“You are too fat, too thin, too black, too white, too old, too young, too curvy, too freckled, too pale, too tanned.”
“You have Acne. Wrinkles. Stretch Marks.”
The beauty industry has a cure for every perceived female shortcoming felt within. But there’s a price to pay to overcome it: and it’s not just the dollar value on the box. Our insecurities make us human, but this multibillion-dollar beauty empire is built on exploiting them. Celebrities and brands capitalize on this fear, and guerrilla marketing and programming work like a charm.
It started when the fairytales we grew up with projected unrealistic beauty standards that we kept revisiting as we grew up – through cardboard books and animated movies back then, to glitzy billboards and Instagram posts that bubble wrap reality, today.
That mirror in our youth challenged and mocked us in judgment. It hit our self-esteem and the way we looked at our body.
It allowed us to blanket ourselves with unkind critique and paved the path to decades of warring with ourselves, in self-loathing.
Heaven forbid if we cried out in defiance? Our authenticity would be seen as activism.
When I think of physical beauty, I think of butterflies. A cornucopia of unadulterated aesthetic: a feast of proud complexions, shapes, and colour that decorate the world around us. We look at them with awe and wonder, appreciative of the freedom in the fragility, knowing fully well that their existence is short-lived. But we don’t we see this in ourselves or each other.
In the biological process of metamorphosis, imagine if the caterpillar had just stopped there, refusing to accept change caged within its dark self, without giving itself a chance to shape-shift in chrysalis.
What if our understanding of beauty in our formative years was not fuelled by fear, but by hope and love. What if we looked at physical differences not with hatred or disdain but in admiration and curiosity, in appreciation of our natural gifts both outside and within.
What if we accepted the evolution of our self-conscious adolescence through time, and unfolded our wings without the fear of ageing?
We all have wounds that were formed in childhood. They can become our superpowers if we can look past them. They can collectively become a kaleidoscope of inspiration for the world, but only if they bedazzle us first.
Lean into your scars and vulnerabilities – stare at them squarely but don’t succumb to them. Your mind is yours. Take it back. Your innocence, your freedom, your power – is yours. Take it back.
Change the narrative.
By: Anisha Oberoi, CEO & Founder, SECRET SKIN
Credits:
Photography IRA SHAMBARY
Make-up and Hair INNA KOLCHIK
Producer ALEXEY BOGDANOV
Production MIXTAPE
Technical support ALEXEY VOITOVICH
Set design SERGEI FOMIN
