To the Girls With Frizzy Hair and Freckles

I’m not going to tell you you’re beautiful, but I will tell you it’s okay if you feel that you aren’t. This does not mean that your eyes don’t shine when you speak about something you’re passionate about or that you really truly are beautiful, but we both know that me telling you that won’t make you feel any better. You don’t have to just have frizzy hair or freckles to feel this way. There could be a million things you pick apart in the mirror when you stare it. Which, by the way, it’s okay to stare at the mirror even though you’re told you should recognize your internal beauty. Looking at yourself and feeling bad isn’t a statement of vanity, it’s a statement of being human. I will tell you what fashion magazines never did, something that even if I tell you you’ll still have to learn it on your own:

It’s okay. Whatever you’re feeling about how you look, or if you’re frustrated that the jeans you want to fit don’t fit, its okay to have those reactions. Recognizing that you don’t need to be positive about your appearance all the time is actually more positive than you’d think. I wrote To the Girls With Frizzy Hair and Freckles because those were my frustrations, and sometimes they’re still my frustrations. Because we get sent mixed messages in the world from people like myself (i.e. the media) but you get to interpret them and that’s important to remember.

In the same magazine you may see an Ad that promotes how to get the best butt for the beach and how to rock a swimsuit with confidence. You may close the glossy pages and not realize how confusing this is until you’re standing in front of a mirror thinking that your butt needs to be lifted, but also should you be celebrating your cellulite? It’s okay to think these things it doesn’t make you less of a feminist or less beautiful to be confused.

I love my hair but it is tricky sometimes. Half-straight, half-”somewhere between wavy and not”, and someday’s I look in the mirror and love the frizziness and its vibe and other days I want to scream because my part won’t lay flat and the ends look fried but it’s just the humidity. Sometimes this happens on the same day. For a while I thought I couldn’t feel both of these things about my hair, I needed to accept it or hate it, but you can feel both.

It is kind of like how you do your eyebrows. What many of us desire for our lovely brows is for them to be full and natural looking but still hitting those very important arches. Does it matter that we are trying to get a natural but perfect look? No. We don’t even think about it, unless you’re me and you’re trying to think of a metaphor while doing your makeup.

Not everyone needed to hear this. Actually, I dare say that most people didn’t need to hear this, but maybe the thirteen-year-olds out there who want to feel good about themselves but don’t maybe this will help:

Freckles are beautiful but sometimes having fair skin is annoying.

Frizzy hair is humidity-based and its okay to apply multiple serums to it and still love it.

It is completely acceptable to like dying your hair colors that other people don’t like.

You are allowed to feel both uncomfortable and like a queen in what you are wearing.

You are a human.