Have you ever heard the expression "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"?
To become an attractive person in the ancient Maya world, you would want your forehead to slant backwards, your eyes to be slightly crossed, your nose appear broken, your ears and nose and lips pierced, your teeth filed into patterns, and your body tattooed and painted.
To achieve this perfect look, you could not wait until you were an adult. You had to start your beauty process as an infant. To get that slanted forehead look, when you were a baby and your head was still soft, a board would be fastened flat to your forehead. This forced your head to deform with a slant towards the back of your head. Within a few days, the job was done and your forehead would be slanted back for the rest of your life.
To achieve a cross-eyed look, soft tiny balls were attached to your hair and allowed to fall on your face between your eyes. In time, your eyes would become slightly cross-eyed from glancing at or staring at the tiny soft balls bouncing between your eyes, right above your nose.
As for your nose, it was important to wear a removable nose bridge that squeezed your nose into a more attractive shape.
Of course you would want to pierce your ears, lips, and nose so that you could wear colorful jewelry made of whatever material you were allowed to use, based on your social status.
Naturally, everyone wanted to tattoo and paint their body for extra beauty. Warriors especially painted and tattooed to achieve that especially fierce look so popular in Maya times.
Although many of these various beauty treatments were painful, if you wanted to be attractive in Maya eyes, these steps absolutely had to be done.