Chassing a Green-Footed Chipmunk

True Beauty

The movie the girls and I ended up seeing last week was intense. You know the kind ... You get so drawn in that you reach for a soda and drink half of it before you realize it's not even yours. Then the guy in the next seat glares at you because you just finished off his Dr Pepper. Oops. Anyway, the movie starred one of my favorite actresses: the stunning Elsie Briggs.

Elsie is beautiful and talented. In the movie, she played a karate expert and brilliant scientist who marches into the White House to fight off thirty-seven aliens who have taken over the United States. Her only weapons are her wits and her martial-arts expertise. And you wouldn't believe how she uses a metal spatula to defend herself against the nine-armed monsters.

I sat on the edge of my seat as a final explosion demolished the building, throwing our heroine several hundred feet onto the White House lawn. But just when I thought it was over for poor Elsie, she slowly stood up and brushed herself off. Her hair was adorably disheveled. A cute black smudge streaked her cheek. If anything, fighting aliens only made her look more beautiful. Flashing a determined smile, she ran back to the smoke-blackened scene to battle the final alien.

This woman just survived an alien attack and an explosion, and she looked better than I do after half an hour of primping. Why can't I look like that? I wondered.

Here's the thing: Elsie Briggs doesn't even look like Elsie Briggs. Nor do any of the musicians, movie stars, or models you see.

Really.

The actresses and models who appear in magazines and on TV screens receive hours of professional beauty treatment. Their faces get contoured with cosmetic shading. Their best features are enhanced. Their hair is colored and highlighted. A stylist teases, curls, and pins the perfect hairstyle. Hairpieces are even added to make their hair appear fuller.

When a model gets on set for a photo shoot, fans and lighting are arranged to create the best possible appearance. Of the hundreds — or even thousands — of photos taken, only the top one is selected and then adjusted using Photoshop. Skin blemishes are erased, eyebrows lifted, cheekbones raised, lips plumped, legs and waistlines minimized. By the time the photo is printed in a magazine, you might not even recognize the model if she stood in line in front of you at the candy store ... because she doesn't re