'Now that I’m a mother, I’m mourning my old, pretty self.'
It's time for another Ask Ugly — plus five rapid-fire answers to your burning beauty questions.
The next installment of Ask Ugly, my monthly beauty advice column for the Guardian, is here!
A preview:
Hey Ugly,
I was always beauty-obsessed. I knew I looked good, and I didn’t have to put much effort into it. Because of my looks there were many lovers, opportunities, and experiences. Recently I became a mum. I have zero time for myself, and it shows. So does the lack of sleep. For the first time in my life I am confronted with the fact of how much I identified with my good looks, and how much I depended on them. But for the first time in my life, I need to let go, and be truly myself. I cannot hide behind my “pretty mask” anymore. I am confronted with reality, aging, being a mother.
On one side I don’t care about looking “beautiful” anymore – all that matters is a healthy, happy baby. But on the other hand I mourn my old, “pretty” self, the one I relied on for so many years. Is it normal to feel this way? To go through such a deep transition?
- Used To Be Pretty
My answer includes:
how beauty culture reframes the construction of the face and body as the construction of the self, resulting in a population that often confuses the aesthetics of mass consumption for individuation
why mothers are uniquely targeted with the beauty industry’s favorite appearance-as-identity agitprop: “Feel like yourself again!” (Which, of course, means: “Look the way you used to look”)
how to do the hard work of separating who you are from what you look like
’s theory of “body grief”
a tangential but (I think) funny story about how when I was a kid I used to shove baseballs down my shirt and force my mom to take “supermodel pictures” of me with big, hard honkers
and more!
Click through to the Guardian to read the whole thing (and if you decide to share it with friends or on social media or whatever, please share it via the Guardian link).
Have a question for Ask Ugly? Submit it anonymously here — and be as detailed as possible, please!
(I’d especially love questions about perfume, lipstick, current TikTok makeup trends, popular plastic surgeries and procedures, influencer behaviors like Get Ready With Me videos… but anything goes!)
And now, just for readers of The Unpublishable, Little Uglies: a rapid-fire round of beauty advice.
Q: How do I deal with thinning eyebrows? I'm 68 and they say good eyebrows make a person look younger.
A: Leave your eyebrows alone; deal with your desire to look younger.
Q: About a month ago I decided to try a Vitamin C serum. (Skin was looking dull...) I did a lot of online research, and came across an article you wrote a few years ago praising ValJean Labs' serum. That was good enough for me, so I bought it. But shortly thereafter you wrote in a newsletter that you had endorsed some other product in the past and were now admitting that you were doing it because it was your job, not because you actually liked the product. So now I'm wondering: was that your real opinion of the ValJean serum? I enjoy your emails and your honesty. Thanks!
A: I’m sorry! I wrote a lot of product recommendations back in the day that I would not write now! And it’s not because I don’t think the products I wrote about work. Very often, they do exactly what they promise to do: temporarily manipulate the skin at the surface-level in service to beauty standards. It’s just that I no longer endorse that promise.
Q: How did it become necessary for grown women to shave their parts to look like a pre-pubescent pre-teen?
A: Well normal doesn’t mean necessary and hair removal has been a thing since the Stone Age… but in terms of the move toward pube-free pubic areas over the past century or so, I’m gonna guess it’s a combo of the bikini, the Barbie doll, consumerism, a (misguided) obsession with (perceived) cleanliness, porn, and the cultural conflation of youth and beauty and sex and power?
Q: What do you say to your mother when she gives you advice like, “If you used eyeliner, it would make your eyes pop!” at a family holiday gathering? My eyes are my best feature, they already pop, and I guess I was just having too much fun living my best life to stop and apply eye liner that morning.
A: You answered it yourself: “My eyes already pop / My life is too full to funnel my time, money, and energy into applying eyeliner.” If she persists, show up at the next family gathering like the girl from The Grudge.
I want to encourage you; your writing makes up for any loss of the prettiness of youthfulness. Being 73, and having mothered 3 children, one of whom died in a car crash with me as the driver, when she was around 9 and a half ... I also gave up on worrying about my looks a long time ago. There are many things more important and gratitude for the glass half-full is a good technique.
I love reading your work. You make me think and consider my choices. Thank you!