Here is an example you can probably relate to. We have all had a pimple at least once in our life. Where does our focus go? It’s literally just to the pimple. We know with absolute certainty that every single person we see that day is only going to see that pimple and nothing else.

When someone sees you walking down the street they see your whole body. You do have a lot of control over that. They will make a judgment about your body, what you are wearing, the way you hold yourself, the way your walk, the smile on your face, and your mood. When you speak, they will hear the tone of your voice, the energy, and how you make them feel. It’s only the pimple that they see, right?

Everyone wants to feel seen, heard and understood. Just ask Oprah. Applying that principle earned her over a billion dollars and worldwide fame.

Take it from me. I should be put in jail for what I have done most of my life. We retouched the most beautiful women in the world to take away any speck of imperfection, or reality, and made generations of women feel insecure and neurotic. I wasnt the evil genius that came up with the idea, but we did do retouching for Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Revlon, Estee Lauder, Cover Girl, L’oreal, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, to name a few.

I imagined one day I would publish a book of before-and-afters. But all the media back then were archaic items long gone in the garbage, like Zip drives, 9-track tape, and other obsolete media. I can tell you with absolute certainty that every one was extensively retouched.

Think about what you are comparing yourself to. The “model” is already preselected from millions to be a genetic abnormality. Long legs, no hips, big eyes, high cheek bones, and a big square face. Ironically, some of them look weird in person. But then lets get to work. A $2000 a day make up artist, who knows exactly how to bring out the best features of anyone is on set. A photographer who charges $10,000, who knows exactly how to use lighting and angles to get the best shot, thousands of dollars of lighting, an assistant to manage the additional lights, to fill any natural shadows from your face itself. Yet they still need at least 100 shots to get one good one, and you expect that the one you just took with your phone to be perfect LOL.

After hours of shooting, the hundreds of shots go to the creative director to choose the best one. At this point it is retouched. So even with tens of thousands of dollars spent up to this point, our genetically deformed model still needs retouching. Forgot to mention the stylist. Of course they have clothed the person, chosen the perfect color and flattering style, and even altered the attire on the spot to perfection. So when we finally find the best shot, the real magic begins, and gobs more money is spent to make you feel even worse.

We start the retouching. I can tell you for a fact that we were paid around $40,000 to create and separate just the eyelashes for a certain cosmetic company selling an eyelash curler. I can also tell you we took cellulite, loose skin, stretch marks off of many butts of famous models in their twenties! And everyone also gets fat trimmed off of arms and legs. Havent you ever noticed the straight lines around the legs, hips and arms? In fact if it wasnt done perfectly, you might even see a halo where they shaved inches off arms and legs to make everyone look like Barbie.

These women are constantly in make up and have the worst skin. Yet with a mere ten or twenty thousand dollars of retouching for countless hours, going over every millimeter of their skin, we can smooth out all of the imperfections. We can even throw in a quick nose job or excess skin removal under the chin or neck. By the way, ever notice that most of them have no pores? Of course they dont, when you do that much retouching it becomes literally painted over or airbrushed.

So this is what you are comparing yourself too? What is wrong with you? By the way I have seen the budgets. We only did the ads. The media buy for the many pages in magazines is over a million dollars. Ads were often sent to magazines like Vogue, Cosmo, Glamour, Elle, Allure, Bazaar, French Vogue. Who cares if the photography, makeup, and retouching cost $50,000. They were selling the new shade of lipstick, they needed us to make it perfect, and then send perfect digital copies to where all the major magazines were being printed, all over the world.

So that was my professional experience, from my first career. Now for my personal perspective as a male (sorry forgot the weirdo term, is it straight?). I have dated a few women. I was single for some 30 odd years. I can tell you what I was attracted to and what was the most memorable.

I have three basic types. I absolutely love confident, funny and smart women. If you have all three thats sexy too. I cant even think of anything else that I was attracted to. And that was even at a young age. Because even in your twenties, the talking is a lot longer than the sex. Even if you are 24 years old and you are having sex for five hours, yea right. What are you going to do the other 19 hours? Do you think you might actually talk a little bit? How long can you talk to someone that is not interesting? Sorry if your husband only knows baseball stats.

So what else? Lets start with big boobs. The sexiest stunt anyone ever pulled was by a woman I knew that was almost flat. We went to a black tie for our client, Saks Fifth Avenue. She wore a black skirt, and a man tailored shirt practically unbuttoned to her navel, because she could, she was almost flat. She looked elegant and sexy. You could never get away with that with big boobs. Every man in the room managed to negotiate his way near her at a 30 degree angle to get a glimpse. She owned the room. It was at the Waldorf with more than 1000 people. That is what I am talking about for sexy. That was the sexiest stunt anyone ever pulled off in my life. We barely made it home in the cab. Point being sexy is how you carry yourself as well as your humor, confidence, and your accomplishments in life.

