Ugly ducklings to strut new feathers

I don’t know about the other guys, but I am that “let’s see how you look in the morning” type of guy. I know many ladies are already nervous after reading that sentence, but the truth is, with a lot of the “artwork” that goes on at beauty salons, you never know what the one you are with really looks like unless you wake up next to them and see them first thing in the morning.

If beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, then any beholder should be happy with what they hold.

But because of insecurities, people, especially women, try many things to transform themselves to become more appealing. A lot of money is to be made in the beauty industry and many customers keep returning for “upgrades”.

It is sad, but it works for some so make-up artists and surgeons will cash in as long as there is demand.

Recently, The Star published a story about an Asian woman who was sued by her husband for “being ugly”. She gave birth to a daughter but he thought the child a bit of an ugly duckling, to the point where it horrified him, making the husband doubt the baby was his.

As it turned out, the wife had had intensive plastic surgery to change her appearance before the nuptials, but had not revealed this to her husband.

As sad as that sounds, those are the kind of stories that make headlines today and it comes as no surprise that a makeover show such as Plain Jane is coming to TV as there is definitely a market for it.

Meet Louise Roe, a well-known British expert with a passion and eye for beauty.

She takes on the challenge of transforming one woman every week, inside and out, so that the woman can then be strong and appealing enough to walk up to the man of her dreams and tell him how she feels.

While that sounds great, we have seen these sorts of shows before and the question is always: how stupid do they think we are?

Of course the women will look great after being zapped by Roe’s wand, but were they unpleasant to look at in the first place? In fact, what’s the SI unit (International System of Units) for beauty, or the lack of it?

If the women’s crushes are unhappy with their pursuers’ appearances, then maybe love has no room there.

If they go along with what they say, when the truth finally comes out that they were sold to a modified version of the subject, can’t they plead “false advertising” like that man did with his surgically altered wife?

• Plain Jane, MTV (DStv channel 321), 9.20pm, Wednesday.