Ugly: Giving us back our beauty standards

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I can’t help but grieve and be furious that these beauty archetypes made me feel so ugly at such a young age. But at the same time, taking a more critical and challenging perspective on the limited and limiting beauty standards we’ve been force-fed has helped me close that loop of self loathing. You know, the one that tells you you’re not thin/pretty/straight-haired/light-skinned enough to be valuable. One of my favourite games as a child growing up in Wales was directing doll photo shoots, an odd premonition into my future career directing beauty editorials for magazines. The star of my glamorous imaginary shoots was Barbie, naturally. Prior to being freelance, I held senior beauty and features roles at some of the UK’s biggest media titles, including Marie Claire, Women’s Health and Stylist ( read more here →) and have amassed more than 25 awards and nominations for my work as a journalist. I now use my editorial experience to help brands, agencies and institutions deliver content, strategy and insight that finds the optimal place between truly authentic and innovative. As an adult, I’ve tried diligently to “fix” my “ugly” problem. As the saying goes, God loves a trier, and I tried hard – so I’m definitely going to heaven. I’ve embarked on multiple extreme diets, cleanses and detox retreats; I’ve taken appetite suppressants and spent endless hours researching various weight-loss surgeries. I have obsessed over beauty products, techniques and treatments.

Why did I still feel like this? Something I hadn’t yet identified was keeping me lodged in this web of self-hatred. I was angry at myself, too – I was well versed in how the capitalist patriarchal agenda has used beauty standards against women as a means of controlling us. Logically, I knew I now had permission to embrace my looks, but ugly was so deeply ingrained in me, it wouldn’t let me go. More than anything else I wanted to be free of its clutches, but there was a missing piece to this exhausting puzzle. That’s why it’s become a fascinating subject to me, simply because I’ve never had it – I’ve always felt on the outside of pretty, looking in. I’m also a beauty columnist at The Guardian Saturday magazine, freelance Beauty Director at Condé Nast Traveller, and have contributed to Vogue, Glamour, Allure, The Telegraph, i-D, The Evening Standard, NME and many more.Once you know that there are mechanisms like that... and that there are elements actively still defining what we see as beautiful now, it's really powerful. Then, you're able to make the choice as to whether you agree with it or not." Every brush stroke became a silent prayer for me to look like the girls around me who were held up as the beauty ideal. Those girls all looked largely the same: white, thin and pretty, everything I was shown I wasn’t. Think Joey Potter in Dawson’s Creek, Marissa Cooper in The OC or Rory Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, and their wholesome, effortless good looks. I genuinely believed that people were staring at me because I was so deeply unappealing and odd-looking. In a society where beauty sometimes seems to be the gateway to everything we celebrate - fame, wealth, success, love - Does being ugly mean you can never achieve true happiness? When my filler started to wear off, I really started to hate my face and hadn’t thought about it in that way before. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it the way I did then. It created more dissatisfaction and I stepped away because I realised you’re looking at a lifetime of upkeep. That’s the place where people can get trapped,’ she says.

I’m also beauty columnist for The Guardian Saturday magazine, freelance Beauty Director at Condé Nast Traveller, and contribute to several international publications.I developed some self-preservation tactics in an effort to counteract the wrongness of the beauty standards I’d been sold my entire life. Now, I employ slow beauty, using products until they’re finished and buying them because I love the smells, design and textures, so it’s more of a pleasurable, sensory experience rather than panic-buying something I’ve been sold as a “jar of hope.” It makes a big difference to your mindset when you switch to using beauty products for joy, rather than using them to look prettier, thinner, younger. We live in a society that not only encourages us to obsess over our appearances – but where those who control the narrative of what is or isn’t 'attractive' are those who profit from our insecurities. How has it come to this?

I wish every woman of any age could read this one. It has certainly given me so much room for thought. For others it can be trying to access something you’ve always been told you don’t or will never have. Part of my career was definitely driven by being the ‘underdog’ trying to finally feel beautiful and accepted. But for me it was also always about making things more inclusive. I knew women’s magazines could and should be better, more empowering and more inclusive and I wanted to drive that agenda forward." 5. The more we learn, the more we can empower others This aim is matched by the title’s impact. Each chapter delves into a different intersection of beauty standards – from age to body size, race to pretty privilege – and the unrealistic expectations within them. Bhagwandas says she loves a “practical tip”, which was the reasoning behind ending each chapter with a helpful set of questions to take forward. Is there one overarching practical tip someone could take from Ugly? We're still told that it's good to be thin rather than bigger... even though we have body positivity," Bhagwandas shares.Last Thursday (October 26), the Online Safety Act was introduced, with enforcement set to come after further consultation. Designed to make 'the UK the safest place in the world to be online', here's how the new legislation will shape online content in the beauty... Not ‘Just’ A Salon launches nationwide to highlight the importance of hairdressers for wellbeing and community Pretty Girl reappeared in many guises in the TV I watched. She manifested as Kelly Kapowski in Saved by the Bell (it always irked me, even as a kid, that the only person of colour on the show, Lisa, never had a serious love interest; what does that tell its teen audience?). As a child, Anita Bhagwandas, second from left, saw that the heroines in her favourite TV shows looked nothing like her (Photo: Supplied)

In her enlightening new book, Ugly, beauty journalist Anita Bhagwandas says these daily rituals to ‘fix’ ourselves, usually to fulfil what society has deemed pretty or beautiful, can be self-flagellating. We aren’t responsible for everything that’s come before us – but we are responsible for what we do now, and the changes we can all make to shift archaic narratives. Considering where whiteness might be ruling your beauty standards and routines – no matter what your heritage – is a great starting point. It’s happening now, as the #MeToo and #BLM movements create societal change and power shifts, every week there’s a new surgical procedure or ‘tweak’. They’re just new ways of delivering beauty standards to us, to keep us in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction and distraction from the real issues at hand." 2. Aspirational beauty should come in many formsYou're suddenly thrown from this long history – or an entire lifetime – of being told you're ugly to then all of a sudden being told you can love yourself. There's a huge chasm between those two things and it's hard to flip that switch and switch your entire idea and vision of yourself overnight. I think that's what a lot of people are expected to do and it can feel quite jarring to see people who are so comfortable with themselves and not feel like that yourself and wonder why you don't. I would scour teen magazines for any information I could use to make myself feel better, feel prettier. It was a very narrow beauty remit – thin and white, basically,’ she says. Much of my work is as a speaker and I have curated, moderated and appeared on panels at Women Of The World and Stylist Live plus numerous literary festivals. I also regularly host beauty events with global brands like Sunday Riley, YSL and The Body Shop.