I’m not going to lie to you. It IS a bit weird doing beauty experiments for Cosmo. Everytime I come to write them up I have to check within myself- is this true to what I think and feel about beauty?
Here are some things I think about beauty:
1- I had the fortune to be bought up by a mother immensely sensible about beauty. I grew up knowing beauty was a jitterry, rickety thing, to not ever put much store by it.
2- I went through the usual fashion obsessed teenage years. (By “fashion” I mean “awful neon flares”) But even when I was 16 I was uncomfortable with people needing me to be pretty. I once turned to a handsome boyfriend, my top teeth repulsively smothered in melted chocolate, and said “‘Ello Darling” in a grunty voice- he looked at me disdainfully and said “Don’t do that.” He got the heave ho that very day, I tell you.
3- I can go weeks and weeks without a dash of make up, without even looking in the mirror. Sometimes the best I can do is wipe a kid’s snot out of my fringe. I can be *that* unbothered.
4- Yet, when I have just hennaed my hair, or slapped on some blusher and mascara, I look in the mirror and go WAHEY! And it gives me a sort of grace and confidence for the day ahead that I am grateful for. I need it sometimes.
5- I try really hard to celebrate difference. My daughter’s play with my tummy, tracing the large tear shaped stretch mark I have around my belly button, courtesy of growing two babies in my womb. Ramona says “Your tummy is baggy, mummy!” And I say “It is baggy! And beautiful! I carried you in there, and this shape is to remind me of how mysterious and magnificent my body is.”
6- I feel genuinely upset that our world has such a strict measure of beauty. When I turned on my computer to see some stuff about Renee Zellweger I was pretty much exactly like this:
And, it is so weird, because on one level I want to be like “As long as she is happy” and “We should have nothing to say about her face” but on another level I feel creaky hearted about it. I thought she was absolutely stunning before, with her gorgeous ethereal eyes. She is still stunning, but she is Hollywood stunning and I am sad.
7- I definitely do not want to contribute to this kind of intolerant, cage like beauty myth, that requires people to do things to themselves.
8- But I *do* want to investigate options that can help people look in the mirror and say WAHEY in a way that takes in their whole health (i.e – minus the heavy metals) and in a way that respects our precious and beautiful earth.
Bearing all this in mind…. I have done a couple of experiments in the last month with two items.
Ozone Gel
I have begun using ozone for everything. On my teeth, wounds, sore spots. I feel like I could almost become an ambassador for it.Here I used it for wrinkles. I like to think I am going to grow old with pleasure. I am not ashamed of my laughter lines, and I like to think I will love them more as I grow with them. But there may come a time when I DO care and I’d like to be equipped to smooth them out a little in an uninvasive, easy way. Read all about it (and the pre-wedding cyst I got on my face) here.
Oil pulling with coconut oil (I buy my organic virgin coconut oil in bulk- which you can here too, through my affiliate link, if you like!) I use coconut oil for EVERYTHING. Deodorant, detangler, moisturiser, eye make up remover, now- a natural teeth whitener. (In fact, take a squizz at my post 12 beauty uses for 2 ingredients…) I have now incorporated it into my weekly rhythm as a way of avoiding expensive dental work. I’ve been looking into how I can heal my teeth, and my daughter’s weak teeth, naturally and I am adamant this is going to play an important role in this. Read all about it, and that time a mate had a bit of confetti in his teeth for a month, here.
I hope theses experiments don’t make you feel you *should* do something about wrinkles or yellowing teeth. Just that you *can.*
Mostly, I’d like this post to make you take a moment to think about beauty. Can you find yourself to be beautiful? I think we must learn to love ourselves. To do health, fitness and beauty things for ourselves and not others. To take a leaf from the United States of Schmaltz and learn self-love. (No offense, my American Readers. I love how you challenge our stiff, self hating, upper lip.)
“A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified, which is the basis of female identification. If a woman loves her own body, she doesn’t grudge what other women do with theirs; if she loves femaleness, she champions its rights.”
(This whole post is me trying to weld together my excitement about spreading the word of natural beauty through Cosmo and my belief in Naomi Wolf’s Beauty Myth…) 
Discover your beauty…
Well done, Lucy, very thoughtful. Love the Naomi Wolf quote!
YES LUCY!!!! TRUTH TRUTH TRUTH
You go woman!, I’m so proud and so priveleged to have influences like you!
My mum’s parenting was questionable at times, and I say that in a light-hearted way and not to mock her… but if there’s one thing I will always be grateful for is her attitude to beauty and make-up. I can count on one hand the amount of times I saw my mum wearing make-up and as a consequence never saw the need to do so myself. I do not own any, and have only worn it once (made up by a friend).
I only wish that this distaste for beauty as prescribed by “the industry” had done more for my self-esteem, but I don’t think it made that much difference.
I use coconut oil a lot but oh my that ozone gel…I need a bottle!
LOVE this post. Always such a dilemma – increasingly as the mum of a girl I find. I now think of it as being “my best me” and I’m on a mission to be the healthiest / best me I can be for my whole family x
I had my first “body moment” with the children at the weekend.
We were changing for swimming and Esme said “you’ve got a big belly mama”
“Yes I do, it’s from growing babies”
“And I have a big belly too, don’t I?”
“Well yes, a little belly, but that’s from cake, not babies”
It was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment.