Americans valued somewhat different beauty traits. Comparing consumers in US and Korea, Jung and Lee (2006) found that while body image was correlated with self-esteem in both countries, Korean consumers exhibited higher appearance related thoughts, lower body image related satisfaction, but higher body weight related satisfaction. Though these findings point towards the existence of cultural differences in the perception of beauty, they remain silent on the specific cultural values and psychological processes that may influence appearance enhancement pursuits. This is the gap in the literature that we aim to address with this research. Specifically, we propose that self-construal differences across cultures, or the manner in which people define themselves in relation to CULTURE & BEAUTY 5 others (Markus and Kitayama 1991), exerts consequential influence on consumers’ pursuit of beauty. Prior research has shown that people from industrialized Western nations hold a predominantly independent self-construal whereas those from traditional Eastern nations hold an interdependent self-construal (Oyserman, Coon, and Kemmelmeier 2002). Across three studies, involving female consumers from five countries (two Western and three Eastern countries), we show that consumers from a more interdependent culture, or those possessing a stronger interdependent self within a particular culture, are more likely to pursue appearance enhancement. We further argue that Easterners, with a stronger interdependent self-construal, are more likely to feel obligated to conform to socially defined beauty ideals, and this leads to a sense of discrepancy between the ideals and their current self. Usage of beauty related products and other appearance enhancement tools is one way to reduce this sense of discrepancy. Finally, we show, in an organizational context, that such socially driven pursuit of beauty by interdependents can be mitigated if the appearance related norms are perceived to be loose (vs. tight, Gelfand et al. 2011). Our research contributes to the beauty and appearance enhancement literature that has mostly focused on the downstream consequences of physical attractiveness (Belmi and Neale 2014; Dion, Berscheid, and Walster 1972; Fisher and Ma 2014) but not on its antecedents. By examining cultural differences in the pursuit of beauty through the lens of selfconstrual, we contribute to the body of work in international marketing that leverages such cultural differences to explain substantive cross-cultural phenomena (Agarwal, Malhotra, and Bolton 2010; Hui, Ho, and Wan 2011). Using both industry data and experimental evidence, we underscore the importance of this study to the field of international marketing. Further, prior research has shown that collectivist consumers or those with an interdependent selfconstrual are more likely to conform to societal norms (Lascu and Zinkhan 1999; Rose et al. 1994). Research in international marketing has identified culture-based conformity as a CULTURE & BEAUTY 6 predictor in diverse domains such as consumer innovativeness (Steenkamp, Hofstede, and Wedel 1999), manner of dressing (Manrai et al. 2001), luxury consumption (Shaikh et al. 2017; Wong and Ahuvia 1998), and green behaviour (Chan and Lau 2002). Our findings build on and extend this line of research by identifying the underlying mechanism through which such culture-based conformity yields its influence on behaviour, specifically in the beauty context. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to show that cultural differences in the motivation to conform to societal norms increase consumers’ level of self-discrepancy, which in turn drives consumption behaviour. Through this research, we also respond to the recent call to leverage the cultural tightness and looseness framework in consumer research (Li, Gordon, and Gelfand 2017) by showing that situational differences affecting the need to conform may mitigate the impact of interdependence on individuals’ appearance enhancing behaviour. Managerially, a sharper understanding of cultural differences in appearance enhancement is an imperative for the beauty industry where Asia contributes to over 30% of sales and is the growth powerhouse for the global beauty conglomerates (Madan 2016). Our findings provide compelling and pragmatic insights to managers and policy makers. Leveraging the cultural nuances of appearance enhancement can help businesses formulate better-informed strategies about international expansion, market entry, resource allocation, developing relevant products, insightful communication campaigns, and frontline sales training plans. Finally, our findings suggest that policy makers and organizations can curb the negative consequences associated with the over-pursuit of