You Are Beautiful: What Is Beauty?

Writing a beauty blog is fun, but it's not all about product reviews, sometimes I like to actually discuss beauty as a whole so here we go. We’ve all sat and looked at celebrities, friends or even random girls and thought, I wish I looked even a little bit like her– if you’ve never done this, please tell me your secret to being confident. Today I am going to tackle this and explain why I think every woman should be confident in her own skin. I am so glad that beauty is now appreciated in all shapes and sizes, whereas it used to be very much the Marilyn Monroe figure, with women actually sucking themselves in to teeny corsets and making them selves ill, in order to achieve the perfect hourglass figure. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s what my history teacher told me). We then had the size 0 debate, with many girls starving themselves to look like catwalk models, I recently read a book about the fashion industry which quotes models saying that it’s normal for them to pass out on a daily basis from a lack of food. I am going to discuss this today in the hopes that this blog post will make at least one of you smile and appreciate your own beauty, embrace and love yourself and be happy within your own skin...

We've all had a moment where we lacked confidence, maybe it was at the gym, in the school corridor or on your first day of work, we're socially conditioned to feel anxiety in situations that (in hindsight) are perfectly normal and trivial, like when I was in year 9, I was too nervous to even walk across the corridor sometimes, hated eating in front of people due to my braces and loads more trivial things. I often asked Google how to gain confidence and every time it told me that confidence will come to you and eventually, I guess it did. 

Writing a beauty blog can be the ultimate confidence killer, looking at stunning girls all day, we’re talking Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Kim Kardashian, being heavily involved in the online-world and the media whilst being a lover of glossy magazines and instagram, means that I expose myself to seeing stunning people all day every day. Every time Kendall Jenner uploads a photo of herself on instagram I wish I could look a teeny bit like her. This is where you’ve got to tell yourself that life really isn’t that bad. We all have bad days, but as the saying goes, ‘if it’s not okay, then it’s not the end’. There is always someone who is in a worse situation than you and yes there will always be someone in a better one too so you’ve got to tell your little pretty head (every single person is pretty in their own way, yep you too, you reading this right now!) that every little thing, is gonna be alright (even if you are having a bad hair day).

I always tell my best friend when she gets upset about confidence/body etc, that at least she has a roof over her head, a family who love and support her and is in good health - people would kill for that so to embrace the brilliant life she leads, even if it may not seem so brilliant. It may not look like you’re living a good life until you put it into perspective, but if you write a list of the good things in your life and a list of the bad, I bet there are 100 more good things than bad. 

Let the good outweigh the bad. Don’t focus on the bad, let yourself enjoy the good. It’s very hard to look at it like that depending on how strong of a person you are but try writing a list of things that you love about yourself: you’ve got great legs? Write that down and appreciate it, if you’ve got it flaunt it. Most of the celebrities that we see on the TV have a professional make up artist, hair dresser and someone who airbrushes them after in the editing suite, so most of what you do see isn’t actually real, it’s that old quote: ‘you will never look like the girl in the magazine, the girl in the magazine doesn’t even look like the girl in the magazine’. 

You’ve got to embrace what you’ve been given and not consume so much time on trying to change yourself. I love the quote that says ‘don’t stop smiling, someone, somewhere is falling in love with your smile’.  Life isn’t all about looks, even though beauty blogs probably make it look that way, it would be wrong to say that we don’t want to look our best and make the best of ourselves, sometimes I know that I get myself worked up if I’m having a bad face day, but it really isn’t the end of the world.

You can look at celebrities/models/beautiful people and either take it positively or negatively, personally, I use these people as inspiration (and I think that you should too). Instead of letting these beautiful people get you down (you’re beautiful too), let these people lift you up, if you’re envious of Kim Kardashian’s booty, go to the gym and do some squats, I guarantee you won’t regret it. If you’re envious of Beyonce’s glow, you can easily buy a highlighter to fake that look. Nobody is perfect and no-one expects you to be perfect either, anyone who does expect you to be perfect isn’t worth it.

I hope that this little rant about beauty/confidence and body issues will make you think differently and realise that you are beautiful, no matter what they say.

Now some quotes to lift you up, if you’re a keeno like me, you can always search for quotes, they always seem to make everything better when I’m having a bad day…What actually is beauty anyway? No one can define beauty as everyone see's beauty as something different, so lets go with this as the definition: Beauty is being the best possible version of yourself, on the inside and the out. 

Oh and PS. The best make up you can wear is your smile and that’s coming from a beauty blogger. My boyfriend prefers me without make up and now, I’m confident enough to prefer myself without it too, slowly but surely, I’m scrapping that heavy foundation (on good confidence days anyway).

I'd love to know your thoughts on this topic. 

Lots of love, Em x

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