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An Age Old Subject
****This is a follow-up post to What Is Sexy? and Comparison Shopping; I Hope You Haven’t Had Breakfast Yet.****
Maybe you wanna listen to the tune as you read today’s entry. We’ve discussed this crap before but something really, and I mean REALLY, caught my eye today.
Do you remember this girl?
I actually had one of the following, for any collectors out there I apologize for breaking your hearts by telling you that I totally TRASHED it.
I said I was sorry!!!!
Let’s not forget about this plucky young thing, I had her too
In case you’re under 40…that’s Malibu Skipper, Barbie’s little sister.
This was my favorite Barbie. Oh I played with it and the van, the plane, the boat, the townhouse, until I was tired and had to go to bed.
Yes, I had Ken dolls and yes, as we got older and near to the end of our doll-playing-days my friends and I made Barbie, Ken, and Skipper do some pretty nasty things. 
Yes, oh, yes, we did.
I loved Barbie and her world and all of things I could do and places she took me to when I was small. I don’t know what’s really different from when I was a kid then today but I don’t ever recall wanting to BE Barbie. I don’t recall thinking I would look like her when I grew up or even that I would have the fancy van, boat, townhouse, jet, etc. It was just a doll that let me expand my imagination and wander around my own little Barbie Universe. In others words, there once really was a thing called Harmless Play.
Yeah. I swear. There was.
I turned on GMA this morning and was presented with
GMA informs this is Valeriya Lukyanova from Russia. You can Google her or check out this link. There are some sites claiming this is a REAL doll and can’t possibly be a WOMAN at all.
I tend to agree. In fact, that was my very first thought; it’s fake.
Here’s another shot
If she’s real, she’s not the first chick to go off her rocker and want to be customized to look like a Barbie Doll BUT she may have had the best work done. Sites suggest she paid upward for $250,000 to $1,000,000 to get ‘the look’.
OMG!
I can think of a lot better uses for that kind of money so that alone makes me a little ill. BUT, on the bright side, this ‘chick’ now has someone to legitimately compete against! Yeah!
Jenna Talakova
See, now it’s a fair fight. They’ve both had more customization than a low-rider so..it’s even. Go for it ladies. Have fun.
I got to wondering why anyone would want to look like a doll….Barbie or otherwise. Yes, it’s shaped nicely, for a doll. But…it’s a doll. It’s not real. It doesn’t walk, talk, think, breathe, love, grieve, eat, live or die in any manner. Unless you’re actually in “The Graduate” I’m not sure ‘plastics’ is the way to go. Especially not to the Living Barbie degree. Is that just FREAKY or what? It’s bizarre!
We’ve discussed here before What is Beautiful? What is Sexy? I don’t think either will ever be fully or even satisfactorily defined. As for myself, I’m a Libra, it is my nature to see the beauty in pretty much everything. Even in things you might never think of.
To balance out the Living Barbie piece, GMA also brought me this girl
Florence Colgate.
This lovely 18 year-old was just named/voted/whatever The Most NATURALLY Beautiful Woman in the World…or some crap like that. Supposedly, she is ‘perfectly symmetrical’ according to the Ancient Greeks. While she doesn’t look ‘plastic’ she still sorta resembles a Barbie Doll. Don’t you think? Weird. Yes, she is a very pretty GIRL but I wish the most naturally beautiful WOMAN in the world contest was open to natural females of womanly age….say….30 and up. Frankly, I’m a little tired of the words ‘beautiful’, ‘woman’, and ‘sexy’ seeming to no longer apply past the age of 23 or so. What about you?
I went off in search of ‘beauty’ and what it means today. I discovered it all comes down to…PhotoShop. Yes, it does. Anyone and everyone can be absolutely GORGEOUS if properly PhotoShopped. Here, I’ll show you.
Jessica Alba
On the left is Before and on the right is After. See what they’ve done…just with her waist??? Never mind the rest of it.
Kim Kardashian
Now, before I show you the next one, I have to admit that part of me is really hoping it’s fake. BUT….well…here you go…
Madonna
Don’t you wish YOU could do THIS come Bathing Suit Season??? I know I do!
We’ve all heard about ‘PhotoShopping’ and ‘Air Brushing’ for eons now but, I for one, never knew it could be taken this far. I thought; Oh, a little touch up on the face…so what?
OOOOO was I wrong! I gotta to learn how to use this stupid program more effectively! LOL As I looked at them and studied them, yes, my eyes were opened and I was able to see the ‘magic’ involved. The…well…soft lighting, and possibly a bit too bright light in some areas both cover up a multitude of sins and the graphics person is counting on the fact that you won’t notice the lights and shadows are a bit askew in some areas because you’ll be too dazzled to care. The graphics person was right for a very long time. Other areas have been ‘blended’ or totally ‘erased’ and others ‘cloned’ over. They’re just better at it than I am, that’s all.
We, as women, have been duped for decades and it wasn’t Barbie that did it it was the Ad Men. It has to be because, while I searched, I really only came across one picture of a true male celebrity with Before and After shots. I don’t mean to break any hearts….
George Clooney
Geez, the guy looks like my dad! He always has that’s why I’ve never really been able to put him on my List of Hotties though I do like him.
The older I get, the more this whole thing baffles me. But, at least it fully explains why the Pretty People only live in magazines, the movies, and TV. If you walk out your door, take a stroll to downtown, have a look around, you’ll see that on whole the Human Race isn’t exactly ‘gorgeous’, you know, As Seen On TV and all.
I also still believe that beauty, real true beauty, isn’t in the eye of the beholder, it’s in the SOUL of the object the beholder is beholding. It extends past the age of 23 and only glows brighter with time it doesn’t fade and it doesn’t need PhotoShop to make it shine through and dazzle you.
I don’t know who she is and I probably never will but I think she is absolutely divine. She has always been my template for ‘Alena’ and I want to be her when I grow up. I want to look like HER not like Barbie. She’s beautiful past the grace of youth although she is still youthful. She is brimming with wisdom and a bit of devilish delight sparkles in her eyes making her the slightest bit sexy and mysterious. You can see the miles behind her and those still stretching out ahead of her along with the fact that she embraces both with equal zest.
I also think this woman epitomizes ‘womanly beauty’ but didn’t dare put a picture of Emmy Lou Harris on the cover of one of my books! LOL
See? Vibrant. Vivacious. Beautiful.
The ‘natural beauty of a woman’ doesn’t even begin to appear until around age 30, when she has some real life experience behind her, after the graces of youth so easily taken for granted fade away, and she is left with just herself. That’s when a woman’s true beauty starts to shine through. We shouldn’t squander it or hide it behind a bushel, after all, with any luck life won’t end at 23 so why act like it does?
Lisa Beth Darling is the author of
And the Upcoming
