Welcome to The Powder Room...

I hope you'll stay a while....

I love a messy night out. I know that’s a little out of fashion these days when being sober-curious is popular and a spin class followed by conjuring up an Insta-worthy vegan feast, is the more wholesome way to spend an evening. But I just love that feeling of dancing with abandon, including the requisite shots of tequila (they do NOT love me however), harassing DJs to play obscure noughties tracks they will never ever play and the excitement of not knowing where the night might end (or the comfort of where it inevitably will end, most likely a kebab shop on Holloway road, in North London.)

What I love the most - aside from being an obnoxious disc jockey botherer - is the conversations both had and overheard in the women’s bathroom. They seem to be an unlikely utopia, where the most intense and fleeting friendships are made. You’ll meet the best cocktail-addled hype girl ever, hand on hip, slurring: “Babes, yoouu can do, like, wayyyyr bettersh, you should dummmp him!” It’s the place where you share the best beauty tips, or the place you interject when somebody berates the way they they look in the mirror, so you sing a chorus of ‘You’re beautiful’ not just to them, but forcibly at them (true story, maybe I need to ease off that tequila…)

The bathroom, or ‘powder room’ is a place where our secrets and souls are laid bare, in front of mirrors and in front of strangers. It’s where we share beauty confessions, truths, and hardships; often with handbags strewn open and beauty products being applied in a frankly comedic fashion (it’s a fine line between over-lining my lips slightly, and resembling The Joker.) So, that's what this here space is; a weekly column that lays bare the parts of beauty I think we should be discussing more - like how to cope with getting older in an ageist society or why we’re secretly being sold classism when we buy into certain trends - stuff the mainstream media and regular beauty columns aren’t discussing. The things that really affect our day-to-day lives, because they impact our confidence and how we feel about our appearance.

So if you’d like to listen into the conversion or be a part of it, then I’d LOVE for you to become a subscriber. That way you’ll be able to comment, engage with me and others too, and hopefully feel uplifted by new ways to look at beauty culture and beauty standards.  

There are three different tiers and levels of access and you can read more about that when you hit subscribe. So if you can and want to support me and independent journalism then please do sign up for the paid tiers - they’re the same price of a couple of coffees a month. Or maybe a really shit lipstick that was marketed at you with the promise of plumper lips, but gave you a rash instead (another true story…lols)

I’d also love for this to be a space for thoughtful discussion and to help each other out and lift each other up. As I discuss in my book UGLY: Giving Us Back our Beauty Standards, the formation of the beauty industry and beauty standards themselves comes from a history that's rooted in some pretty oppressive forces (take a bow, patriarchy, racism, capitalism et al.) But, realistically, we do live in a world where beauty and appearance can really impact our lives way beyond how pretty we feel when we look in the mirror; stats show that being more ‘conventionally attractive’ can increase your salary, and chances you'll find love.

So I’m looking for a way to acknowledge and chat about this, but also to use beauty culture for our own benefit and enjoyment, rather than letting it use us. I know that I don’t want to feel at the mercy of beauty culture anymore, especially at a time when it is bombarding us with a new beauty standard to obsess over at every turn/scroll/page flip.

Now, if I stop to think about the years I’ve wasted hating how I look, it’s truly heartbreaking. I want to look in the mirror and see myself, rather than the years of conditioning telling me I look old/ugly/unlovable due to my appearance, and if I could wind back the clock, I’d tell myself that the reason I hated the way I looked was because those beliefs and conditioning were designed to elevate some, and keep others feeling ugly and being everything that we could be. (I’d also go out and party way more than I already have…we seldom regret a night out, amiright?)

So, I’d love to pose that question to you: if you could give your younger self any beauty advice, what would it be - and why?

I’ll see you in the comments frens…

FURTHER READING….
Enjoyed this newsletter? You’ll probably like my book UGLY: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards. Here’s what somebody on Goodreads had to say about it…