The thing about beauty

I've been pondering "What is beauty?". We can all tell the hot girl from the crowd, or look at a guy and say he's good looking. But when it gets down to it, what is beauty?
The Collins English Dictionary defines it as this:

"The combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and please the mind."

Now, it'd be very cliched of me to tell you that true beauty comes from within, so for now, I won't. Although, I do generally believe that. But beauty on the outside is what I'm currently thinking about and it's a fragile thing. Beauty is not a concept that holds fast across geographical borders or time. A mauritanian is likely to find a large, plump woman attractive. Whereas, it seems in the western cultures, visible ribs and hip bones is what gets men dizzy. Japanese geishas paint their faces a brilliant white and are viewed as the most beautiful citizens. For many african tribes, lip stretching is seen as a sign of value in a woman and the larger the lip plate, the more cows they are worth. In the Kayan tribe of thailand, an artificially elongated neck is the ideal of beauty.
The culture in which you live seems to dictate what a person will find physically attractive and also, the extent to which beauty is emphasised.

If you roll back the clocks to the era of Elizabeth I, woman were plucking back their hair lines to create a larger forehead and drawing veins on their chests to give the impression of translucent skin. And if you look at what is revered as beauty by today's standards, the change is dramatic.

For me?
Beauty is tall and blonde with blue eyes, a good bum and a cracking smile.

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