Opinion | How to make beauty last

One of the things I feel most fortunate about is the fact that I have never been the "pretty girl". I've been a lot of other things - "spunky", "funny", "gutsy", and "something else" (a term coined for people like me, not pretty but not entirely ugly, either, therefore literally something else).

I love not being pretty. I wouldn't be where I am today if I were that gorgeous girl with perfect hair and glossy lips. Knowing that I do not look like a million dollars gave me the resolve to work on other aspects of myself, such as intelligence, creativity and compassion.

Of course, there are also beautiful women who are highly intelligent, creative and funny. When I went to Harvard, the guys were always huddled in a corner talking excitedly about which girls on campus were hot - and, yes, there were a couple. These girls had it all - the looks, the legs and the brains.

As an average-looking person, I understand how frustrating it can be to see beautiful women walk by and turn heads. However, these frustrations never deterred me. I worked harder in school, knowing that simply batting my lashes would not get me anything; being average-looking saved me.

So when I heard that one woman had died and three others had been in hospital after undergoing beauty "treatment", the first thing I wanted to do was ask the survivors: why would you do that? Why try so hard to be beautiful? Why not try instead to be funny, or kind, or really good at something - all of which also make a woman beautiful? Unlike physical beauty, which is ephemeral, these other marks of beauty are timeless.

The problem is that these other marks of beauty, however long-lasting and wonderful, are also hard to attain. They take time and skill. On the other hand, Botox is quick and easy. So are anti-wrinkle, whitening creams, make-up and laser treatments. Not surprisingly, plastic surgery in the US alone surged to over nine million procedures last year - a 197 per cent increase since 1997.