Gen Z Reframes Beauty as Embodiment

Facing the Mirror

I stand in front of the mirror with my makeup done the way it’s supposed to be. Concealer in all the right places. Blush to warm my cheeks. People say makeup should accentuate your features, but all I see is a stranger staring back. My face feels wrong. Not bad, just foreign. Like I’m wearing someone else’s skin. I wipe it off. My eyes burn. My chest aches.

We put on makeup for nights out, to meet the gaze of strangers, to bask in city light with friends. But tonight it feels like I am not enhancing myself, I am erasing her. Right now I am not sure I would recognize her in the mirror.

Celebrity Beauty and the Media

We’re always trying to emulate a model on a red carpet. Every part of her body looks mathematically perfect, her features aligned like a golden ratio. Black dress. Sleek hair. Sharp eyeliner. Siren eyes. Immaculately beautiful. 

So many people screaming her name, flashing cameras, while so many self-deprecating voices fill her head, eyes flashing with overwhelm. To many, especially in the eyes of the media, and let’s be honest, often men, this must be the moment a woman feels her most beautiful. 

That is what we are told to believe. But the truth is far messier.

In 2009, Megan Fox, the face of early 2000s beauty, stepped onto the Golden Globes red carpet. The internet cherishes pictures of her that night: flawless. But behind the perfect makeup and perfected pose, she admitted something raw in an interview with Giuliana Rancic. There, she described how “painfully insecure” she was, adding, “I’m on the verge of vomiting right now. I’m so horrified that I’m here.”

She looked perfect. But she didn’t feel it. 

So if not on the red carpet,when do women truly feel beautiful? Not when people tell her she looks pretty. Not when she’s trying to be desirable. But when she feels it. In her body, in her breath, in her bones. 

Garnering almost 5 million views, in an interview with StyleLikeU, Victoria Pedretti explores beauty with raw honesty. When asked when she feels most beautiful, she doesn’t talk about facades; she talks about freedom. Presence. Play. 

“Maybe when I'm dancing and cooking, engaging in things that bring me pleasure…decorating myself in a way that's a true expression of what’s going on inside.” That hit me, hearing someone describe beauty like that.

She keeps going, “I’m starting to appreciate that there is some continuous thing that is beautiful…that doesn't go anywhere, even in my states that might make me uncomfortable.” That idea, of something within you that’s always there, is powerful. And she’s right: what if we all walked around with the belief that we are beautiful and deserving? Not because someone said so. But because we are. 

Growing up as a girl, especially in the digital age, beauty exists everywhere and nowhere. It’s all over our Instagram feeds: contour tutorials, glowing skin, perfect hourglass bodies, “clean girl” aesthetic, “mob wife” aesthetic, any “-core.” It’s exhausting, constantly shifting, and somehow always out of reach. 

The Long History of Performing Beauty

There’s a silent pressure to perform the bewildering object that is beauty, to look effortless while trying so hard, even when anxiety reshapes personal space and hunger lingers. But lately, I’ve started noticing something else. 

Women, especially women of older generations and women from immigrant communities or non-Western cultures, talk about beauty in a different way. Not as a performance, but as a feeling, an element. They have grown wiser, and with wisdom comes acceptance of yourself.

In an interview with two friends, Afrobella and freelance writer Kristen Booker, Booker asked when Afrobella feels most beautiful. Afrobella answered that she is beautiful when she’s just left the shower, listening to music, enjoying a scrub, lathering herself in body oils. But in that moment, she’s completed this tranquil routine, she looks in the mirror and feels most naturally herself. Most beautiful. 

“Even before the makeup, that’s when I feel my best.”

Beauty Is Political

Society tells us that beauty is thin, light-skinned, and Eurocentric. But what about girls with melanin-rich skin, thick bodies, natural curls, stretch marks, scars, and struggles? What about anyone? What about women who’ve been told their beauty is “too much” or “not enough” their whole lives? How do you feel beautiful when the world says you’re not the default?

The truth is: beauty is political. It lies in the hands of critics, the media, and we just don’t always realize it. But maybe the most radical thing any girl or woman can do, especially those told they’re “not enough,” is to decide, I am beautiful when I say I am.  

