Daniel Shin Staff Writer

Like almost every teenager, I had facial acne growing up.

To the adults around me, especially my father, it was a flashing red sign (pun intended) warning of a problem to be “fixed.” Instead of seeing it like rational people do — a totally normal byproduct of hormonal growth that triggers excessive oil production in the skin — they saw a need for an emergency-level trip to the nearest Shoppers Drug Mart to buy $39.99 worth of…acne gel or cleanser or medication or whatever.

Of course, this is a classic example of consumerism. Since when did being a teenager require regular trips to the beauty aisle and paying taxes to Loblaw Companies Limited?

Admittedly, my skincare habits were poor as a teenager. When you are used to waking up at 7:50 am and leaving the house by 8:00 a.m., spending an extra ten minutes applying a product other than toothpaste feels like a waste. Even though I paid for the acne products with my own money, they never translated well into my schedule. It felt unnecessary. But in retrospect, perhaps the ability to be indifferent was a luxury. While I could have dismissed skincare as an unnecessary inconvenience, women have historically faced significantly higher and stricter standards regarding their appearances. Flawless skin, a youthful look, constantly changing beauty trends, and a near-impossible physique are all examples of how beauty extends far beyond personal preferences. What I considered an annoying trip to Shoppers might have truly felt mandatory for some others.

Who and what decides what we should look like?

Beauty standards were never extensions of natural law, even when we mastered the art of making it feel like they were. Decades of advertising, cultural expectations, media displays, and increasingly influential social media algorithms have turned every new ideal into a profitable opportunity. They convince women of a so-called problem, then sell them the solution.

Consider how Canadian beauty standards have changed rapidly in the 20th century. At the turn of the century, the “Gibson Girl” was the look women strove for. This look was known for an hourglass figure, helped by heavy corsets. Then, the 1920s saw the decline of the corset in favour of flat-chested, more masculine-looking figures to reflect the end of the conservative Victorian era and a heightened presence of women in public. World War II called upon women to fill in the void in the workforce like never before in history — and beauty standards followed suit by promoting industrious, hard-working and resilient images, only to return right back to prioritizing fuller breasts, small waists, and the traditional “housewife” look as soon as the war ended. Even when women got a brief break in the 1960s and 1970s with second-wave feminism pushing back against rigid standards, the rise of women’s sports, visualized right here at home by the 1976 Montreal Summer and 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, drove an obsession with the disciplined, lean and muscular women’s bodies through the 80s. The century ended with the “heroin chic” look that focused on extreme thinness and pale faces.

There is nothing inherently wrong with changing trends, of course. But do you notice a pattern here?

Very little about the shifts in standards is tied to what women actually wanted to look like. Both the Gibson Girls and the flat-chested look were merely responses to what mainstream culture believed women should look like at the time.

The factory women were created because they sent off all the men to war, and the housewives returned because the men came home. Making the muscular woman the standard goes far beyond celebrating women’s participation in Olympic sports. For something that governs them, the lack of their own agency in shaping their rules feels almost painful to reflect on from the outside.

While we might assume we left behind this top-down system in the 21st century, with its emphasis on individual freedom and cultural diversity, current trends show the reality is more complex. Though it is largely correct that women’s beauty standards are no longer dictated by a handful of magazines, Hollywood actresses, or Olympic athletes, the underlying expectations are far from obsolete. Today’s standards are increasingly shaped by social media, influencer culture, and personalized algorithms that know what every woman wants.

Consider the “clean girl” or the “effortlessly beautiful” aesthetic. The trend is now looking beautiful without obsessing over it. Paradoxically, though, even that look usually requires extensive skincare routines, hairstyling, and carefully selected makeup. They’ve turned looking effortlessly beautiful into an effort in itself. Or consider the surge in popularity of anti-aging products that came alongside our aging population.

From preventative Botox to retinol and collagen products, women are increasingly convinced that aging is something to be prevented and managed before it becomes visible. They turned something as simple as the passage of time, a fact of life that is as natural as it gets, into yet another consumer problem that only they have a solution for, and that women need to buy.

And again, we can return to the same question: who and what decides what we should look like? Is it suddenly now a problem that women care too much about how they look? You know, something that the industry wanted for a century? Or is time passing by, like it always has, now problematic?

Perhaps the problem was never that women cared too much or too little about their appearances. Why would they not, if that’s what we’ve asked them all this time? I do not want to tell you to throw out your makeup desk tonight. I believe beauty is a form of art that expresses individuality, personality, and confidence. But I believe I will always frown when they convince women that their appearance is a liability.

As for my acne? It went away. The product was called “Growing Up.”