The Almost Aquiline Nose
So while I am trying to hold my shit together enough to make a public appearance today, I distract myself with the question of noses. I am trying to design my main male character, Grey, and having to describe his physical form is difficult. I don't spend a lot of time evaluating men's bodies. I kid you not. The classic hero shape is not appealing to me. I think "rock hard abs" are distressing and vulgar. Bulging muscles of any kind repulse me. Just the regular kind you get from being active and doing yard work is fine. Any kind of body which may only be achieved by an unnatural relationship with a gym is a curiosity at best, and at worst makes me shiver in distaste.Grey has a medium build. But more important than build is his nose. Noses are very important to me. It breaks my heart that so many people have taken great noses and traded them in for something that, when you weren't born with it, is insipid. Snub noses are fine on the people who were born with them, but (and I'm so sorry to get personal here) I think a snub nose leaves much to be desired as an ideal.
Growing up I never hated my nose nor loved my nose. I wished it had a little more character, is all. One day, the day the above picture was developed and put into my hands, I made a deliriously happy discovery: I had a tiny bump on my nose!! I could only see it when in complete and stark profile. Do you see it? My nose isn't perfectly straight.
Come on- look closer. There is a gentle bump in the middle. If I could choose any nose at all in the universe of nose variations I'd have an aquiline nose.* "What's that?" you ask? It's what I almost have. It's a nose with a bump along the line which is the opposite of a Greek nose which is almost painfully straight. I love a Greek nose too, but an aquiline nose is the finest of them all. Look at my "enhanced" picture below to see what I'm talking about.
As it happens, the outline I've created with my semi-clumsy photo-shop paintbrush has illustrated the nose I wish I actually had. But I'll take what I can get.
One of the most beautiful women in the world is my friend Tara who has the most exquisite nose and I'd show you a picture if I could find one. She has the best example of an aquiline nose I've ever seen, not an "almost aquiline" like mine.
I cherish the small bump on my nose though I wish it was more pronounced. I hope that as I get older it grows. You know they say noses never stop growing? Here's my fingers crossed on that...
My cousin Carrie also has a gorgeous nose. It gives her face a keen intelligence, a regality, and it just plain adds a layer of beauty that it gives me much pleasure to see. You can't take a person with a tiny "ski jump" nose seriously, but no one can argue with an aquiline. It gives a strength to a face, a chiseled sculptural impression.
Ever notice how the best most revered sculptures in the world don't have Hollywood noses? Rodin may not have been sculpting Romans and Greeks, but even he didn't memorialize insipid small noses.**
Why's everyone so in love with snub or button or little noses? What have they got to offer anyone? Barbie would have never let anyone dress her in crap bubble-gum pink if she'd had a Greek or an aquiline nose.
I gave Grey a Greek nose because I gave Cricket an aquiline one. Why not? Why not give each of them one of my favorite noses?
I'm going to end this silly post with an observation that may seem simplistic and will obviously not be addressing exceptions which do surely exist...here it is:
I think people are best looking with the bodies, skin, and faces they're born with. I really do. I think brown skin is beautiful, but not on people who were born pale. I don't think tans make people look better unless it's a gentle incidental one they got from a little sunshine NOT the kind you get from baking yourself under the sun. I think tanning salon tans are creepy shit. I think big boobs can be an amazing asset to a woman's body, but not if she didn't naturally have them.
I believe in making the best of what we've been given to work with. I believe in wearing clothes that make what shape we have stand out in the best possible way. I believe in wearing some makeup for fun, for drama, and to enhance things we might actually like about our faces. I believe in taking care of a body to be healthy, to let it shine, but I don't believe in obsessing about five pounds of weight or letting your life's goal be to have washboard abs you can play bass with.
Because I am obese I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling unhappy and depressed about how I look. I take many self portraits of my head to ameliorate the self loathing I feel for the rest of me. However, when I'm not obese I really don't obsess about my body or my looks at all.
Oh, and on that front, this week I hit a personal best: I rode a total of 12.5 miles on my bicycle in ONE day AND also went to Kung Fu the same day.
AND I lost 2 more pounds this week.
Anyway, I love my almost aquiline nose. I hope that anyone else out there who has an actual bona fide aquiline nose will understand what a gift they have and know that their profile is a thing of beauty.
*Like all styles of noses, there are extremes of an aquiline. Mine doesn't even truly qualify as one, it only hints at aquiline. What aquiline literally means is to curve like an eagle's beak. So aquiline can mean something very like a "hawk nose" or it can merely imply a bump, or lack of straightness. I tried to link to Wikipedia's example and am having trouble, hopefully it will appear. My favorite in the aquiline range is the style of nose my red pen created which is the kind of aquiline my friend Tara and my cousin Carrie have. My preference isn't for eagle-noses as much as for ones with a distinct bump in the line.
**I've got a feeling some smart ass art major is going to discredit me on that one.
One of the most beautiful women in the world is my friend Tara who has the most exquisite nose and I'd show you a picture if I could find one. She has the best example of an aquiline nose I've ever seen, not an "almost aquiline" like mine.
