending up adopting most of them. To be completely honest, she looks like a lot of the Pagans I know and so I connect with that image. She looks like someone I'd like to give a hug to. The after picture she looks more polished. And yes, she is still beautiful. But I don't connect with her anymore. She looks more like a person who would be in front of me in the checkout lane, someone who would be very loud when the transaction didn't go through fast enough for her or there was a blip with the debit card transmission. She does not look like someone I'd hug. And is that the goal? Are we all supposed to look like the after picture? Out of touch with the Earth, out of touch with each other? I realize I'm judging which picture I like better, but why does society as a whole rule over what we all look like and how we should dress? Why is it that if you aren't wearing their clothes and having your hair styled the way they want it done and putting on the makeup and the makeup colors they want on that you are then viewed as undesirable? As needing "help", as in a makeover. Yes I am fully aware that the women on the show ASKED to be made over and that's fine. I have a sneaking suspicion though that they didn't keep up with their makeover looks completely. If you want to cut your hair and color it, then by all means, go for it. But don't feel that you have to in order to be accepted by society. Do it because you want to do it for you and for no one else. I have a lot of gray in my hair. I want to let it go fully gray because I can never get the color I want. Never! I bought dark blonde and it turned my hair darkish brown, even though my hair was medium brownish red to begin with. Last year, my daughter totally wigged out on me when I let her know that NO, I was not planning on dying my inch or two roots, that my entire head was going gray. Since I had kids late in life, I gave in. I didn't want anyone in my son's kindergarten class mistaking me for his grandma instead of his mom. It is kinda fun when the kids come up to me with a box of hair color in the store that they've personally chosen for me. You should see some of the colors my son picks. One of these days, I'm going to go ahead and buy the colors they pick instead of my own. Maybe I'll have better luck!