Look fast through the photos in this post and think, what did you pay your attention to at first?
The beautiful Globe Hope´s summer dress? Globe Hope´s earrings? My smile? My bare feet maybe?
When I looked at these photos, I thought at first “Oh, Marianne has taken some nice shots of me in my Globe Hope´s summer outfit!” My thoughts were good and positive, and I felt good about myself.
Then I took a closer look at these photos.
I noticed that I can see my bras in this first photo. My spontaneous thought was “No, I can´t publish this one.” Because it´s not perfect.
Then I noticed some small pimples on my face in this second photo. And I thought “I can´t publish this one either“. Because the pimples make me look bad in the photo.
Thirdly I noticed that I had forgotten to place the dress belt right before taking this photo. “No, no, no. How could I´ve been so sloppy?! I´m not going to put this to my blog!”
And fourth (I was already quite depressed at this point…). “OMG, that scar on my hand ruins the beautiful Globe Hope´s purse!”
Authentic & natural beauty is the most amazing beauty
When I started my blog I decided not to Photoshop myself. Yes, I sometimes like to play with colors and different effects in my photos. But making myself thinner or removing my pimples in Photoshop. No, thank you. First and foremost I wanted to be real right from the beginning.
However, being real is not easy in this world. I remember for example thinking whether to publish these photos of myself in the morning or not. All the time we see perfectly beautiful women (and men) with perfect clothes in magazines and commercials. And we get depressed when we compare ourselves to them. We feel bad because we look so different. We look uglier than them, we think.
Some time ago I found this article about 17 year old Lorde, who is a singer and two time Grammy Award winning actress. This beautiful young woman has some acne marks on her face. On her Twitter page she published two photos of herself. She wondered why someone had photoshopped her acne marks away from another photo.
She tweeted “i find this curious – two photos from today, one edited so my skin is perfect and one real. remember flaws are ok :-),”
I loved Lorde´s tweet just like tens of thousands of other people who re-tweeted her tweet. The thing that this young singer and celebrity is not afraid to show her flaws, is SO GREAT. We definitely need new teenage role models like her! I also love that more and more real and normal women, like plus-size models, are seen in the magazines and commercials. It´s healthy development and good for the wellbeing of all of us.
We need to see more real models, so that it´s easier for us all to be real.
And we need more companies like American Eagle who stopped photoshopping models as an effort to promote more realistic body images for teens and women in general.
Well, I don´t have a lot of acne marks and I’m at normal weight. But I am a 33 year old mother of two small children. And the signs of that life situation are seen in me and in my blog photos, in one way or another.
I have struggled with my appearance and still do so every once in a while. However, my struggles have decreased in number over time. Publishing real, imperfect pics about myself in my blog has been one thing that has given me courage to be more real and authentic in my life. The more I´ve learned to accept myself, the easier it has become to show the authentic me to the others. And to feel good about myself.
Besides, who would be a better person to introduce beautiful eco fashion for working moms, than another working mom? 😉
So by publishing these photos now, and doing so also in the future, I want on my behalf encourage women to have the courage to show their authentic and natural beauty to the world. The more we are to do that, the more we all can feel good in our bodies and minds.
And not feel the pressure to Photoshop ourselves anymore.
