Nobody knows exactly when pouting in photographs became a thing, but it is safe to say it was somewhere around 2013-14, a time when younger people were still using Facebook and when Beyoncé’s sister Solange was about to beat up Jay Z in that infamous elevator for cheating on her. The “duck-face” or the “pout” has ever since been around, even though other similar trends like fish-gape and smizing have faded from the lives and the selfies of commoners.
Pouting is essentially a technique to make your jawline and cheekbones appear more prominent than they are. Thanks to celebrities and models and other social media influencers, for quite a few years now, all of us have been caught in the habit of pouting whenever clicking a selfie. In fact, now it comes as a second nature to almost every human being, especially women. But not to be fooled by that statement, since there are a lot of underdeveloped creatures, myself included, who no matter what cannot perfect the pout. Speaking from personal experience, sometimes our best shot looks as if the insides of our cheeks are two rebellious teens who are in love and are hell bent to break free from the clasp of jaws to fulfil their true love’s kiss.
Image Credit: etonline.com
Well, you know what they say, where there is money, there’s a way. Achieving the perfect pout, like everything else in life, is a bit (read: quite a lot) easier for those who have the bank balance to afford cosmetic surgery. With the rise of Queen Kylie Jenner, the rate of people taking lip injections and fillers has increased astronomically as well. But some peasants are destined to remain peasants-penniless, and hence are poutless too. But that is where, what we call “jugaad” in Hindi, comes in the scenes. Several “hacks” to get the perfect pouty full lip look are all over the internet, be it over-lining your lips or going even a step further to what is now called “lip contouring”. To be honest, for someone who is neither rich nor has the artistic talent to apply makeup, pout still remains out of my reach. Every lipstick application results in automatic over-lining, thanks to my butterfly fingers.
But at the end of the day, there is no denying of the fact that whether you can pout or not, the whole trend is kind of dumb. I mean, the whole notion of making your face appear narrower down the eyes and making your jawline and cheekbone pop- isn’t that a weird societal beauty standard? Some of us have naturally fuller lips, some of us have chubby cheeks, some may have crooked teeth, some freckles- isn’t it idiotic to consider only one kind of a quirk as beautiful and to dismiss the rest?
Patriarchy is dumb. So are beauty standards. It’s about time we strike them out of our lives like we did with low-waist apple bottom jeans.
