Editor’ s letter
6
In 1984, two women came together to write a book that would later turn out to be very hard to find: Face Value: The Politics of
Beauty by Robin Tolmach Lakoff and Raquel L. Scherr. Two academics who thought of beauty as the last taboo for women, and proceeded to confront it with their scholarly talent and intellect. The result is a book in which beauty is explored from a curious standpoint. A topic that is seen as“ self-indulgent” or“ reinforcing of the bad old stereotypes – women as vain and self-absorbed” has more to it than meets the eye. It is personal, deeply related to our sense of self, and to the darkest and lightest corners of our soul. I found this book on a hidden corner of a library and tracked it down online, until it finally was part of my night stand through the conception of PRETTY FACE.
Beauty doesn’ t take place on Instagram filtered pictures or insanely photoshoped editorials. Beauty is a relationship between our bodies, our health and our mental and emotional state. Trying to address beauty as vain and unimportant is part of the past. A past that still haunts women on the covers of glossy magazines, that still makes us feel ruled over by an unseen identity that dictates a beauty standard.
Many of us aren’ t interested in being shown the how-tos of beauty, because we always did it our way anyway. The beauty industry runs on unattainable expectations, when in fact the real thing is happening in our day to day lives. We are not the products we buy or the makeup we put on. We find our singular self in the way we utilize these tools to empower ourselves. Much like the new movement of millennials who are embracing their body hair( page 16); or Florence Adepoju, who took her dissatisfaction with the industry into her own hands to build her beauty empire( page 20).
PRETTY FACE wants to expose imperfections rather than hide them. Covering up something doesn’ t make it go away, on the opposite, it just makes us more exposed to being hurt and fragile. On this issue, journalist Sophia Cosby complements her favourite imperfection of the human body( page 74) and Aabye Francis-Favilla explains why she doesn’ t wear makeup( page 86).
We keep in mind the cliché that“ nobody is perfect” as an absolute truth, rather than a quote that we go back to when we are feeling pretty unperfect ourselves. We decided to adventure into the jungle of body sizes to discover why this is still a big deal in our society( page 48), and we also explored why imperfect food is sometimes the best solution( bye bye green smoothies and chia seeds! page 106).
Welcome to the first issue of PRETTY FACE. A beauty magazine for the low maintenance girls, for the imperfection lovers and for the women who see beauty in everything. Now put on that face mask, make a cup of tea and enjoy the read.
Andreia Pedro Editor-in-chief