Thank you Dove for sponsoring this post. How do you define #RealBeauty?
Breaking Stereotypes: Finding My Real Beauty
We all have those moments in life where we lose ourselves in the appeal to just make everyone else around us happy. However, you can never truly be happy until you find the real you and you showcase that to the world, unafraid of opinions.
For me to finding my real beauty meant breaking stereotypes of what is acceptable for a woman to look like and who she should love.
It’s really not a phase, it’s me
The first time I dyed my hair it was a blood red color and I was just starting 7th grade. I always enjoyed looking at my favorite singers with their hair dyed and I thought it was a great creative way to play up my personality.
It wasn’t happily accepted at home or at my father’s house. The comments of “you have ruined your hair” and “it will never look the same” were said often but not as much as “you’ll regret it” and “it’s a phase”. Those ones were the most hurtful. How can you say that this isn’t who I am because it’s just not your acceptable idea of who I should be?
Once I started dipping my toes into bright colors, I knew that I found how to express myself through my hair. I have been coloring my hair for 16 years and there still are people asking when I’m going to get over it. That answer is never.
Whether I’m rocking a full purple hue, mixing it up with pink, blue and purple or just waiting to find my inspiration. I’m truly happy when I look in the mirror and see such bright joyful colors. Being someone who suffers from depression, it really has made an impact on how I recover from my sad moments.
It’s hard to have a bad time when you have bright orange hair and people are complimenting you. It’s really been a great way to break the ice and meet people too! I don’t see this ending ever, at 85 I imagine that I’ll be happy picking out a nice robins egg blue.
Finding what your own beauty is, that’s really what you want to do to make YOURSELF happy.
How Dove is Helping Showcase Real Beauty
Did you know that a total of 69% of women all agree that they cannot relate to seeing themselves represented in advertising, television, and movies?
In their second film, Dove Real Beauty Productions is showcasing a story called “Meet Kylee” which you can watch now. Featuring Kylee Howell who speaks her stunning message about shunning conformity, finding your true self and love your own unique definition of beauty.
This is such a brilliant program to help everyone find a way to connect to what makes them their own unique self.
Tell me in the comments what is your own definition of real beauty? Are there any stereotypes that you have broken?
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
I love Dove products! I’m not brave enough to do much of anything with my hair, but do my own lightening every 4 months or so. You get good color – I wonder do you pre-lighten before adding the color to get that pure brightness?