In her historical overview of Western beauty standards, photographer Nena Sterner reminds us that the idea of the "ideal woman" has always shifted. From the full-bodied Venus figurines of ancient times to the boyish silhouettes of the 1920s, beauty has never been stable. In the Renaissance, women plucked their hairlines to appear more intelligent. In the 1880s, they wore suffocating corsets to achieve an exaggerated S-curve. The 1950s idolized the hourglass figure, but only if it came with thin arms, flawless skin, and a perfectly made-up face.

Across eras, one thing remains the same: the pressure to mold ourselves into the shape of the moment.

Even today, as Sterner points out, being a photographer means hearing women critique their bodies. They're self-conscious about their arm flab or their small boobs or how tired they look. This isn’t just insecurity. It’s something deeper, something passed down. Gen Z is beginning to name that inheritance, and to question it. 

As Sterner says, “The things we dislike about ourselves are often the things that make us beautiful in someone else’s eyes.” 

So, when do women feel most beautiful?

Maybe the answer is: not when we’re being watched by men or the media, but when we’re just being. Not when we’re trying to be beautiful, but when we’re free, safe, and real. Unapologetically human. And maybe we don’t have to wait for a mirror or a camera or a compliment to tell us we are. 

Beauty is something we are lucky to claim, not earn. 

Beauty as Embodiment: Culture Is Catching Up

Gen Z is growing up in the wake of impossible beauty standards. Our moms flipped through glossy Seventeen magazines filled with thigh gaps. Our older sisters learned contouring from TikTokers who sold lip plumpers in the same breath as self-love. But something shifted.

We’re realizing that trying to achieve beauty for the male gaze, or even for social capital among other women, is a losing game. As writer Jia Tolentino put it, “the ideal woman” is “always optimizing.” It’s exhausting. And Gen Z is tired.

Here’s the real shift: Gen Z isn’t just rejecting old beauty standards, we’re rejecting the idea that beauty has to be visual at all. We’re embracing beauty as embodiment. As a feeling. As aliveness.

Psychologist and researcher Hilary McBride writes about how disembodiment, the sense of being disconnected from our own bodies, is a core part of how patriarchal beauty standards control people. But when people reclaim their bodies as theirs, beauty becomes something internal, lived, and even sacred.

That might sound intense. But isn’t it radical to say: “I feel beautiful when I’m fully in myself”? Not when I’ve been validated, not when I’ve been approved of,  but when I feel aligned, grounded, free.

We don’t want to look like ourselves anymore. We want to be ourselves.

From Billie Eilish’s complex relationship with oversized clothes, to Barbie Ferreira refusal to cater to Hollywood’s fatphobic gaze, to South Asian creators like Nabela Noor posting “pockets of peace” in a world that polices our every curve, women are choosing softness over spectacle, self-trust over performance.

However, brands are lagging behind. Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign now feels outdated not because of its message, but because Gen Z doesn’t need a campaign to tell us we’re enough. We know that already. Now we’re asking: when do I feel most beautiful? And how can I honor that?

When Do We Feel Most Beautiful?

I feel most beautiful when I wake up from a long daytime nap. The house is quiet, golden hour glows through the windows, and soft jazz plays in the background. My sock is halfway off, my skin warm and dewy from sleep. I’m alone, and I love it. I feel fully myself.

I feel most beautiful when I’ve helped someone, not for recognition but because I can. I feel most beautiful when I cry. Empathy is a kind of power. I even feel it in the tedious actions: washing dishes, cleaning my room, doing homework. How lucky I am to be alive. I feel most beautiful when I feel alive, not just pretty. 

Maybe it’s when we let our guard down. When we laugh until we can’t breathe. When we’re with people who remind us who we are. Maybe beauty isn’t a mirror. Maybe it’s a memory. A truth. Something that can’t be sold or scrolled past.

Gen Z isn’t just rejecting the gaze, we’re building a new lens. One where beauty isn’t something to perform, but something to feel. So, when do you feel most beautiful?