testo — Anuschka Rees

About Beyond Beautiful The Curated Closet Contact

About Beyond Beautiful The Curated Closet Contact

@beyondbeautifulbook

We love this photo by @billie and the caption: "Grow it, comb it, shave it, braid it" ⁣
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The last time I posted something about body hair I got a DM from someone who applauded me for "wanting to get women to stop shaving their body hair". But that's not actually what I'm trying to do. If you want to shave your body hair for whatever reason, that's cool. If you don't want to shave ever, that's cool too. The point is that I think women should be able to decide what they want to do with their body hair on a day by day basis without fearing social repercussions. And to be able to skip their usual hair removal routine when they're extra busy or just don't feel like doing it - without then feeling like they need to "hide" their non-perfectly-smooth bits. Just like men are free to shave their body hair, but then are free to also just let it roam again without having to worry about people thinking they are ungyhienic or feeling uncomfortable.⁣
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#normalizebodyhair #shavewhenyoufeellikeit

#normalizebodyhair

GIVEAWAY ALERT! 🎁 It's the 14th, so exactly one month until Beyond Beautiful finally hits the shelves! To celebrate (and because we can't wait any longer) we're giving away two copies EARLY! To enter, make sure you're following @beyondbeautifulbook and tag a friend in the comments. If you win, we'll send both of you your personal copy of Beyond Beautiful this week! ⁣
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The giveaway is open internationally and for 24 hours only! For extra entries you can tag multiple people, but in separate comments. The winner will be selected randomly and announced tomorrow in our story. Good luck! 🤩🤩🤩⁣
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Disclaimer: This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Instagram. ⁣
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#giveaway #bodyneutrality #bookstagram #effyourbeautystandards

#bodyneutrality

"The first time I felt I was inadequate in my body was maybe in 5th or 6th grade. I was going through puberty and my hair was starting to get curly and my legs were long and I looked different than my petite, blonde classmates with stick straight hair. ⁣
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I resented my curly hair and wore it slicked back in a bun everyday. I was even more self conscious about having curves in the "wrong" places. I had a slight tummy and dreaded wearing a bikini even though I loved going in the ocean. I remember sitting on my bathroom floor sobbing and doing sits up and slathering on self tanner trying to change the way my body looked in a bikini before going to a friend's beach party. ⁣
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It wasn't until maybe 8th grade that I learned that my looks could give me power - especially over boys and I started to use it. I think that's how my belief formed that my worth was in the way I looked. It's taken me such a long time to unlearn that belief and I'm still doing it today. That's why I'm so passionate about promoting my @dontcallmepretty message."⁣
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Thanks to @aly_nagel! The founder and all-round boss lady of @dontcallmepretty kind enough to share her personal story. Why not go check out the page if you haven't already!😉⁣
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#effyourbeautystandards #bodyneutral #dontcallmepretty

It's here! The fourth instalment of the Beyond Beautiful Baby Step series which offers super concrete tips to help you improve your body image😊. ⁣
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THIS WEEK'S BABY STEP: Just say no to selfie-objectifying. What's that? Well, we're glad you asked! Selfie-objectifying is a genius term coined by the equally genius ladies from @beauty_redefined to describe how many of us take selfies these days: by taking tens (sometimes hundreds) of photos from slightly different angles, lighting combinations, poses and facial expressions, and then scrutinising each photo in detail, before eventually crowning the best, most flattering photo of yourself. ⁣
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To be crystal clear, it's not the selfie that's problematic... it's the objectification that so often goes with it. It's one thing to quickly take a snap of yourself, maybe double check it just in case you have spinach in your teeth and then upload it. It's a whole other thing to spend half an hour in a cramped up position, fixate on minor differences in your expression and nitpick yourself to the ground, all for the purpose of managing how OTHERS see you. ⁣
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WHY THIS HELPS YOUR BODY IMAGE: Every time you fuss over a photo for fifteen minutes, you are quite literally training yourself to self-objectify – to evaluate yourself from a purely aesthetic perspective, as if you were looking at yourself from the outside. That third-person perspective is not natural, it's been taught to us and the degree to which we use it is one of the strongest predictors of a negative body image. When you learn to JUST.TAKE.THE.PICTURE, you tell yourself: "You know what, whether this one picture of me is bad or meh or great is actually not that important, because what I look like is not that important" – a much better lesson don't you think? ⁣
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Do you think you are sometimes guilty of selfie-objectifying? We'd love to know. ⁣
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#bodyneutral

Body image is by no means a female-only issue, but altogether it's safe to say that the average cis man struggles less with his looks than women and non-binary people do. BUT the stats are getting worse for men too, and if we look at the evolution of the male body ideal, that's really no surprise. ⁣
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⁣Pre-1980s, the ideal male body was slim, yes, but by no means required the level of attention and hours in the gym as today's male body ideal. Look at Sean Connery as James Bond in "Goldfinger", who was considered a total sex pot at the time (and still today by many). Nowadays, his body would likely qualify as a before picture in a men's fitness magazine – and I'm not saying that to be mean to good ol' Sean but to highlight how culturally constructed and nonsensical our ideals are. ⁣
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Because it wasn't until the 80s and the bodybuilding craze, that male body ideals skyrocketed from regular man-bod to Greek God-bod. ⁣Since then, just like women, men have been bombarded with images of bodies pushed to their limits - from action heroes with sculpted physiques to ultra-lean fitness models.⁣
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More and more men are getting plastic surgery, developing eating disorders or taking steroids. Muscle dysmorphia and 'bigorexia' are on the rise. And while men may worry about different aspects of their bodies than women do (the top things men struggle with are their muscle development, height and penis size), the toxic belief that underlies their body image issues is the same: that LOOKING better will make their LIFE better. ⁣
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⁣What makes the whole thing even more problematic is that men are less likely to talk about their insecurities and there is less awareness in our society for their body image struggles. ⁣So if you are a guy reading this, please know three things: 1. you are not alone, 2. the problem is not your body, but our society's inflated value of beauty and ridiculous ideals, and 3. you too deserve to not be made to feel like your appearance determines your worth. ⁣
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#bodyneutrality #bodyneutral #effyourbeautystandards

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