Beauty standards Teen’s message to young girls
Being able to not feel like you are ‘ugly’ is worth more than trying to fit in Ariane Wood
ABRISTOL teenager with a rare skin condition wants to use her platform to challenge traditional standards of beauty.
Ariane Wood has been shortlisted for the 2021 Miss Teen Galaxy Great Britain Pageant final, and wants to compete to show that pageants are for anyone.
If she wins, the 16-year-old will get to progress to the Miss Teen Galaxy International finals, which are likely to be held in the United States.
The national competition will take place in Chorley this November, and contestants have to pay a £350 fee to take part. Ariane is hoping to gain sponsorship from Bristol-based businesses to help towards the cost.
She has a skin condition which results in small white patches all over her body, which she said affected her self-esteem when she was younger.
Ariane said she would see other girls in the changing room with “normal skin” and it would make her feel “insecure.”
Now, she wants to encourage other girls to be confident in themselves.
The teenager said: “I want to show young girls that they have nothing to be scared of and you shouldn’t feel the need to fit in with society’s beauty standard.
“Of course with all the magazines and runway models every girl feels pressure to look a certain way, to act a certain way. Thin is pretty. Clear skin is pretty. You’ve got all these people telling you how to wear your skin, how to wear your look.
“From a young age we are unknowingly being trained by magazines, marketing and all forms of media into thinking that not wearing makeup or your body looking a certain way is worthy of being publicly shamed.”
Beauty pageants have been criticised in the past for causing eating disorders and encouraging girls to become overly concerned about their physical appearance.
Child beauty pageants were banned in France in 2013 following photos in Vogue magazine of three girls, one as young as 10, wearing heavy makeup, tight dresses and high-heeled shoes.
The Galaxy pageant removed the swimwear round in the teen (15-18) and junior (12-14) categories, for the first time this year.
Event organisers say they are “moving with the times” and that beauty is “defined differently” now.
Ariane said some people she told were surprised after discovering she’d entered the contest, assuming you had to be tall and thin to compete.
She said girls in society “have to take control or someone will always try to take it from you”.
She added: “We live in a world today where everything can be faked or fixed.
“The facts are, the world will not change today or tomorrow, but small things can make a difference. Being able to not feel like you are ‘ugly’ is worth more than trying to fit in.”