Hair? I remember when I was around 30, a sixty year old woman, our office manager, walked in to the office and I was completely mesmerized. I had no idea what had hijacked my brain. I remember it like it was yesterday. She exuded sexuality. I even said “you look great today I dont know what it is.” She replied she got caught in the rain and her hair was all messed up. And then of course it all clicked what was connected in my brain to a woman with hair all messed up? When have I seen that before? I was a bit embarrassed when I made the connection. By the way so far for me, the theme here is natural. The point of this anecdote is sexy is natural.

Clothing? I love contrast. Seeing a woman in a simple T shirt and jeans means you get to see her. She is the highlight and focus. The contrast of her beauty and femininity to the plain clothing makes her stand out. Probably why it looks cute when you see a young lady wearing construction boots vs high heels. The contrast is stunning.

I remember a very wise beyond her years Willa Holland telling me when she was probably around 12 or thirteen years old. You dont want the clothes to wear you, you want to wear the clothes. Meaning if the clothes are that bright and showy the person is lost. The clothes are wearing the person vs the person is wearing the clothes. She was in NY as a very young person attending a red carpet event many years ago. She wore an extremely plain skirt and shirt and was trying to coach her chaperone who was accompanying her and had no idea what to wear. Her chaperone was probably 20 years older than her.

Confidence works for both, or all 37 sexes. People are attracted to confident people. We want to be close to that power. Maybe its another survival hard wired thing. Oh oh maybe the next blog. Sure we know women are attracted primitively to men that look like they can protect them, or have the money to protect them and their offspring in today’s world. But maybe it is just the appearance, meaning the way they carry themselves.

There is a lot to think about. But I can guarantee you one thing we can all agree on. Too much makeup and too much fillers, and too much surgery is not only ugly, its gross.

One more thing stop comparing yourself to the one in a million genetic abnormality with $50,000 invested in makeup, stylist, photography and retouching. You just might be too stupid for anyone to want to date for that reason alone.

Ok one more. Do you really want a superficial jerk. There are guys that seem to gravitate to overblown fake weird looking people. In fact just this week I saw one inappropriately dressed at the White House. I think her husband sells books. I would have died if I was the man accompanying this facsimile of a woman dressed like a slut for a state dinner at the White House. I would never date someone that looked that gross and had no taste and I actually have a few less dollars then her date does. In fact I wouldnt be caught dead even talking to someone that looks like that.

PS even in retrospect, I walked the walk. I didnt do it intentionally, but I dated the working models, no interest. One practically proposed to me. I chose the brilliant smart funny surgeon, who could put me in my place, handle me, and make me laugh, and have fun. She is the sexiest woman I know. I am literally just noticing this as I wrote this and did a “fact check” on myself. And neither one of us needed the other person. Its also sexy to know that you were chosen out of want, not need.

I need to acknowledge Paulina Porizkova. Because I did not know she was an anti retouching advocate. But she was unusually perfect. She was literally the only person we did not retouch when we did Estee Lauder ads. Absolutely everyone else got a ton of retouching. And here is something else for you to ponder before you call the plastic surgeon or even come to us.

In my opinion she could have easily stopped at six minutes. I think she looked better.

I do proudly manage a non surgical cosmetic doctor’s office. We have people flying in from all over the world to do a “non surgical facelift” So I dont need or want the wrong person. If you are under thirty, just dont drink, dont smoke, stay out of the sun. For your body, lose weight, your skin will bounce back. If your grandmother has a ton of disposable income and she wants to do a treatment to make HER happy she can call us. And I am not even putting in a link because that is not what this is about. Its simply not right for most people. You dont borrow money to do treatments, its for discretionary income, for something that bothers you. Shame on pretty much every doctor in New York. When I go to the seminars, they all tell me I could make 30% more money if we took financing. If you cant even afford to put it on your credit card and you have to take out a loan, thats just wrong.

Worse yet shame on RepeatMD. They suggested to not only take financing, but put your proposal that costs many thousands, in a shopping cart for them, so when they get home, after a few drinks, they can purchase it AND finance it. Seriously? How is it even legal to promote drunk purchasing of a medical procedure, let alone finance it?

Society has gone crazy. And there is way too much pressure inappropriately placed on looks. There is way too much emphasis on unnatural large boobs, butts and lips. Dont do any of that. I would rather spend my time educating young women to just not do it. “Just Dont Do it”.

And you can bet your ass, or big fake ass and big fake boobs that the styles will change. I just googled and found a bunch of doctors offering to remove butt implants.

Anyone remember Kate Moss Calvin Klein ads a mere twenty years ago, skinny heroin chic? Or Twiggy from the sixties?

Heck we might even be on the precipice of that now. Anyone heard of Ozempic? All the new weight loss drugs?