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You couldn’t exactly call it preaching to the choir.

Actress Tyne Daly and writers Alex Kuczynski and Dana Thomas spoke to a crowd at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Friday about women and beauty, praising natural gray hair to a sea of blond highlights.

The panel discussed beauty and perfection in the acting and modeling industries and how impossibly high standards of appearance have seeped into all areas of life, including work and politics.

Though the audience seemed receptive to the panel’s discussion of looks as secondary to brains and the importance of self-esteem, questions in a session after the panel suggested that some felt the panelists had gone too far.

“I guess today I feel like we really lambasted women who have boob jobs,” one audience member said to the panel.

Others echoed this feeling, saying that women have the right to do things like wear makeup, which Thomas called “war paint” and Daly called “glorified dirt.”

But the panelists said they are not trying to impose a certain anti-beauty mindset either. Daly, who has been praised for allowing her hair to go naturally gray on the show “Judging Amy,” said that a woman’s hair is her own business — whether she’s dying it or not.

“I don’t think that anybody is saying that you must do it the way we do it,” Daly said.

For her, allowing her hair to become gray was more about being true to the character, she said. Her decision to forgo plastic surgery, she said, was about staying true to herself.

“I wasn’t willing to do a blood sacrifice,” said Daly, miming chopping up her body with her hands. “I love this business, but I wasn’t willing to do a blood sacrifice.”

Thomas, a contributing editor for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine and a former model, said she does not dye her hair, which she cut short nine years ago to avoid spending time on it. She also said she does not wear makeup, nail polish or a bra.

“There’s something really charming about being natural that we forget about,” she said.

Thomas also talked about pointing out women with breast implants with her husband at the swimming pool on Thursday.

“My husband kept saying, ‘There’s another one,’” she said. “The tops of the bikinis — they don’t move. The shape is Barbie.”

Instead of being bothered by others’ criticism of their looks, women should turn it around on them and ask, “Why do you care that my nose is big?” Thomas said.

Kucynski, the moderator and a writer for the New York Times, presented a different viewpoint: She has had plastic surgery and Botox. She said the surgery was a great decision, but the Botox was a waste of money.

“There are levels of happiness that can be achieved with plastic surgery,” she said after an audience member questioned what is wrong with women getting plastic surgery. “I did my upper eyes and I still am happy about it — I can see now!”

But Kucynski, who wrote a book called Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery, said she is concerned about the idea that women have to look perfect, whether they be teens wanting to look effortlessly beautiful or politicians like Hillary Clinton who are criticized for an inch of cleavage.

The panelists said the need to match an ideal look is unhealthy for everyone — including men, who stood up in the question and answer session to assert that men do not try to impose unhealthy standards on women.

“I hope you don’t feel that we’ve been beating up on the men,” Daly said. “This problem of perfection in the 21st century is going to apply to all of us.”
elise@aspendailynews.com