Why we're done chasing beauty standards that were never made for us

Do you ever feel like all the girls on your Instagram feed look like clones of each other? The same straight hair or heatless curls, the same body type, the same contour. The list goes on. After consuming an endless stream of this kind of content, I couldn't help but feel like this was what "pretty" looked like. I had conditioned myself to believe that long, straight hair and a lean body were beautiful, and everything else somehow wasn't.

It's a shame how blurred the lines of attractiveness have become, and how homogeneous beauty now feels. It all traces back to a very specific, very Western ideal, and one that looked nothing like many of us. Thin, light-skinned, poker-straight hair, a sharp jawline. It showed up in every Hollywood film, every fashion magazine, and slowly, every Bollywood music video too. Social media didn't create this standard. It just handed it a ring light and a million followers. Suddenly, the blueprint for being beautiful was being set by someone who had no idea what humidity does to a blowout. We didn't question it. But I'm here to tell you that beauty doesn't have to end there.

Being a woman today, constantly surrounded by this kind of content, definitely made me feel less confident in my own skin. And I know for a fact that so many other girls feel the same way. Indian girls need to realise that buying foundation two shades lighter than our natural skin tone shouldn't feel like the default. Buying clothes that you have to force yourself to fit into isn't normal. It's punishment. Feeling like you have to straighten your natural curls to be considered beautiful isn't self-improvement. It's self-erasure. For far too long, we've been chasing beauty standards that were never designed with Indian women in mind.

So what does it actually look like to embrace what you were born with? Turns out, it's a lot more beautiful than anyone ever gave it credit for.

Dress for your body, not the trend

While everyone was chasing size-zero bodies and clothes you weren't allowed to breathe in, no one stopped to appreciate the curves that so many Indian women are naturally blessed with. Start dressing for your body type. Buy clothes that fit you instead of clothes you have to force yourself to fit into. I genuinely believe that when it comes to confidence, how you carry yourself matters just as much as what you're wearing.

Let your hair do its thing

It is a fact that "frizzy" hair is not a hair type. It's usually waves or curls waiting to be taken care of. A lot of people I know see their natural hair as a curse and use words like "unmanageable" and "annoying", which is honestly so sad.

The truth is, textured hair is far more common than many of us realise, especially in India. Yet so many of us grew up treating it as something to fix instead of something to celebrate. It's time we started embracing that. Wear your hair naturally. Invest in products made for your hair type and let it do what it's always wanted to do.

Thick eyebrows

Can we also talk about the fact that Indian girls spent years over-threading their brows into thin lines to look more "groomed", only for the rest of the world to spend the last few years drawing them back on with a pencil?

Thick, full brows are quite literally a genetic gift that many Indian women are born with, and we've been waxing them into oblivion. The Cara Delevingne brow, the Euphoria brow, the bold brow trend. That's just Tuesday for many of us. Put the thread down. Let them grow. Your eyebrows were never the problem.

Things are shifting, slowly but surely. Indian brands are finally expanding their shade ranges. Campaigns are featuring women who actually look like us, with curls, curves, deeper skin tones and everything in between. Girls on the internet are wearing their natural hair to work, ditching fairness creams, and posting their unfiltered skin without apology. It's not a revolution yet, but it's a start. The conversation is changing, and Indian women are the ones helping lead it.

The most radical thing you can do right now is devastatingly simple. Just look like yourself. Not the filtered version. Not the version that fits into someone else's jeans. Not the version that showed up on your For You page. You, exactly as you are. Thick brows, textured hair, the skin tone you were born with, and the body that carries you through every single day.

Indian women were never meant to be a footnote in someone else's beauty standard. It's time we wrote our own.

Lead image: Getty Images

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