The Indian Sari

You have seen a sari worn by Indian beauty queens like Aishwarya Rai. You cannot deny how these flowing garments emphasize feminine grace and attributes while leaving plenty to the imagination. Add in colorful threads and embellishments and you have one head-turning dress!

For Indian weddings, the traditional colors are red and white that symbolizes fertility, wealth and purity. Instead of an all-white bridal dress, you can inject touches of red – a ribbon or hem embroidery perhaps. If you want to take it one step further, you can design a sari-inspired wedding gown. You would have dispensed of stiff petticoats and restraining corsets and just be comfortable during the wedding ceremony and the reception.

The Irish Blue

The traditional Irish bridal dress is blue, which symbolizes purity. Lest you think that it should be green since it is the color of Ireland, it is actually considered bad luck for the bride to wear green. (Thus, if invited to an Irish wedding, avoid wearing green, too)

You can wear a blue-hued dress, if you want. Better yet, you can always use the finest Irish lace in your wedding dress. Not only do you go haute couture, you also have an exquisite dress on your wedding day!

The Scottish Tartan

Fortunately for you, The Scottish bridal dress is traditionally white or cream. However, you can add touches of tartan to your dress – tartan ribbons on your bouquet, tartan trimmings, tartan shawl, or a tartan waist sash. This livens up an otherwise all-white ensemble with tradition particularly when your family or that of your husband’s has Scottish origins.

Or if you do not want a tartan, you can always have Celtic knot work embroidered on your wedding gown to symbolize eternal love. At the very least, you have ancient patterns with meanings instead of the customary flowers and leaves.

The Hispanic Heritage

If you are of Hispanic heritage, the tradition about wearing something borrowed takes on a different meaning. Your wedding dress might very well be the wedding dress of your mother and your grandmother, with a few revisions to suit your bodily measurements. This reflects your pride of family, a trait highly valued in Hispanic societies.

The Spanish traditional wedding gown represents a radical departure from the customary white of Western weddings. The Spanish bride wears a black gown and a lacy mantilla veil to symbolize her devotion to her husband until death. If you choose a Spanish-influenced gown vis-vis color, you do not need to despair. You can sew in ribbons of yellow, blue and red into your lingerie or infuse touches of these colors into your gown.

Of course, when you do choose a foreign influence as inspiration for your bridal dress, do not make the mistake of turning it into a hodgepodge of clashing ideas. You want a timeless appeal with a traditional touch to your wedding gown!

For a perfect wedding, find ideas for your wedding favours and wedding cakes as well as your perfect bridal dress at BestforBride today!

 

The meaning of beauty depends very much on when and where you are. Each culture and era has its own idea of what epitomises beauty. In Renaissance Europe the full bodied woman was deemed to be the essence of beauty, whereas the 1990’s saw the catwalks of the world paying homage to the tall and slim, and in contrast, the Kayan people of Thailand elongate their necks from when they are young with metal rings to achieve the perfect long slender neck to achieve their idea of ideal beauty. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but throughout all time women have strived to improve the way they looked and in their quest for perfection women have experimented with some unusual and downright dangerous methods.

Pale has been a recurring vision of beauty, from English rose to heroine chic. In the past women have used arsenic, mercury or lead based products, usually in the form of some face powder, in the hope that this would make their skin paler. As these chemicals are highly toxic to the human body they were quite likely to do the job, but in a more enduring and life ending fashion. In fact the grave medical implications of these chemicals in the wrong proportions was recognised a long time ago but ignored in favour of the pursuit of beauty. Today of course strict guidelines have been introduced to ensure that any use of such chemicals in cosmetics is carefully regulated and monitored.

Leaches were a medieval favourite for curing all sorts of complaints, so it is not surprising that they were also used to bleed patients to lighten their skin tone through blood loss.

In the 1800’s it was believed that dilated pupils made a woman more beautiful. It became common practice to use extracts of the Belladonna plant in eye drops to achieve this look. By blocking the ability for the iris to constrict it does the job, but the side effects were blurred vision and potentially blindness.

During the Regency era red lips were seen to be ideal on a woman. Mercuric Sulfide or red mercury was applied to lips to make them redder but of course mercury is a poisonous compound and will do more harm than good to someone’s complexion over time.

It may sound peculiar in these enlightened times that women would put themselves through such dangerous practices in the search for perfect beauty, but then again I’m sure they would have looked at chemical peels, Botox, collagen injections, and surgical enhancements in much the same way.

Now you cannot go anywhere in the world without being swamped with product advertising from the cosmetic and beauty conglomerates of the world. Your eye lashes must be plumper, your skin more radiant, your lips shinier, your hair should have more body, and drink drink drink more water to rejuvenate your skin. But although the first cosmetics were created almost 5,000 years ago the cosmetics industry had to wait until the early twentieth century before it took on a major commercial role in our society. New safer products were developed, exercise and health were seen as important factors in the pursuit of perfection and although the last century saw many different trends and styles go by we now are being told for the first time that beauty is something that comes from within. Less is more, and make-up is now supposed to blend with your natural look, to highlight your features not mask them. Subtle is in, and thank goodness for that.

Faye of SimplyFaye is a professional make-up artist with 14 years experience in fashion and photographic makeup, weddings and make-up lessons. For everyday make-up advice and for those special occasions contact SimplyFaye on  http://www.simplyfaye.co.uk/” >http://www.simplyfaye.co.uk

Article Source: add-articles.com

Faye of SimplyFaye is a professional make-up artist with 14 years experience in fashion and photographic makeup, weddings and make-up lessons. For everyday make-up advice and for those special occasions contact SimplyFaye on http://www.simplyfaye.co.uk/