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Beauty: A source of confidence

An estimated 672 million women worldwide, are preventing themselves from reaching their full beauty potential.  This is largely because women are their own worst critic.

Dove, the global beauty brand, believes beauty should be a source of confidence, not anxiety and is committed to inspiring all women and girls to reach their full potential by caring for themselves and each other. 

The Power of the Inner Beauty Critic

To better understand women’s relationship with beauty Dove is releasing a 20 market global study, their largest to date, ‘The Real Truth About Beauty: Revisited.’ 

The research revealed that the majority of women globally (59%) admit to feeling pressure to be beautiful; with 32% admitting their greatest source of beauty pressure is the pressure they put on themselves, which is  greater than  any other source including society (12%), friends and family (6%) and the media (6%).

“These are devastating statistics, we have a savage internal critic whose eyes turn mean when we look at ourselves. The new Dove global study tells us that women have become their own worst beauty critic and unfortunately this can have a wider impact on self esteem, confidence and happiness,” says leading psychotherapist and study collaborator Susie Orbach.

Beauty Should be a Source of Confidence, not Anxiety

The research also uncovered a beauty paradox; while 80% of women see the beauty in others, agreeing that every woman has something about her that is beautiful, they are unable to recognise their own beauty.

In addition to this, 72% say the most beautiful women are those who make the most of what they have, yet almost half say they are not doing this, even though they agree they have the potential to look better.

Since the brand’s last study in 2004, the number of women who describe themselves as beautiful has doubled from two to four percent, highlighting there is still a long way to go before women are comfortable with their own beauty.

How a woman feels about her looks can greatly affect her overall self esteem and happiness. The Dove vision is to create a world where beauty is a source of confidence rather than anxiety.


Join the conversation
on Facebook  and find out what you can do to get involved in the Dove self esteem programmes or download free self esteem toolkits for girls, mothers or mentors.

To view the Dove digital films, please visit this link: YouTube

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