I’m not sure if you missed it. I’m not sure how you could. It made me lose my lunch, when the Twitter-verse started Tweeting about the Peruvian crime ring selling human fat from their victims for use by Cosmetic Companies. If there was ever a reason to check labels carefully and check the contents of your cosmetics, this is it. But my mind didn’t stop processing the information on that thought alone. Immediately, I thought, wait … Where there are buyers there is demand, where there is demand there have to be suppliers, and it’s highly unlikely these Peruvians gangs are solely responsible for supplying that market. Consider what I am saying here. What do so many women rush to do now a day? Liposuction. That’s right. Think about it. How many women (and men) around the world have gone and butchered themselves, paid for the service, of removing unwanted fat from their bodies?
I was afraid that I might be right on this one, and a quick check on articles on this bizarre situation only served to confirm my worst fears. Here is a quote I pulled directly from an article on the Associated Press.
Dr. Adam Katz, a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia medical school, was incredulous when told about the Peruvian ring.
“I can’t see why there would be a black market for fat,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all, because in most countries we can get fat so readily and in such amounts from people who are willing and ready to donate that I don’t see why there would ever be a black market for fat, of all tissues.”
“Donate it?” How cynical do you have to be? What? Do people walk in and say, “Please take this lard of my hips so, across the globe, an unwitting woman can place it on her lips?” If there were ever a doubt that the cosmetic industry and the plastic surgery industry see women as life-stock, as fuel for their machine, then this quote makes matters clear.
We need to consider: at what price beauty? I’m all in favor of cosmetics. I’ve been known to use them liberally as an art-form, a form of self-expression, or just as a pick-me-up. But surely I do not want the product of another woman’s suffering on my skin. I am personally not a fan of plastic surgery, especially not of liposuction, but I am not trying to pass judgment on another for what they feel compelled to do.
What needs to be judged heavily, and needs to be more heavily regulated, is the industry that exploits and uses us so casually. It’s all well and good to arrest a rouge bunch of sickies in Peru, but who is doing anything about all the “respectable” professionals doing the very same thing every day? Notice that no buyers have yet been identified. I am digging, and if I manage to uncover names, I will re-post a list.
We can’t wait on government to do this for us, ladies, so wake up! So long as we cooperate, we will be used and sucked dry to put a penny in someone else’s hollow pocket. Many of us have greater financial freedom than we have ever had. Let’s use our pennies wisely. Let’s finance freedom. Let’s stop paying a fortune for pretentious cosmetics made for us, from us. Let’s do our research and buy plant-based products. Be weary of the word “organic.” We are organic. Look for plant-based products.
But most of all, ladies, let’s stop buying the hype. We’re all beautiful. Some maybe fit the common “aesthetic” more than others, and it doesn’t matter a hill of beans.
We’re all going to get wrinkles ... the more we smile the better.
We’re all going to get crows-feet ... the more we wink the better.
