There are lots of television shows, and magazine articles about people who are told that they really need a ‘make-over’ because their fashion ‘look’ is outdated, messy, uncaring, and/or age inappropriate. The person is shown how they look, on national television. They are then shown how to shop, what to wear and why. Then hair and makeup are redone. The person is utterly transformed. Every time, the person says that they feel like a different person. Can wardrobe, hair and makeup really change who we are? Can those exterior changes change who we are inside?
Perhaps the answer is yes and no. Beauty may be only skin-deep, but our perceptions of ourselves go to the very core of who we are. We project our self-image of who we think we are, through what we wear and how we put ourselves together.
At the same time, people judge us by how we present ourselves, so it becomes a bit more complicated than just a bit of hair and makeup. Even friends and family members, who love us, react to us by how we appear to them. Strangers react to us by what they initially see. What they see, what they sense about us tells them a lot through unconscious cues. Most people are not even remotely aware of how powerful those cues are, but they exist and we unconsciously broadcast those cues wherever we go.
Human beings are very judgmental. People have to decide how to react, behave and respond to the person in front of them and often how we physically appear tells them how we expect people to respond to us. Maybe it is good for us to look in a mirror now and then and ask ourselves what message we are broadcasting. Let us look at some examples of how we appear and how people judge our appearance.
• On one show, a woman had a massive head of dread-locked hair that had not been washed in ten years. She wore no makeup and she claimed she did not care what people thought about her appearance. Who knew that this appearance made even her friends and family members very uncomfortable? Her ‘I have a chip on my shoulder’ attitude and ‘I am shoving my appearance in your face’ subtle cue literally became offensive to everyone around her. After her ‘make-over’, her entire demeanor softened although only to a degree. It was quite obvious that she resented ‘conforming’ to the rest of the world.
• Another woman was about forty pounds overweight, never did hair and makeup, wore sweat clothes and she was in an executive position. She couldn’t be bothered with taking the time to care for herself. Once she was ‘made over’, she saw how much better people related to her, literally, her ‘I am somewhat embarrassed about my weight, so I wear clothes that hide me demeanor’ vanished when she could see that her appearance alone was telling people how to relate to her.
• The make-over of a harried mom, told this lady that putting yourself last is not okay to do and that it really does mean a great deal to family and friends who loved her, to see her spend a bit of time on herself. Literally, she was telling people she ‘wasn’t worth the time’ to look good. She was so busy being a caregiver that she forgot to be the care-taker of herself. There were several women on the show in this type of position and one of them actually said out loud that she felt guilty spending time and money on herself!
• A twenty-year old fresh from college needed to learn how to dress appropriately for the business world so that she could command respect. Her ‘campus wardrobe’ prevented anyone taking her seriously and it very much hampered her effectiveness. Her personality and self-confidence made a dramatic change when she was shown how her appearance affected those around her. Once she watched people respond to her differently, she literally blossomed into a more professional executive.
Perhaps the message here is to take some time to analyze the image that you are projecting and then to decide if you like the message you are transmitting. If you do not like the message, then it is really time to change the hair, makeup and wardrobe of the messenger!
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