Beauty In Rio - A Lifestyle

The concept of beauty in Rio de Janeiro is something that intrigued me from the moment I arrived. It seemed like almost everyone was constantly conscious about how they looked; Girls with perfect shiny hair, old ladies dressed to kill, perfect bodies on the beach and bus drivers with manicured and varnished nails. From rich to poor, from alternative rockers to club kids.

It's easy for a Swedish person to assume that Cariocas (citizens of Rio) are a superficial bunch where physical beauty is the most important. But it's not that easy, to be able to understand this you also have to understand the history and culture of Rio and Brazil.

The Brazilians are very openly romantic and sexual. Europeans coming from morally strict cultures came to a place where the pope wasn't watching. There they met Indians that hadn't heard about sin and sexual restrictions. On top of that you add more than 4 million African slaves that were brought to Brazil in the dirty slave trade, Africans with a quite frivolous view on sexual relations. This recipe created an openly sexual and erotic society and for more than 200 years Rio de Janeiro was the capital. In a society like this, physical beauty is naturally important.

Walking the streets in Rio you see it everywhere, it's in how people move, in how they look at each other, themselves and at you. In the beginning it was embarrassing to get looked at and also to be expected to look back. Where I come from it's very different!

One thing that is also very different is that being proud about the way you look is not restricted to a few. Big, small, old or young, all have the space to feel good about how they look. Nowhere is that more obvious than on the beach where the confidence can ooze from a 7-day a week gym freak as well as from a beer gutted woman in her 60's.

There is also a downside to all this, girls with eating disorders are just as present as in the West. Less than reliable plastic surgeons offering their services for a low price that sometimes even leads to surgical deaths.

On a whole I think the focus on beauty in Rio is positive and just a reflection of the cultural history. It gives a dimension to daily life that may have been lost in other parts of the world, if it was ever there to begin with.