For some of us, feeling truly beautiful in our own skin is a feat easier said than done. With all the focus society places on unrealistically thin and gorgeous celebrities from our favorite movies, TV...
For some of us, feeling truly beautiful in our own skin is a feat easier said than done. With all the focus society places on unrealistically thin and gorgeous celebrities from our favorite movies, TV shows and magazines (who, might I add, all have teams of personal trainers, makeup artists and hair stylists to get them ’camera ready’) it’s no wonder why it can sometimes be difficult for us to recognize our own beauty, both inside and out. That’s exactly why Alexis Wolfer launched the Beauty Bean, a website that focuses on inner-beauty and health, rather than impractical body ideals and weight. With the hope of showing women that beauty isn’t a number on a scale but is instead about beautifying, nourishing, and pampering, the Beauty Bean provides information on the latest beauty products, trends and research to allow all women to feel beautiful and confident. We caught up with Alexis to find out more about the Beauty Bean and what inspired her to start this movement to promote real beauty:
**What inspired you to launch the Beauty Bean? ****** I have always struggled with body image issues - as I’m sure most women have - but it wasn’t until I was in graduate school at Columbia, simultaneously working in fashion editorial and writing my Master’s thesis on the role some women’s magazines play in promoting negative body image, that I really understood both the power of the media as well as the power we have to change the unrealistic beauty ideals we’ve learned to strive for. So, that’s what I set out to do. I learned everything I could about online media and websites and worked to create The Beauty Bean, a website designed not only to give women and girls a place to get their beauty and fashion fix but also a site designed to promote positive body image, expand the definition of beauty and help women and girls lead healthier lives focused on real beauty. I truly believe that if beauty is defined differently across the world and even across time in the same place (think Marilyn Monroe versus Twiggy) it means that this definition is changeable - and it means we have the power to change it. Taking control of my power to change it is what inspired me.
**How did you become interested in the topic of inner beauty? **While doing research for my thesis, I interviewed countless women and read hundreds of women’s magazines and was profoundly moved both by how pervasive this single (skinny) ideal of beauty is and by how much it impacts us.
**What is the goal of the Beauty Bean? **The mission of The Beauty Bean is to provide women and girls with a place to get their beauty and fashion fix while simultaneously promoting better body image and prevent eating disorders.
What is the best way to promote positive body image and health? First, throw away the scale. Your self worth is not determined by your weight - and what does that number really tell you anyway? It doesn’t determine your health, happiness or beauty. I don’t say this lightly, either. It is something I still struggle with and work towards, and it’s why I ultimately created The Beauty Bean so, hopefully, other girls won’t measure their worth in pounds like I once did (or sometimes still do). Second, I think we need to work to expand how we define beauty. We’re not all meant to look exactly the same... it’s our unique qualities that make us beautiful - yet many us have (incorrectly and unfortunately) learned that beauty only comes in one shape, size and color. But by supporting companies and people that work to change that, you can help to redefine beauty, promote positive body image and place the focus on health and happiness - beauty will follow! **
****Why is positive body image so important? **Positive body image is so important because so many women are hungry for it. Literally. Between three and four percent of adolescents and young adults suffer from clinical eating disorders (which, let me add, have extremely restrictive criteria) and according to the National Institute of Mental Health, fifteen percent of young women not diagnosed with an eating disorder have "substantially disordered eating attitudes and behavior." This means that close to 20% of young women (or one out of every five) are suffering with body image concerns so severe that their attitudes and behaviors surrounding food are substantially altered. This is a huge problem. And we’re not only talking about restrictive eating disorders. Rather, restrictive eating disorders and binge eating are two sides of the same coin - both are brought on by negative body image, low self-confidence and unrealistic body ideals. By just promoting a more positive body image, placing the focus on health rather than weight, and expanding the definition of beauty we can prevent eating disorders (of the restrictive and binge eating kind), reduce obesity rates, increase self-confidence in women and girls and set them up for lives full of happiness and success, both of which can only come when they believe they are worthy of it.
**What can readers expect to find in the Beauty Bean? **Readers of The Beauty Bean can expect to find reviews of the latest must-have products and treatments, runway show scoop, insider tips, professional tricks and current trends in beauty, fitness and wellness - all without the usual focus on weight loss, gimmick and fad diets, promises to help you lose ten pounds in ten days or unrealistic beauty goals. Readers can also find our On Real Beauty series, a weekly column where we interview well-known women ranging from Olympic athletes to Hollywood actresses who shed light on their beauty secrets as well as what real beauty means to them (past interviewees have included Serena Williams, Kathy Griffin and more) and Beauty School, a weekly feature that picks the brain of a leader in the beauty industry. Readers can also, of course, find out more about our Makeup Free Mondays movement.
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**What is the key to natural beauty? **Confidence, or at least being on the path towards it because I’m not sure if anyone ever actually achieves utter self-love. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation - and I get that. It’s hard to be confident if you don’t feel beautiful, but beauty really does lie in confidence.
How should women and girls go about setting a realistic definition of beauty for themselves? It’s tough when your whole life you are fed this cookie-cutter image of beauty (tall, blonde, blue eyed, Barbie-like proportions) to wake up one day and decide to change it. That being said, it is possible. I think the first step is to stop analyzing yourself (or your reflection) with such a critical eye and to, instead, cast that critical eye on the depictions of beauty you see in the media or on red carpets. Know that the images you see are just that: images. They’re not realistic depictions. Even the makeup-free images that claim to portray real beauty are digitally altered, photographed under extremely flattering conditions and perfectly lit. They take a team of experts to achieve. I love Jessica Simpson to death (especially her show, The Price of Beauty), but her "makeup free" pictures do not accurately represent her "real beauty." That is not what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning, which is the kind of beauty The Beauty Bean’s Makeup Free Mondays movement hopes to shed light on.
**Where did you come up with the idea for Makeup Free Mondays? **I deeply understand and value the power that makeup has to empower women and boost self esteem - it is, after all, why I ultimately started a website that focuses on beauty inside and out. However, The Beauty Bean’s mission is to promote better body image and prevent eating disorders and part of developing confidence is becoming more comfortable in one’s own skin. Many women, though, believe our faces aren’t "complete" or "finished" or "pretty" without makeup. But remember that moment when you were little and tried on your mom’s makeup - maybe it was mascara or a bright lipstick - and no matter how beautiful or grown up you thought you looked you also felt like you didn’t look "like you"? It’s not that I want women to feel uncomfortable in makeup again, but I do want them to feel comfortable without it again. I want us all to be able to look in the mirrors without a swipe of blush or lip gloss and appreciate our natural beauty. I want women to be able to take the 5, 10, 15 minutes or more they usually spend on Monday mornings "putting on their faces" and instead recognize the beauty of the faces they already have and use that time to reflect on the parts of them, and other women, that really make them beautiful -their sense of humor, intellect, kindness, etc.... For women who find this to be a scary prospect (it was for some of us at first too), we suggest you take "baby steps" - maybe just skip the mascara this week and see how it goes. What I can say, however, is that we’ve received nothing but positive feedback from women who have actually tried it (even those who were extremely skeptical at first). We’ve even had models Brooklyn Decker, Julie Henderson and Jessica Clark twitter about loving Makeup Free Mondays - and they literally live "made up."
**What is your definition of true beauty? **There is no single definition of true beauty. It is in everything - it’s just a matter of seeing it.
- Allie Vasilakis, Beauty and Health Intern
