Nothing Here Needs Fixing: Why I Stopped Listening to the Beauty Industry
Taiye Selasi discusses how the makers of products and arbiters of culture had me convinced that I needed fixing.
I have a confession to make. For years I believed that something about my appearance — my skin color, my hair texture, my body type — was flawed. I call this a “confession” because I’d love to claim the opposite: that my intelligence has always sprung me from the traps of the beauty industry. The truth is, until recently, the makers of products and arbiters of culture had me convinced that I needed fixing.
It all started with foundation.
Born to West African parents, I grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, quietly suspecting that my skin color was a problem. Not only were my classmates white, but the brown women I saw on screen — Lark Voorhies on Saved by the Bell, Lisa Bonet on The Cosby Show, Halle Berry, Tyra Banks — all had fair complexions. To make matters worse, my mum and fraternal twin sister were lighter, too. The first time I went to buy foundation, my suspicions were confirmed.
Selasi as a young girl in Boston. (Photo: Taiye Selasi)
I still remember walking down the florescent-lighted aisle, running a finger along bottles of progressively darker liquid. When I got to the last bottle — a golden brown, perfect for my sister — I picked it up and read the little label. “Darkest,” it said. In 1995 I was darker than what the beauty industry considered “darkest” brown. From the color prejudice of Hollywood to the carelessness of cosmetic companies, the culture I lived in was sending a message: There’s something wrong with your color.
If my complexion was a problem then my hair was a catastrophe. When I was in high school Seventeen ran a story, one of thousands, about how to manage different hair textures over the summer. The advice for black women was to use a chemical relaxer. Full stop. The message: There’s something wrong with your hair.
Then there was the problem, perhaps the biggest, of my body. Oh, what woe the waif look of the 1990s wrought! Like many a West African woman, I am blessed with muscular biceps, broad shoulders, long legs, and a healthy helping of ass. Today, I thank what gods may be for this athletic frame. But for my entire adolescence, the beauty industry taught me to hate it. Models set the golden standard: Size zero or less! Magazines offered counsel: Eat no fat! Eat no carbs! Movies reflected the madness: from Heathers to Clueless to Mean Girls, weight obsession reigned supreme. The message: There’s something wrong with your body.
Needless to say I entered adulthood deeply insecure — that is, exactly where the beauty business wanted me. The cosmetics industry thrives on fanning women’s insecurities, convincing us that there is always something to be fixed. To a certain extent most women know this. I sensed that I’d been duped. But what I knew on an intellectual level didn’t change what I experienced on an emotional one.
Somehow the culture had lodged an image in my psyche: of a lighter-skinned, looser-haired, tiny-waisted me. Only by buying products could I become this lovelier self. Of course I wasn’t foolish enough to think that beauty products alone would transform me into Chanel Iman, but that was not the sell. The media had managed to convince me of something more insidious: I couldn’t become someone else but I could be a better me.
Me with better skin, better hair, a better body.
Me considered beautiful, desirable.
I just had to fix my flaws.
It was only when I began to travel in my early twenties that I came to see the universality of this must-fix thinking. In Italy, women lay dangerously long in tanning beds to “fix” their skin. In India, women used dangerous bleaching creams to “fix” theirs. My Jewish friends “fixed” their frizz with flat irons. My Japanese friends “fixed” their flat hair with perms. Friends of all nationalities went on inane diets to “fix” their bodies. The messages of my childhood were, in fact, a single message, the same one sent to women everywhere:
Something is wrong. Fix it. How do we change this? How do we create a culture that tells women that there’s nothing to fix, that we’re perfect just the way we are?
After learning that only 4 in 10 little girls with curly hair think their hair is beautiful, Dove Hair launched a campaign and film called “Love Your Curls.” As an extension of the campaign, Dove asked me to pen a book of poems inspired by real women and intended to encourage self-confidence in generations to come. I’ve been a huge fan of Dove since 2004, when they began their Real Beauty Campaign, and was thrilled to write “Love Your Curls.” What I’ve loved most about the project is its point of departure: not that curly hair needs fixing, but that curly girls deserve love.
Taiye with her twin sister, and mother.
Writing these poems, I’ve had occasion to think about how the beauty industry can give love to me, too. There were those little moments in my youth when, rather than feeling flawed, I suddenly felt acknowledged and affirmed. I remember, for instance, the first time that I saw the model Alec Wek; it was 1996, just after the foundation fiasco. Seeing that heavenly woman reminded me what I’d known all along: that my dark skin is beautiful. The first time I found a perfect foundation (Bobbi Brown Extra Repair in Chestnut), I felt the same.
And the list goes on.
Lancôme’s selection of Lupita Nyong’o as a spokeswoman, Under Armor’s “I Will What I Want” commercials, Sports England’s “This Girl Can” video — small as they seem, these efforts make a difference. Little by little, makeup counter by makeup counter, marketing campaign by marketing campaign, I’m watching the message with which I was raised go from “you’re flawed” to “you’re fierce.”
Pale, tanned, fat, thin, curly-haired, straight-haired and everything between: we must be told that we are loved and lovely. Above all, we must tell ourselves. I’m not all the way there. Every so often an airbrushed image of a seventeen-year-old sends me to the mirror to lament my so-called flaws. But I repeat a line from “Love Your Curls” — one I wish all women would hear every day: “Nothing here needs fixing” — and go on my merry way.
Related:
Only 10% of Women Love Their Curly Hair
For more information on the free “Love Your Curls” e-book, visit www.Dove.com/LoveYourCurls. Each download allows you to create a self-written dedication, a personalized poem and watercolor portrait for a curly girl in your life. The non-customizable version will also be available for download at Amazon.com, iTunes.com and Play.Google.com.
