Mariam Ashraf, a teacher and “natural hair influencer”, speaks before a phone on a tripod and lights during a live-stream at her home in Egypt's capital Cairo on March 22, 2022. “Shaggy”, “messy”, “unprofessional”. Natural curls were once looked down upon in Egypt, where Western beauty standards favoured sleek, straight locks. Now, things are changing. (Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP Photo)

People gather for the second annual “Cat Beauty Festival” organized by Royal Veterinary Hospital in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq on July 2, 2025. Around 200 cats participated in the event, where the first round was determined by social media votes. The winner, a cat named “Gule Rana”, was selected by a jury. The festival aims to promote animal love and raise awareness about feline care. (Photo by Fariq Faraj Mahmood/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Teenage girls are all steamed up these days about straight hair. The steam iron is replacing the huge rollers on which countless teens slept every night to achieve the height and curls fashionable until. The same girls endure having their hair stretched to absolute straightness on the ironing board, and then ironed to keep it that way. Unlike the roller setting, this takes teamwork. Gay Stilley, 14, goes through an ironing session with a couple of her friends at the Stilley Home in Glen Oaks, Queens, New York City on December 23, 1964. With a wary eye, Gay tries to watch the straightening process as one friend stretches her hair with a comb and another does the ironing, in the Stilley kitchen. (Photo by Marty Zimmerman/AP Photo)

An Israeli girl in costume, celebrates the Jewish festival of Purim on March 5, 2004, in Tel Aviv, Israel. The Festival commemorates the rescue of Jews from genocide in ancient Persia.

Unforgiving temperatures of up to 60℃ (140℉) beat down on these saltminers on a daily basis. The mines, situated in the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia, stretch across 38,000 sq miles and at their lowest point are more than 300ft below sea level. Joel Santos travelled to capture the area’s dry, brutal beauty. Here: Dromedaries and donkeys are used to transport the salt. (Photo by Joel Santos/Barcroft Images)

Ryo Minemizu, one of Japan’s emerging stars in the field of marine life photography and the 2017 winner of the Nikkei National Geographic photography prize, captures the beauty and complexity of plankton that drift in our planet’s oceans and other bodies of water in meticulous detail. Here: Batesian mimicry by a Soleichthys fish larva. (Photo by Ryo Minemizu/The Guardian)

A series of beautiful shots of divers swimming near sunken ships have emerged. Alex Voyer, 39, was sailing around the Caribbean on a 60-foot boat when he stopped for a dive. The images show amazing shipwrecks as free divers explore the seabed. Here: A diver swims in the shallow water under a pier. (Photo by Alex Voyer/Caters News Agency)