Asian Aesthetic: What people in East Asia consider pretty

For a long while, I wanted to talk about how different the Asian makeup(in East Asian countries not Asian American) can be from the Western one. Before addressing how different a Japanese smokey eye look is different from US smokey eye, I feel the need to talk about how Asian cosmetics are designed to flatter Asian feature.

Even before talking about that, I think I should address what East Asian consider pretty since the whole point of makeup is to make people pretty. So there I am, typing an essay about what "we" think is beautiful, in a single person's perspective. At least I was born Chinese, raised Chinese and grew up watching TVB soaps and Kinki Kids ( Kinki uncles by now?).

How does she look to you? Anyway, the woman in the picture, supermodel named Lu Yan got her big break in Paris (where everybody was praising her God-sent beauty), after being rejected by several Chinese model agencies. She was rejected by her countrymen simply because she is "way too ugly". Were the French people good at digging the girl's inner beauty? No, she was considered beautiful, the vain way (apparently their way is quite different from the Chinese way).

So how does the whole beauty standard work? I am not talking about aesthetic in a sense that I own a PhD in Fine Art, rather, I am just an East Asian talking about Chinese/Japanese culture/pop culture. I might miss a spot here or there or fail to identify some "key quality" of beauty(Even when I say East Asian, I am kind of missing out the whole Korean factor because I have never watched that much Korean shows when I grew up and I am not particularly interested in those. Anyway, stop reading from here if you are a whiny p----y. (Sorry, I still haven't figure out that "Click here to read more" thing, my posts are getting way too long nowadays)

Nakama Yukie - A Japanese actresses famous for her role in Gokusen, one of the Spoke models for Shiseido Hair and Skincare.

Eyes-The Bigger the Better?
Let's take a look at the dominant actresses in the Asian show business (or just look at the spoke models for Olay, Shiseido and Kanebo since they only pick the top-tier anyway.) : Fan Bing Bing, Vivian Chou, Charmaine Sheh, Nakama Yukie, Horikita Maki ... They all have big bright eyes. Does it mean that bigger eyes is always better? Not necessarily.

Korean Actresses Choi Ji-Hoo, I have no clue what she is famous for.

Brigitte Lin, Liu Yifei, Zhang Zi Yi, Jun Ji-Hyun, Choi Ji-Woo, Sakai Noriko, Ayase Haruka, Yoshitaka Yuriko, Matsushima Nanako...none of them has huge eyes resembling those of an alien. So smaller eyes doesn't really stop them from being pretty.

Anyway, the size (as long as it's not shaped like slit) doesn't matter much (it's very rarely to see an mainstream actress enlarging her eyes with smokey eyeshadow, thick eyeliner and circle lenses) it's more about if you eyes can "speak", anyway, it's a quite abstracted idea to explain so I am not going to bother. (The whole post is meant to be taken loosely because you can still look very pretty when you fit in none of of criteria and vice versa)

Double eyelid/Single Eyelid?
Some people might think Asian always automatically love to have bigger eyes because of "they want to have big eyes like white people" . That's a very egocentric thing to say that because a large percentage of East Asian are born with folds on their eyes. A fold is quite different from those crease seen on Caucasian.

Ayase Haruka-The tape doesn't stop her from being popular.

Anyway, I personally think that the tape doesn't just enlarge the area of eyes, rather. It creates a lift to the eyelids so they use less droopy (if you pay attention to many drama, you will notice that many people who already have crease also use tape to lift their eyes.)So for the matter of our discussion, double eyelid is better 99% of the time.

Lips:

Sandara Ng-Comedian from Hong Kong

When I was growing up, small delicate "cherry lips" are considered pretty in Chinese culture and people with thick lips would be mocked as twin-sausage. I wasn't mocked at all but I was pretty self conscious about my huge red (my mom actually thought that I was wearing lipstick) mouths thus I developed a way to smile in picture so that my lips would looks cute and tiny. I still smile like that in my yearbook picture because if I don't I would look pissed.

Due to western influence, it seems that thicker lips are also considered attractive nowadays as long as they have a distinct shape. (Japanese and Korean seems to be more tolerant with the sausages because I have seen a bunch of plump lips in the magazines.)

Face shape: There are always section like XXX works for your face shape (heart shaped, round, oval, square...) and I have never heard of "The best face shape" mentioned in US magazine.
Anyway, there is one shape that's considered the prettiest of all. Which is the shape of a watermelon seed: A combination of oval (overall), with a squarish (top), and a slightly pointy chin.
Fan Bing Bing's face shape (or her whole face) is probably the most-wanted in all plastic surgery but some people like to make fun of her by calling her face "The ice pick" because her chin is (always photoshopped to be) way too pointy.

Nose: When it comes to nose I think Asian is pretty much on the same page as the westerners. Straight, not too wide, no open nostril, no humps...Since many Asian are born with stubby nose, rhinoplasty is probably the 2nd (next to the double eyelid thing) most popular plastic procedure in China (I am not sure about the statistics elsewhere but I have seen plenty of fake or identical looking nose in Japanese and Korean celebrities as well).

Liu Yifei and her obvious nose contour (that she doesn't need).

Skin tone:
Whitening is a never ending subject in Asian beauty, as it was said in Chinese, "paleness hides 3 imperfections." Fair skin is always ( before white people step foot on Asian continent) considered pretty because pale skin gives an impression of pureness, high-class (as only labor would have the chance to get tanned)and a light canvas that would make the features stand out more. People prefer pale skin because many Asian have a prominent yellow undertone and when it's darker, tend to appear sallow/muddy instead of glowing.

Cheekbones- is quite desirable in US when you see how Tyra Bank teaches you how to make them pop. Well, girls in Asian countries do like to make their cheeks cute, plump and youthful but I rarely see them trying to achieve a "sculpted cheekbone" and when you search "high cheek bone" in China based search engine Baidu, you don't get a beauty with high cheek bone. Instead, you get link to plastic surgery site about "How to remove them surgically" and pictures of women with the aforementioned perfect face shape.

In fact, if you are familiar with the Chinese comic Old Master Q, most of the "ugly passerby" are depicted with slanted eyes, stubby nose, bowl cut hair and...you guessed it, high cheek bones. In the Chinese pseudo-science 面相学 (Something like Feng Shui about people's facial structure) high cheek bone, along with thin lips, pointy chin, limp (opposite to plump) cheek, short forehead and too much white in the eyes, are signs that you are not a good wife material. (Anyway, the superstition says something like you are posting a great danger to your husband or some non sense like that.)

Miura Haruma is a guy indeed, I just couldn't find an actress with high-cheek bone

Anyway, I personally don't think it's a beautifying feature but it's not necessarily a bad thing. (For Asian American, it's a good thing I guess?)

Freckles: are not usually considered cute (since many Asian don't get that kind of cute freckles, just dark spot caused by sun or age) and there are many freckle fighting products in the market. The same thing with "high cheek bone", if you search freckles on a Chinese search engine, the top result you get would be "way to get rid of them" and pictures of girls without a single spot.

Joey Wong and her beauty peak.

Widows-peak is called "beauty's peak" in Chinese. Self explanatory?

Anyway, these are all I can think of right now, It's just a very vague standard of what Asian consider pretty. Of course you are not supposed to judge a person against these standard (They are more like reoccurring features found on the popular Asian actresses) because beauty is not meant to be measured or compared (A woman who has big eyes, straight nose, delicate mouth and the watermelon seed shaped face can look perfectly mediocre even she has all the pretty features) . I just want to show that while there are creeps people who think Asian are pretty simple because they are Asian, we think differently.