Welcome to Pretty. Where we explode the beauty myths and create new ones.

Well- I wanted my first blog post to address notions of beauty. And then I'll move into what I'd like to see going forward. So to do that, I needed to address what my thoughts of "beauty" were growing up.

Ofcourse, for me, it was Barbie. (The irony is not lost on me today that I have long, some might say strawlike- very light blond hair). Thats not a coincidence, to be sure. In any case I digress.

This picture  provoked lots of thought on my end. I thought- what if this Barbie actually existed? No one would buy it. No one wants to face the reality of aging. We like our fantasies and our perfect women.

I guess the weird thing is that for those of us around the corner from aging (or some might say fully engaged in it) its not that scary, kinda weirdly...empowering. But certainly from a 25 year old's perspective,there was nothing scarier to me than getting "old", and all the connotations that that brought with it.

This other image is one I remember seeing and thinking- HOW revelatory.

So I grew up thinking, this is what I SHOULD look like, or the beauty ideal. Yes, I had great role models, strong women around me, but being a person who's always looked at the black and white of things, I saw a few things very clearly, from a young age: 1. People are nicer to people who fit the social esthetic of "beauty and 2. I wanted to be that.

So how do we get away from it? By exploding the beauty myths. Looking for, and sharing, examples of beauty mythology at work -photoshopped models and celebs, and celebrating examples of great female role models - Dove commercials for one. Adele for another. (She was on the cover of Vogue)