19 Comments

Jesus christ this is a fucking gold mine

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Isn't Candice the best???

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“Nobody leaves a cult overnight” - Yes! This allows room for self-compassion, which we need to practice the most. The point is not simply to have a new reason to punish ourselves. Great interview. 🖤

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Yesss I loved that part too!

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SO GOOD. I’ve been on a two-week long binge reading session of basically your entire body of work (unpublishable and related articles) and let me just say you’ve changed my life! I feel like I’ve been searching for someone saying these things for years - and apparently I was looking for you!!!

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Ahhh that makes me so happy to hear! So glad you're here :)

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I wish less women would participate in perpetuating this problem. Not necessarily through doing less beauty duty --which indeed hard to give up without risking our voices and agency -- but through our consumption of media. I notice that women too also pay more attention to the plastic queens selling BS vs. plain faced experts offering their experience & truth. We are half the world, honestly, if we just supported each other, we wouldn’t need the opinions of the other half. I find this so frustrating.

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True! But I do think a lot of people *do* think they're "supporting women" by supporting the women who promote beauty standards, which is a big part of the problem. Many of us want to support each other!! We want what's best for women! It's just that our idea of "what's best for women" has been conditioned into us by beauty culture.

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I really enjoyed this. Especially the bit about dandruff and realizing: this is a human body, and I love this human body.

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Thanks Steph xx

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INACTIVITY! No movement, no change is where things die. When we don't welcome the natural changes in time as in nature, we die. Little death happens inside when we try to mimic someone's younger much dewey phase of skin. How sad. What about that map that shows how one has truly lived. Their gorgeous journey in time. The dips, the scars, the rosy cheeks...Real Beauty changes!

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“In short, it came down to: I only have so many resources, do I want to spend them being smart or feeling like I’m pretty enough?”

Yes!

I strive to live like this every day. My time, energy, brain power are valuable resources.

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Reading the excerpt and her descriptions of what these young children go through is torture plain and simple, child abuse to boot. How this industry is ever allowed to exist is criminal. Great interview.

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Obviously bought the book IMMEDIATELY! This article needs a second read to try and imprint some of the genius...

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God, I loved this interview. Bravo.

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Thanks Alice!

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This is so fucking good. Thank you, Jessica!

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the dandruff thing 😭😭😭😭 i am so complexed about my constant dandruff and this makes me feel real

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Anyone else think of Derek Zoolander training at the “daiye spa” when reading this? Or of Brittney Cooper writing about being conditioned to sit still for hours while painful yanking and braiding by aunties was taking place to make her textured hair “presentable?” It really is about conditioning and compliance - “beauty” is pain after all.

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