We're still told that it's good to be thin rather than bigger... even though we have body positivity," Bhagwandas shares.

Anita Bhagwandas: ‘When I started to read about beauty standards, who created them and held the strings, things started to shift.’ Photograph: Kellie French/The Guardian

I remember when I started in the fashion and journalism industry, I felt that pretty much everyone was white. I wish I could tell myself then that the things I thought were working against me were probably going to make my career in what was a very elitist industry. I wish I could tell myself that the difference I felt is a great thing because it gives me a very unique perspective. Take one of the biggest make-up trends in the past 10 years: contouring. When Kim Kardashian went viral after posting her contouring selfie in 2012, it showed how our faces could be manipulated into looking entirely different with elaborate make-up techniques. Contouring wasn’t new – Max Factor popularised it in the 20s at his Hollywood salon, and movie actors like Vivien Leigh used it in the 30s. Kim Kardashian, centre, was one of the first to make modern contouring techniques popular (Photo: Todd Williamson/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty)

Who profits? Keeping women feeling small, old, unworthy and ugly supports patriarchy and capitalism. People get rich when women buy stuff they don’t need via the creation of beauty anxiety. Research seems to overwhelmingly favor those with pretty privilege in the workplace, especially as building confidence from an early age is said to help you step out of your comfort zone," Bhagwandas writes in Ugly, "This could translate as feeling like you are worth more when it comes to work – in terms of salary, progression, and treatment – and crucially, having the confidence to ask for it." OK, but you know why that’s the case though, right? Yes (sigh). Archaic data on fertility, patriarchal views of women’s appearance and the multiple industries that sell youth to women as the sole beauty ideal. You wrote about how the capitalist patriarchal agenda has used beauty standards against women as a means of controlling us. How can we rebel against this and use beauty for self-expression and joy instead? The ramifications are troubling. Why should we exert all our energy and resources into the appearance of effortless youth? DeFino explains that this “speaks to the making of modern femininity,” which, as Susie Orbach writes in Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism, is “marked by a concealment of the work of body making,”

“It's about aging with some cosmetic intervention to still be agreeable to the male gaze, but not too much that you seem desperate, or that it’s noticeable.”

I then made a pivotal life choice. Where is the worst place you can imagine a broken human obsessed with being thin and beautiful and never quite measuring up might find themselves? You guessed it: women’s fashion magazines. One of my favourite games as a child growing up in Wales was directing doll photo shoots, an odd premonition into my future career directing beauty editorials for magazines. The star of my glamorous imaginary shoots was Barbie, naturally. Knowing where beauty standards come from and why, means we can help those around us. When our friends obsess about their appearance we can gently remind them that they’re more than their looks - but women have been conditioned to think pretty is a part of their personality - and it isn't.

Speaking to Glamour about why youth is celebrated above all else in women, Bhagwandas notes, “We have a society with a strong patriarchal legacy that has dictated that you can only be beautiful and valuable within very narrow parameters, one of which is being young and fertile. ” “It's about aging with some cosmetic intervention to still be agreeable to the male gaze, but not too much that you seem desperate, or that it’s noticeable.” Orbach continues, “We can see this same concept more clearly in trends like no-makeup makeup and the clean-girl look. In both instances, women are expected to perform the labor of applying cosmetics and then the labor of making those cosmetics seem nonexistent. ‘Aging gracefully’ is much the same! We’re encouraged to participate in the system but also, to make it appear as if we aren’t participating in the system at all.” I’d feel its piercing criticism when I swiped on layers of concealer to cover my dark circles or when I blotted furiously at my oil-drenched skin with too-pale powder. Every brush stroke became a silent prayer, a plea for me to look like the girls around me held up as the beauty ideal. We're all told that this is just part of growing up, but it stays with us, evolving as we age. The internet tells us we should love ourselves, whilst bombarding us with images of airbrushed perfection, upholding centuries-old beauty standards which we can't always see. Our beauty rituals are so often based around things we think we need to fix, grow and develop - sometimes tipping into dangerous obsession.

She continues, “It’s also no mistake that women are bombarded with antiaging messaging in their mid-20s to 30s—a time when people are generally stepping into their power, gaining more confidence, and earning more money. Imagine if women retained the money, time, energy, effort, and brain space they dedicate to physical beauty from age 25 on? The force of that power would threaten to destroy the sexist, patriarchal structures our society is built upon.” A good book makes you think and reflect. This book did that for me. I started with skepticism and a touch of boredom. A bit of dismissal and denial followed. But as I kept reading I found my thoughts and attitudes shift. And yes, I even learnt a thing or two. Now that’s a good book! Anita felt the world was telling her to ‘correct’ the colour of her skin as she got older (Photo: Supplied) When you consider the impact on our faces, our self esteem and our bank balance, if, when, and how we are tweaked, requires far more consideration. She adds, “What’s sexist is perpetuating and/or furthering the impossible beauty ideal that women are disproportionately expected to emulate—or else suffer the social, financial, political, and psychological consequences of non-compliance—and discouraging people from talking about it by co-opting the language of gender discrimination.” “People are upset by Madonna’s new face because it is, on some level, exposing the truth: that antiaging is an inhuman goal, and attempting to antiage—or age gracefully—actually takes an incredible amount of effort.”

GLAMOUR : Hi Anita! It's so good to chat with you today. Congratulations on writing your first book. How have you found the process of talking about your relationship with the word ‘ugly’? Perhaps the biggest shift was learning why I’d reduced my self-worth to being entirely defined by how I look, and that made me realise how imperative it was to root my self-esteem elsewhere, in the qualities that really define me – my character and positive traits. Because ugly is an ever-changing, politically charged construct – and the biggest lesson I’ve learned is never to trust those binary categories, “pretty” and “ugly”, don’t actually exist. That pity factor is aimed at all women who defy patriarchal norms of behaviour and cast those like Madonna, who refuse to ‘put it away’, into a negative light. So, it’s no wonder that appearing ageless has become one of the few ways women have to battle against a force that wants them to just ‘disappear’ (with the anti-ageing and cosmetic surgery industries only too happy to offer their services in exchange for our cash). But here again, there’s a fine line to tread because while female celebrities like Madonna are often subjected to tabloid headlines stating they’ve gone ‘too far’, those who choose to age naturally are accused of looking tired or having ‘given up’. The sweet spot is being frozen by time—in a way that the male gaze deems both acceptable and desirable, of course.

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Unfortunately, when beauty standards begin to change, the different systems of oppression that control them work harder and they just become more insidious. That's why we need to be able to police them and take ourselves away from things that might be causing us harm. As 33yo woman who noticed significant changes in my body I started being way meaner and cruel to myself than ever before. I hated what I saw in the mirror everyday. I was horrified I didn't fit in my clothes anymore and blamed myself for not looking like I am 25 anymore. Pretty privilege is as complex and in need of continuous evaluation as any deep-rooted societal conditioning" Why is pretty privilege a problem? This is when I started doing research into where our beauty trends come from and the different things that affect them, from politics to colonisation to class – it was a real turning point for me. That's why I wrote the book, to make sense of that void (or chasm) in the middle."