The Lengths We Go for Beauty

By Tara Lewis
 
They say beauty’s only skin deep, but it’s also a human obsession, one that spans cultures and centuries. From Iran, where the perfect nose is considered the ideal form, to parts of West Africa, where fat is fabulous, one country’s beauty can be another’s ugly, or at least bizarre. Americans may obsess over the skinny, plastic ideal, but we aren’t always the norm. A look at beauty trends and rituals from around the world.