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Home / Whanganui Chronicle

Kate Stewart: Landscaping gets extremely personal

By Kate Stewart
Whanganui Chronicle·
4 Mar, 2017 04:35 AM4 mins to read

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More and more people are paying for personal grooming.

More and more people are paying for personal grooming.

Personal grooming is big business.

Add to that the increase in cosmetic surgery and procedures and we're talking billions of dollars, worldwide.

It's frightening just how much we're prepared to spend, to fit in and conform with what we perceive to be the norm, even though it appears contradictory at times.

Are women meant to be pencil thin, uber curvy or fat and fabulous? Should on trend men be buff or bony, hairy, hairless or both? The messages are mixed and many.

Is it any wonder the youth of today are feeling the pressure to fit in to a society that is sending out so many conflicting messages?

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Will local councils soon be in a position to profit from the all natural woman making a change and having to apply for a fire permit, for a controlled burn, prior to landscaping?

There was also the recent revolt pertaining to female armpit hair. Staunch supporter, Miley Cyrus, happy to send both the wild and tamed message, if her all too revealing outfits are anything to go by.

Perhaps if Rapunzel is still in her tower her Prince can climb up her decoratively beaded and braided pit hairs or local villagers can swing wildly from them like ribbons on a Maypole as they await the torture of their Brazilian wax.

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Will whiskers on women be the next big thing, mayhap?

Is steaming fufus - like dim sum or spinach - really the way to go? And what's with vaginal rejuvenation? The only vice-like grip seems to be on our wallets and sadly, many are doing irreparable damage chasing the dream.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow has found herself in a literal hot seat, recently, for posting her views on several procedures. It's positively scary to know that a single celeb has so much influence over the young and less informed. And we think Trump is our biggest enemy?

Our men don't escape either. Manscaping is very real and what does its future hold?

Will cars be fitted with penis pump plug-in points so the modern man can "grow on the go"?

Next we'll we see Arnie fronting ad campaigns for the Furminator or Scrotal Recall, saying: "I'll be back ... after my crack and sack waxing."

With an added ab here, an inserted ab there, here a pec, there a pec, attach your bits to a vac ... old McDonald's body farm, e-i-e-i -o!

Pump up your lips, bulk out your boobs and butt. Make your eyebrows immovable objects, limit your natural facial expression and plaster your precious vessels of vision with vast volumes of false eyelash glue.

I remember when push up bras were visionary. We'd take what was at knee level and miraculously return them to where they originally came from.

It was revolutionary but temporary. We felt good in the moment, but boy, we knew those puppies would drop like lead balloons the moment we took it off. Those voluptuous melons rapidly returned to the withered grapes of old by the simple undoing of a single clasp.

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At the end of the day we weren't fooling anyone and despite advances in cosmetic surgery and fixes, male or female, we still aren't and why the hell would we want to?

I'm not saying don't do it, just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Doing it for anyone, other than yourself, is wrong.

It's ironic that in a such a politically correct world of global acceptance so many only feel they belong by changing who they really are.

Ironic and sad. #thebeardedlady

■ Kate Stewart is an unemployed, reluctant mother-of-three who is available by appointment for beauty advice -- furry feedback is welcome: investik8@gmail.com

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