beauty is only skin deep

English

Alternative forms

• beauty is only skin-deep

Etymology

First use appears c. 1809, although beauty is but skin-deep appears much earlier.

Proverb

beauty is only skin deep

1. A person's character matters more than their appearance.

   Synonym: beauty is but skin-deep

   • 1809, Francis Lathom, London, Or, Truth Without Treason, A Novel, page 2:

     "Handsome those that handsome do say I; beauty is only skin deep; it is the principle of the heart I consider.

   • 1910, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “The Girl and the Habit”, in Strictly Business‎^[1]:

     And she graced the transition. Beauty is only skin-deep, but the nerves lie very near to the skin. Nerve—but just here will you oblige by perusing again the quotation with which this story begins?

   • 2014 September 25, Hugo Macdonald, “Could those utopian hoardings for new developments get any more nauseating?”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Isn’t it time the marketing budgets were reapportioned to the bones and muscles of the building themselves? At present, the beauty in London’s building boom is barely skin deep.

Translations

a person's character is more important than their outward appearance

• Arabic: الجمال جمال الروح
• Bulgarian: външността лъже (vǎnšnostta lǎže)
• Danish: skønhed kommer indefra
• Dutch: uiterlijk schoon is slechts vertoon
• Indonesian: laksana bunga dadap, sungguh merah berbau tidak
• Irish: más peaca bheith buí tá na mílte damanta, ní hí an bhreáthacht a bhruitheann na prátaí
• Japanese: 美人というも皮一重 (びじん と いう も かわ ひとえ, bijin to iu mo kawa hitoe)
• Malay:

  Jawi: لقسان بواه ددڤ, سوڠݢوه مره برباءو تيدق, بواه ماسق مره بلوم تنتو مانيس راسڽ

  Rumi: laksana buah dedap, sungguh merah berbau tidak, buah masak merah belum tentu manis rasanya

• Polish: pozory mylą
• Portuguese: quem vê cara não vê coração (pt)
• Russian: вне́шность обма́нчива (vnéšnostʹ obmánčiva)

See also

• it's what's inside that counts

References

• Gregory Y. Titelman, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, 1996, →ISBN, p. 21.

Further reading

• “beauty is only skin deep”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• Jennifer Speake, editor (2015), “BEAUTY is only skin-deep”, in Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, 6th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 15.