애교살
July 9, 2013 9:09 PM   Subscribe

Is the interest in the bag directly under the eyes, aegyosal, as a beauty symbol purely a Korean phenomenon?
posted by slowlikemolasses to Society & Culture (6 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
So I looked this up on Naver and after ignoring some funny colloquialisms at the top, found that it is called "pretarsal fullness". If you google this, there are a bunch of links going to different places. The second link, in fact, goes to a study of Asian women's eyes and states that this 애교살 is a sign of beauty in China.

Unfortunately, when I put 애교살 into Google Translate, it doesn't work out, and 'pretarsal fullness' doesn't really show anything either. I'm not with Japanese or Chinese to hazard a guess about what the term might be, but judging by the above mentioned link, I assume that it is a thing, at least in China.
posted by Literaryhero at 9:47 PM on July 9, 2013


Is the interest in the bag directly under the eyes, aegyosal, as a beauty symbol purely a Korean phenomenon?

Tentatively, yes. I have nothing to go by but approximately 10+ years of reading Asian beauty magazines (Japanese and Taiwanese) and observing makeup trends migrate all over Asia, but it seems to me that the K-pop phenomenon has something to do with it. I don't remember any emphasis on the undereye until recently. In the early to mid-oughties, at the very least, the standard to aspire to was a variation on the Japanese "gyaru" look which was quite doll-like, and basically required circle lenses, lots of false lashes, long curled hair dyed light brown or blonde. Like this. A less startling, more every day example would probably be something like this.

In the last four or five years, it seems to me that there's been a shift towards a more naturalistic style that is favoured by female Korean K-pop stars and celebrities. The goal is to look as innocent and youthful as possible, but more childlike than doll-like. The emphasis is on fuller, straighter brows instead of thin arches, the aegyo-sal, and even cosmetic tricks to make the eyes look droopy and puppy-like. The term for this style of makeup is called Ulzzang. See this Tumblr for great examples, and this YouTube clip. The girls in the YouTube video sport classic ulzzang looks with major aegyo-sal-age, and at the 3'10" mark, one of them talks about using eyeliner to make her eyes slope downwards to "make puppy eyes in front of boys." Last year, one of the Japanese beauty magazines I read contained a special on Korean-pop inspired makeup, so it is an accepted fact that there are two distinct styles.

Just as there were girls who made themselves up to look like Gyarus in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, there are girls who aspire to Ulzzang perfection in those countries today.

Is there a Japanese or Chinese word for the area?

I plugged in aegyo-sal (애교살) into Google Translate, and the corresponding kanji appears to be 愛嬌肉. This Singaporean plastic surgery website claims that "aegyo" is a combination of the Chinese characters "ae" for "love"(爱) and "gyo" for "beautiful" (嬌) so Google Translate may in fact be correct. I don't know a lick of Korean, so I don't know if "sal" is actually Hangul for "flesh" or 肉 in kanji.
posted by peripathetic at 10:38 PM on July 9, 2013 [15 favorites]


peripathetic - I'm not sure about the Chinese characters for 애교, but I do know that the word refers to feminine cuteness or charm in Korean. It is hard for me to translate the meaning into English, but the 애교 behavior is the super whiny, childlike way Korean girls act when they think they are being cute (sorry, perhaps I am editorializing). The 살 part does mean flesh, so I assume that the term 애교살 is referring to something like 'cute flesh'.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:04 AM on July 10, 2013


It's called 涙袋 (or less commonly, 涙堂) in Japanese, and yes, girls seem to want them. There are how-to articles and specialized makeup to emphasize this area.
posted by misozaki at 3:08 AM on July 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


涙袋 is read "namidabukuro," and the characters mean, literally, "tear bag." 涙堂 is ruido, the characters meaning something like "the place where tears are stored," I guess. Forgot to include that, sorry.
posted by misozaki at 3:13 AM on July 10, 2013


Literaryhero, if the kanji/hanja for 애교 is indeed 愛嬌, you're definitely correct, for 嬌 in Chinese suggests a helpless, frail and delicate lovableness. (Ugh. :P)
posted by peripathetic at 10:20 AM on July 10, 2013


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