Growing up it was always something it became a part of me, which was learning from everyone around me. Being an only child I learned pretty much from everything, and everyone I saw outside of learning for myself. When I saw girls wear make-up it made them look even more likable to guys. Growing up I did not have social media right away, and the latest trends of what other girls had. So, I pretty much learned from other girls around me, and everything I saw from movies and then social media. When seeing this topic, I related to it because I grew up being insecure and extremely shy. I struggled for a very long time to love what I see in the mirror every day. I struggled to also look at my body and love every ounce of it because I took what a lot of others would say about me despite it being something to improve upon. I took it all on myself and beat myself up for it. I hope anyone who is reading this, doesn’t feel alone and I understand what you may be feeling.
When thinking about beauty, I think of beauty tools and anything that is aesthetically pleasing for others to see. It's anything that would be appealing to the eye that goes together and looks good in a bathroom cabinet. I wanted to highlight the different angles and colors used when editing the photos shown. And focus on going beyond the norms and dismantling what a selfie should look like online. I feel proud of myself for taking this photo of myself that I incorporated because it took years of letting go of other opinions. and self-love to want to show pimples on my forehead, circles under my eyes, and no make-u
For the photos, I wanted to make a collage of what came to my mind about beauty and also going beyond societal expectations. In addition to using different levels of exposure to light, and vibrancy of colors. And use different angles from up and down at the candle and perfume and eye shadow. I went with my desk as a background for letting everything shine and showing all the colors. I want these pictures to be a symbol of how silenced young girls still are from being encouraged to be themselves. There are so many things available but yet there is no encouragement but being okay with yourself. When editing with lines I wanted to show things unedited vs when things are edited where you can see lines on the background or exposure from the light. With the camera angles, I figured a collage can show a variety of photos far away and close up of each of the objects together. I wanted to experiment with unedited vs un-editing the photo of me. To show that there is no such thing as perfect clear skin, everything I saw growing up was all filters and photoshoots of body parts, etc. With the face and senses, I wanted to show the expectation in a photo which is to smile more and show a serious photo with no emotion. Because that’s what social media teaches young girls to smile or be silenced with negative insecurities. The intention with the objects close together is to display different shapes and objects with each other. In addition to showing an abstract-like effect with the different shades of colors together. I wanted to be creative and also show everything unedited because it’s the same regardless if a photo is unedited or not.
There are similarities in the shapes of the photos, as well as the objects some are small circle shapes some are bigger shapes. There are different textures in how the objects feel like the headband is soft and stretchy. The eye shadow is a smooth material on the outside and the beauty tools are smooth but a heavier material. My skin is smooth but has pimples and shows circles and my nose shows my pores. There is no such thing as perfect clear skin, it’s all edited to discourage us from natural beauty. I wanted to do an open space for everything so it all felt less trapped. I wanted to utilize the space of my desk for spreading things out and putting things closer together. All of these things are prevalent in Lauren Greenfields' essay, because the biggest things that are seen in girl culture is a restriction, being quiet, and either smiling or no expression. Girl culture only teaches young girls to be a certain way and when you don’t it’s all going to be a rough time for you.
In doing additional research about unrealistic beauty there is a lot of colorism with people of color that is left out., Funmi Fetto is the editor of British Vogue magazine and wrote the beauty industry is still failing black women talked about her stories growing up and started writing about the beauty industry when she was 15 years old. She talks about how for years beauty industries are still excluding women of color. She talks about enjoying reading magazines but skipped the beauty section. This was not “geared towards her. (Fetto)” and that on each page she saw no one looked like her. Fetto says “The faces on the pages didn’t look like me. The products weren’t geared toward me. I had no place here (Fetto)” She remembers hearing some of her parent's Nigerian friends say, “This is not our country” hearing this makes me unnerved that this has all been going on for years and that people of color don’t feel like they belong.
I spoke to a friend about this topic she told me that it was difficult growing up. Being a person of color she struggled with not feeling represented by beauty products that did not match her skin tone. she also feels that beauty industries still need to work on representing people of color.
There is still so much to dismantle among the false truth behind the beauty industry. and the untold stories that still need to be told about not being represented and heard. A few things that I know I can do and you can do too is unfollow anything that doesn’t show natural beauty.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/sep/29/funmi-fetto-happy-in-my-skin-beauty-industry-diversity
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