Redefining the Standard: Ayn Bernos Advocates True Beauty Beyond Stereotypes

Redefining the Standard: Ayn Bernos Advocates True Beauty Beyond Stereotypes

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Ayn Bernos is on a mission to empower women and redefine beauty as she amplifies the concept beyond skin color, body type, and physique on Joyce Pring’s podcast

We tend to think of beauty as having a narrow standard. From our hair, our skin color, to our body size, we are defined by a variety of “perfect” norms. Specifically, Filipina beauty standards that have appalled us throughout generations. 

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Former Miss Universe Philippines candidate and beauty advocate Ayn Bernos has been redefining beauty for years. On Joyce Pring’s Rewind podcast, she shared that this advocacy started because it deeply resonated with her upbringing. As a relevant voice in this issue, Ayn wanted to be the person that her younger self needed. Seeing beyond the world’s perception of beauty, Ayn sees 2022 as her year of healing and growth.

Detach from Filipina beauty standards 

According to Ayn, she can’t say that she is fully confident at this point because she still has days full of doubt and questions about her physique, especially right after she joined Miss Universe Philippines. But these doubts in her head every now and then lead her to accept that she is a work in progress, thinking of herself as an ever-evolving creature that should not aim for perfection. 

When she joined as one of the candidates for MUPH, Ayn experienced firsthand how women in pageantry are experiencing online criticisms that amplify self-doubt. She, specifically, was judged as not qualified enough for the competition because of her dark skin color, average height, and “unacceptable” face to the world of beauty. She expressed her dissatisfaction with these imposed standards, stating that instead of women celebrating one another, they were forced to change themselves based on other people’s perceptions.

The more people told her she wasn’t a beauty queen because she represented what most people would consider incompetent beauty, the more she wanted to stay in that industry and show everyone how to detach from Filipina beauty standards.

On superficial beauty

Amidst the resurgence of whitening products and nuanced opinions on plastic surgery, the statement “not ugly, just poor” became a trending topic amongst the digital generation. Social media bombards us with pictures of “ideal” beauty day by day, making most of us believe that it comes with a price. In the interview, Ayn shared that she wants to encourage people to feed their young, impressionable minds with the choice to appreciate themselves—cultivating a culture of individually innate beauty rather than focusing on fluctuating physical features and superficial beauty. 

Seeing herself as a whole person

To end her conversation with Joyce Pring, Ayn elaborated on how 2022 healed her and let her grow. Seeing herself as a whole person acceptable to the different facets of beauty, this year’s inner growth proved to her that she is more than just her body parts and external figure. She is

Photos from AYN BERNOS (via Instagram)

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