Recently, I’ve been glued to watching Pop The Balloon or Find Love on TikTok. One clip showed a beautiful woman, dressed in clean, comfortable clothing (white sleeveless top, ivory trousers, a gold belt, and flat sandals), being critiqued by a man who decided her natural, unpolished fingernails and toenails were a problem. She replied that she simply didn’t have time for that. He questioned her again, and naturally, balloons were popped.
It made me reflect on how women, for centuries, have been expected to “improve” their natural appearance to be considered attractive, while many men are culturally allowed to remain natural with minimal grooming. Most men are not encouraged to alter themselves with artificial substances or uncomfortable clothing that affects posture or physical well-being.
Women are often taught that natural beauty needs enhancement to be accepted. Take bras, for example. Many women find them uncomfortable and look forward to taking them off. Some are even marketed as “it feels like you’re not wearing a bra at all!” or “you won’t want to take it off.” Even all-cotton, non-wire, non-padded bras can be tight and leave marks.
And why do you think nipple covers were invented? So that we could go braless without being judged for having nipples. It's incredible that women need a product to disguise body parts that men show freely without thought. Why is a bra considered necessary? Is it for function, or is it to present an image shaped by the male gaze?
And then there’s breast augmentation. The deeper issue is that women often feel pressure to “fix” their breasts, no matter what their natural form is. If they’ve nourished a whole human being, the softness or sagging is treated like a flaw instead of a badge of honor. And if a woman naturally has small breasts, she’s told that’s not enough either, as if her body needs more volume to be considered attractive or worthy of attention. No one celebrates the beauty of breasts that simply exist in their natural state.
Silicone implants were once the standard, until the very real issue of leakage forced the industry to invent alternatives. The solution? Saline implants. These were created so that if the shell breaks, the salt water can be safely absorbed by the body. Think about that for a moment. We normalized putting foreign materials into women’s chests so much that we had to engineer a safer backup option for when the body rejects it. All of this, just to match an aesthetic standard that was never created by women in the first place.
You don’t see animals in the wild getting implants because their titties sagged after nourishing their babies. Their bodies change, and it’s respected as part of life.
WTF, people?!
High heels are another example. I stopped wearing them because they caused back pain and made my toes numb. I am fortunate to be tall, and I never needed the height, yet many women feel pressured to appear taller. For whom was this standard created? Who decided height enhances worth? I have yet to see a man with band-aids on his toes or heels from shoes designed to make him more visually appealing.
Let's talk about clothing expectations. Women are often encouraged to reveal their bodies to appear “sexy,” as if attractiveness requires exposure. A woman should be able to decide what feels sexy to her instead of being measured by a standard created for male desire. And if you're covered up too much, you're labeled modest or a prude. This is one reason I find myself appreciating certain cultural approaches more as I get older. I respect any society that upholds a woman’s right to choose what she reveals. True empowerment is having that choice.
Makeup follows the same pattern. Very few men wear makeup to look “better” for the opposite sex. Why isn’t a woman’s natural beauty celebrated in the same way?
What about nail polish? Natural nails are healthier, yet many women feel they must have them polished to appear presentable. I wore acrylics in my twenties because I bit my nails. That habit wasn’t attractive to me, yet even then, the message was clear. Somewhere along the line, women were taught that short, bare, or unshiny nails were less desirable. Who decided that?
Hair color, too! It can be fun to change, yet much of the pressure to color hair comes from concealing grays or “correcting” what has been labeled unsightly. And then there’s the larger world of weaves, extensions, wigs, and even implants. I’m just saying… even in certain religious traditions, women cover their natural hair with wigs. Why? How did we arrive at a point where a woman’s own hair needed permission to be seen? Who decided a woman’s natural beauty was something to control, manage, or debate in the first place? Women have been guided for generations to alter themselves to meet a standard that was never ours to begin with.
At the same time, many men are affirmed exactly as they are. A man with a soft belly is rarely told he must stay trim to be worthy of love. No one expects him to wear spandex to hide his “muffin-top.” Men jog shirtless in the heat all the time, and it’s accepted as normal. Yet if a woman is fuller-figured and running with everything moving naturally, it becomes a topic of commentary, comfort, or control. Women’s workout clothes are engineered around support, concealment, and minimizing movement, or revealing the parts that are considered "sexy" by society. Men’s are designed for function.
And after birth, no one insists that men maintain youthful appearances. Clean clothes and basic grooming are often considered enough for a man to “look good.” Salt-and-pepper hair is even celebrated.
And this isn’t only about women. Men feel this pressure too. Some feel they have to cover their bald spots, get hair implants, bulk up, or chase a version of bravado just to feel acceptable around other men. The deeper question is, who decided any of us needed to “fix” what is natural? If we truly accepted our God-given or source-given bodies as they are, so much insecurity would dissolve. This pressure to look “good” through chemicals, procedures, or performance was taught to all of us. It has got to stop, for everyone.
This brings me back to my sister, who keeps her nails natural. Yes, my sister, do what works for you!
There is also a health component. Many people are unaware that nail polish contains chemicals that can be absorbed into the body. Hair dye is also synthetic and can be damaging. Heels alter the spine and compress the toes, which are naturally meant to spread. A scientist on Instagram once said, “Anything you put on your skin enters your bloodstream.” The skin is the largest organ. What we apply to it matters. Why do nails weaken under polish? Why do some cosmetics cause reactions? The body always tells the truth.
Women already spend more on grooming and beauty, and the “pink tax” adds to that burden. Meanwhile, men are rarely told they must polish their nails, color their hair, or wear uncomfortable clothing to be seen as attractive.
The double standard has run its course.
It is time for all of us to show up as ourselves, as we truly are. When the focus shifts from how a woman “should look” to who she is, much of the pressure that drives constant self-modification dissolves.
Many women realize later in life that the expectations we were taught to uphold were never aligned with our comfort or truth.
It is time to choose what feels right for our bodies. It is time to honor natural beauty. It is time to be free.
It is time to free the titties, and be ourselves, as much as we desire to be.
(As an added WTF…
When I searched for a featured image and typed “a woman’s natural nails,” almost every result showed acrylics, gels, or glossy manicures. Bare nails were rare, and nearly all the hands were light-skinned. I even wondered if the AI took my “no color” prompt literally, skewing toward lighter tones.
A reminder that beauty standards don’t just live in culture. They live in our algorithms, too.)
And here’s the wildest part. When I took a photo of my own nails for this post, my first thought was, “I should clip my cuticles more, it doesn’t look good as is.” That tiny thought revealed the whole truth. Even I, someone who loves natural beauty and advocates for ease, had internalized the idea that my bare, healthy nails needed “fixing” before they could be seen. That’s how deep this conditioning runs.My ladies, I proclaim:
Free the titties. Free the nails. Free the woman!
'Til next time...
Do you, gurl! 👏
