Beauty pageants sprouted from the new standard of beauty for women in the 1920s, which is when the focus of society on celebrity movie stars fully blossomed (Matthews). Before 1900, women hardly used any cosmetics. It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century that the cosmetics industry began making perfumes and other beauty cosmetics (Matthews). By 1920, these companies were promoting these products to enhance women’s beauty (Matthews). Products such as rouge, powder, eye makeup and lipstick were being bought more frequently and used more heavily than before (Matthews). Society, along with beauty pageants, have represented these changes and have set a standard for what a woman should look like in order to be considered beautiful. …show more content…
Miss America is another widely known contest, where women from all of the fifty states, also women from the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, strut around in elegant and expensive gowns and swimsuits. Miss Teen USA is a smaller version of Miss America, in which teen girls showcase their looks and hope to be crowned the winner. These contests do not seem as unsettling as the pageants for toddlers and even babies from the ages of newborn to just nine months old. The contests for the toddlers and babies are more for the enjoyment of the parents who enter their kids in such contests. The extent that those parents will go to earn a plastic crown or a trophy for their children is some what outrageous. These parents will dress their children up and make them look like adult versions of themselves. Parents will buy flippers, or fake teeth, to make their children’s teeth look flawless and straight. They also use wigs and they even spray tan their children. Some even go to the extent of hiring a trainer to teach their children the proper way to present themselves when on the