My daughter is learning to eat something different than milk. Which means – everything is dirty. I have to admit, I have problems with following her with the laundry, especially with cleaning her bibs. I finally manage to force myself to clean them, when there is not one left to use for the next meal. So #perfectlyimperfect. Now your turn – what is your perfect imperfection?

I totally agree. As a photographer, I’ve seen it many times. Example? Once, with a photography group, we were wandering around an old neighborhood and taking pictures. I noticed a bunch of colorful ribbons in the rubbish container next to the church and started photographing them. The next thing I knew was that I had to explain to a priest, why I’m taking pictures of rubbish. Come on, it was so clear! Do you have a similar story? Share it in the comments

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is a children’s book packed with 100 bedtime stories about the life of 100 extraordinary women from the past and the present, illustrated by 60 female artists from all over the world. I first heard about it a few years ago – I saw a video on Facebook showing the story of Cinderella, just that in that story Cinderella was… male! And you know what? This story had absolutely no sense at all! The authors of this book Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo noticed that in the traditional bed stories there are always helpless girls who need a prince to save them. They asked a question: is it really what we want to teach our daughters? I was WOWED! I decided that if I ever have a daughter, I will immediately buy this book – and that’s exactly what I did after my daughter was born. Now we read every day a story of one extraordinary woman. And you know what? It’s super interesting also to me! I’m realizing how many of these amazing women I knew nothing about! And I’m glad I’m learning together with my daughter. It’s a great book both for kids and adults. Truly inspiring!

Here’s another answer I found on one of the forums: ‘People feel happy when someone compliments them about their beauty.’ Agreed, that’s nice. But wouldn’t it be nicer to be appreciated for something that actually depends on you? Like being good at something?

In the past, beauty was considered to be culturally determined. Different people with unlike life experiences and cultures acquired different standards of beauty. However, in recent years, researchers have challenged this assumption. First, they noted that people, regardless of their culture or region largely agree on the faces they consider beautiful and which ones are not. Secondly, preference, in terms of beauty emerges early in life even before cultural standards of what is deemed to be beautiful are assimilated. Therefore, from the perspective of science, beauty is rather a biological adaptation. Curious, right? Even if, honestly, I don’t always agree with which stars are considered beautiful. How about you?

Bruce F. Norton, political science professor at American University, says: “What is considered a beautiful face is often influenced by what is going on in society.” How do you think? What will be the beauty standard in 100 years?

The quality attributed to whatever pleases or satisfies the senses or mind, as by line, color, form, texture, proportion, rhythmic motion, tone, etc., or by behavior, attitude, etc. Do you agree or you’d define it in a different way?

If you are a member of the KayanLahwi tribe, whose villages are found in modern-day Burma and Thailand, then chances are that your dream girl has a long, elegant neck decorated with a series of metal rings. This is because KayanLahwi girls start wearing these heavy coils when they are just five years old, and over time women can have as many as 25 fitted to their necks. Although this practice makes it look as though the women’s neck has been stretched, appearances can be deceptive. In fact, the weight of the solid metal coils holds down the shoulders and collarbone, creating the illusion of a longer neck underneath all those decorative rings. What do you think about it?

Still, what cosmetics do you use on daily basis? With my allergic skin, I have a big problem with that so I mostly just use an infinite number of hydrating creams. How about you?

Lately, I’ve been wondering, why actually people want to be beautiful. So I started making some research on various forums. Except for repeating answers about increasing self-esteem and social acceptance, I found this one: “I want to be beautiful to make my mom proud that I am carrying her genes.” How about you? Why do YOU want to be beautiful? Or maybe you don’t want?

Well, are you so sure? Ancient Greeks also believed they knew when they saw it – a thick “unibrow” was very popular! Women even used dark pigment to draw one in, can you believe it? They also bleached their hair in vinegar, which often caused hair loss, so wigs were popular. Long hair was also considered beautiful, as only upper-class women were allowed to grow their hair long. What do you think? What will future generations think about our beauty standards?

Because of my daughter. When I read the statistics from the previous post and I learned that small girls copy the beauty beliefs from their mothers I was really surprised. I realized what a responsibility we as mothers have. How many times do you look at yourself in the mirror and say things: “I’m fat” or “My hair is awful” or something like that? Many of us – daily. And our daughters see it and start imitating us! I started paying attention to what I say about myself – it’s actually more difficult than I thought! Are you gonna join this challenge?

A new study from Common Sense Media made headlines by reporting that 80% of 10-year-old girls have been on a diet. Furthermore, this “horrifying new research” found that more than half of girls and one-third of boys ages six to eight want thinner bodies. Can you imagine? I was horrified when I read about it! Many studies report a connection between parents’ attitude toward dieting and children’s behavior, and it will come to absolutely no one’s surprise that most kids (even as young as five) hold the same beliefs about food restriction as their mothers. Perhaps more surprising is that the media seems to hold an even greater influence than a child’s family. In nearly all studies regarding children and body image, test subjects list television, film, and video-game characters as the physical standards to which they aspire. It’s easy to see why. Another study, in 2000, surveyed top children’s movies, reporting that “72% associated thinness withpositive character traits such as kindness, and three out of four videos equated obesity with undesirable qualities.” Well, I understand teaching kids to keep a healthy BMI for their own good, but I think this is going way too far. What do you think?

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘beauty’ as “the quality of being pleasing to the senses or to the mind”. How would you define ‘beauty’?

Throughout most of the developed world, straight teeth and a perfect smile are the ultimate standard in dental beauty. As a result, people will spend a fortune having expensive orthodontic work carried out to achieve it. However, young women in Japan have, in recent years, been engaging in an unusual practice known locally as “yaeba”. Yaeba translates literally as “double tooth,” and involves these women having the same expensive orthodontic work, only in this case, the braces are designed to make their teeth look a little more crooked than nature intended. This procedure is normally done to one or two teeth, and is supposed to make the woman in question seem a little less perfect, and therefore less intimidating. This is one beauty trend which is already starting to spread around the world, with a similar procedure known as “tooth crowding” becoming increasingly popular even in the US. Well, it seems I didn’t have to suffer straightening my teeth as a teenager! And what do you think about this procedure?

Beauty is power; a smile is its sword. John Ray