The Cult of Beauty

Prompted by excellent newspaper reviews, and because I haven’t visited for ages, a friend and I skipped off to this Wellcome Collection special exhibition just before Christmas – so handy to reach opposite Euston Station. And yes, it was quite some eye-opener, with or without mascara! Perceptions of beauty are presented and then carefully picked apart. Society, religion, medicine and politics batter and bruise the ideals of beauty, evolving across the centuries and across the world. Most appalling for me were the metal corsets, surgical stays, poisonous cosmetics and films of procedures. As a child I was taught that true beauty lives inside us and yet of course, I still use make up and will sometimes gaze at fashion and beauty magazines, envious of the beauty presented there, even though I know that much might be artificial or digitally engineered. The most important lesson learned – or relearned – from the exhibition is to hold tight to our own health and wellbeing as we navigate our way through the latest of today’s pills, potions and promises.