I cherish the small bump on my nose though I wish it was more pronounced. I hope that as I get older it grows. You know they say noses never stop growing? Here's my fingers crossed on that...
My cousin Carrie also has a gorgeous nose. It gives her face a keen intelligence, a regality, and it just plain adds a layer of beauty that it gives me much pleasure to see. You can't take a person with a tiny "ski jump" nose seriously, but no one can argue with an aquiline. It gives a strength to a face, a chiseled sculptural impression.
Ever notice how the best most revered sculptures in the world don't have Hollywood noses? Rodin may not have been sculpting Romans and Greeks, but even he didn't memorialize insipid small noses.**
Why's everyone so in love with snub or button or little noses? What have they got to offer anyone? Barbie would have never let anyone dress her in crap bubble-gum pink if she'd had a Greek or an aquiline nose.
I gave Grey a Greek nose because I gave Cricket an aquiline one. Why not? Why not give each of them one of my favorite noses?
I'm going to end this silly post with an observation that may seem simplistic and will obviously not be addressing exceptions which do surely exist...here it is:
I think people are best looking with the bodies, skin, and faces they're born with. I really do. I think brown skin is beautiful, but not on people who were born pale. I don't think tans make people look better unless it's a gentle incidental one they got from a little sunshine NOT the kind you get from baking yourself under the sun. I think tanning salon tans are creepy shit. I think big boobs can be an amazing asset to a woman's body, but not if she didn't naturally have them.
I believe in making the best of what we've been given to work with. I believe in wearing clothes that make what shape we have stand out in the best possible way. I believe in wearing some makeup for fun, for drama, and to enhance things we might actually like about our faces. I believe in taking care of a body to be healthy, to let it shine, but I don't believe in obsessing about five pounds of weight or letting your life's goal be to have washboard abs you can play bass with.
Because I am obese I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling unhappy and depressed about how I look. I take many self portraits of my head to ameliorate the self loathing I feel for the rest of me. However, when I'm not obese I really don't obsess about my body or my looks at all.
Oh, and on that front, this week I hit a personal best: I rode a total of 12.5 miles on my bicycle in ONE day AND also went to Kung Fu the same day.
AND I lost 2 more pounds this week.
Anyway, I love my almost aquiline nose. I hope that anyone else out there who has an actual bona fide aquiline nose will understand what a gift they have and know that their profile is a thing of beauty.
*Like all styles of noses, there are extremes of an aquiline. Mine doesn't even truly qualify as one, it only hints at aquiline. What aquiline literally means is to curve like an eagle's beak. So aquiline can mean something very like a "hawk nose" or it can merely imply a bump, or lack of straightness. I tried to link to Wikipedia's example and am having trouble, hopefully it will appear. My favorite in the aquiline range is the style of nose my red pen created which is the kind of aquiline my friend Tara and my cousin Carrie have. My preference isn't for eagle-noses as much as for ones with a distinct bump in the line.
**I've got a feeling some smart ass art major is going to discredit me on that one.
Comments (4)
You have a beautiful nose! How funny to discover the aquiline bump from a different angle.
You are a biking inspiration, for us not-riding-a-lot people. And kung-fu?! You go!
Posted by Ann | June 5, 2010 1:09 PM
Posted on June 5, 2010 13:09
I, too, have an appreciation for noses, more than any other part of the face. When I was in middle school other girls swooned over lips and eyes, especially eyelashes. Not me, I'm a nose and teeth person.
I, too, do not prefer bumpy men. I don't like being told what to think and that male image is entirely too pervasive in our culture. Bumpy men make me immediately think of baby oil, yuck!
Thanks for being you, Angelina!
Posted by Anonymous | June 5, 2010 6:00 PM
Posted on June 5, 2010 18:00
I have a smallish sharp upturned nose covered in freckles, and I love it to pieces. On other people, I love big crazy noses. They make me weak in the knees ... they are so sexy. Even on girls l... ike Sophia Coppola.
Posted by futuregirl | June 7, 2010 3:48 PM
Posted on June 7, 2010 15:48
I really think all types of noses can be wonderful- my personal nose crushes aside- I suppose I just object to masses of people surgically making their noses match one ideal.
How can there really be one nose ideal? There are so many face shapes and sizes and arrangements it's weird for women to always make their noses smaller when they opt for plastic surgery. Why aren't any of them going for the Sophia? (Yeah, she's got a great nose) ooooh- or why not see if your face might look stunning with a nose like Paloma Picasso's nose?
I love your nose, by the way. I was just looking at pictures of you yesterday and noticing your nose. I kid you not! But I don't think I'd look half as good with it. So if my nose ever got destroyed or I became a bored trillionaire and decided I just had to get some rhinoplasty, I wouldn't opt for the retrousse as you've got, I'd go for a more pronounced aquiline, obviously.
I think it's really fantastic that you love your nose. I'd love more women to love their noses, whatever they've got.
Posted by Angelina | June 7, 2010 4:17 PM
Posted on June 7, 2010 16:17