Natural beauty is all the rage. We’re rocking the bare skinned look. Goodbye full coverage foundation and false eyelashes, and hello skin tints and lash extensions. Goodbye dramatic eye shadows and deep contour, introducing under eye creams and facial filler. We’ve made a dramatic shift in our beauty standards since the 2010s, but is au natural all the better or are we just exhausting ourselves more than ever to achieve picture perfect beauty?

The scariest thing about Halloween used to be that there was a small, but possible, risk that your candy could be infiltrated by a razor blade or tainted with poison. But, in 2023, perhaps people are more anxious about sugar and calories being in the candy. 

Not immersing in Western customs would make me ignorant, but immersing myself only to Western culture would pull me away from my own. Everything in life should be in moderation, especially if we want to be open-minded in a globalized world.

Beauty ideals have diversified over the past few decades, and Boston University School of Medicine researchers have found that beauty standards in terms of skin type and age have changed significantly. Neelam...