I said in @JLeslie‘s post that I don’t think beauty relates only to physical looks. Pretty I think does though. So while I would not avoid saying to my child “oh you look very pretty in that dress” or “I think your hair looks pretty”. I would not place a great emphasis on their looks. I have had cause to deflect such attitudes though.
My daughters actually have very similar features but one has very dark hair, eyes and stands out as being very beautiful in a physical sense. The other, perhaps because she is fair, does not stand out as being so dramatically pretty. I think she is stunning but the number of people over the years, even when they were children who would come up and say..“oh isn’t [daughter 1] beautiful!” and not say anything to [daughter 2]. It made me so, so angry and I have made a point of downplaying and avoiding bringing attention to their individual physical looks.
At my second wedding, one of the guests [actually the partner of one of the people we invited rather than our friend] said to daughter 2, “oh your sister may be the beautiful one, but you have the figure”. They both laughed and saw it as being totally inappropriate and shallow but I was horrified. Had I been there I would have called her out on it.
I have always told my children, all of them, how clever, interesting, funny and beautiful (in a complete sense) they are as people. I have never fawned over their prettiness though because I don’t want them to value themselves only in terms of the way they look. I guess it again comes down to one of those ‘everything in balance’ things. We don’t want our children (male or female) to think they are unattractive, but I wouldn’t want my children to see their looks as being their most positive feature/characteristic either. They are wonderful, well balanced, intelligent and very funny, people who happen to be pretty too.
I am very glad that my daughters have never competed in terms of looks. They get on beautifully and are very supportive of each other.