27 Sep The magazine girl in me is proud

I fell in love with print when I was 13. A Teen Vogue captured my pre-teen heart, and I’ve been hooked since. I’ve been collecting magazines for over 15 years. They have become the source of some of my greatest inspiration. Before influencers and Instagram dictated what was trendy, it was magazine editors, stylists, designers, and models. I suppose, I still truly rever the art of magazines, so my heart was touched when I was asked to be featured in the October issue of InStyle Magazine.

The beauty editors reached out via email and asked me “What did beauty mean to you over the past year and how will you continue to celebrate beauty moving forward?” They were only able to publish a snippet of my answer in the issue, but I wanted to share my full response with all of you.

“The narrative of beauty shifted from this gate-kept, arbitrary social construct to one of realness. I, like many of us, was forced to truly look at myself without the lens of fabrication. There was no makeup, plenty of days my hair wasn’t done, no hiding behind my style, no avoiding the flaws that I’d grown accustomed to camouflaging for the world. Beauty became about getting in tune with the wellness of my skin and the functionality of my body. Beauty transmuted from something the outside world validated for me, to something deeply personal. It became a confidence that was rooted in simply showing up as my natural self, and learning to be comfortable in that. 
I think moving forward, it’s important to celebrate the humanity in all of us: to acknowledge and accept the flaws we see in ourselves and in others and to choose to still find them beautiful. If this past year taught us nothing more, it has shown us that simply being, and living is such a beautifully fragile experience that what you look like while doing so is no longer of much importance. “

If you’re able, I hope you grab your own copy and read through the other meaningful answers from innovators, influencers, tastemakers, and beauty industry experts. And of course, I would love to hear your own answers to the posed question below in the comments.