K-beauty has become an axiom with Korea's skin care and makeup tips trending across social media. There has been a huge influence by K-Pop which has displayed flawless skin and slender structure, have reinforced beauty standards, making it a craze among youngsters across the world.
The craze to look like their idols has made teens uncomfortable in their skin forcing them to follow crazy diets and fads to look like their K-pop stars.
While most of the East Asians are small built, the luxury of spending a fortune on skin care has been on the rise among Koreans. Despite being unreasonable and unhealthy, Korean women aspire to achieve such ideal proportions following their K-Pop stars.
This glamorised baby doll image has been manipulated by the beauty industry spreading their wings across the globe making K-beauty a cultural phenomenon. For the women in South Korea, the pursuit of beauty is an expression to seek social and professional approval.
K-beauty has diversified over the past few years with a winder colour palette, bronzing techniques to nude plumped up lipstick, the ultimate goal is to look fresh and pretty. K-Pop and K-beauty are widely followed by adolescent kids around the world. This is the tender phase with physical appearance and body shape becomes a touchy subject.
The impact of such goals on adolescence girls leads to poor body image and eating disorder in their struggle to be thin falling prey to a disturbing mindset affecting their self-confidence.
K-pop fans need to realize that their favourite stars are not the embodiment of perfection and most idols look like an average person before making it big in the industry. The visual images are mostly the handiwork of an expert surgeon or hours of makeup.
There are a handful of K-pop idols, like Lee Hyori and Kai, who differ from such beauty standards and still are successful for their talent. K-pop is slowly changing the mindset of teens. With BTS' "Love Yourself" slogan, we hope many more idols encourage their fans to look beyond appearance and nurture the talent within.
