People often tell us that From Molly With Love‘s vision of disrupting the “Beauty Industrial Complex” and helping women to redefine their own beauty standards is a tall order.
And they’re right. It is a tall order.
But it can be done.
In her essay “Beauty Within and Without,” bell hooks claimed that “challenging sexist thinking about the female body was one of the most powerful interventions made by contemporary feminists.”
50 years ago, simply wearing comfortable clothing was a novel idea. By choosing to remove our girdles, corsets, and garter belts, women’s clothing manufacturers started producing more comfortable clothing.
Many feminists stopped wearing crippling high heels, leading to shoemakers to design comfortable shoes for women.
But somewhere along the way, we lost ourselves again.
hooks writes, “Certainly it was in the interest of a white supremacist capitalist patriarchal fashion and cosmetics industry to glamorize sexist-defined notions of beauty. Mass media has followed suit. […] Back with a vengeance, sexist images of female beauty abound and threaten to undo much of the progress gained by feminist interventions.”
hooks concludes, “Until feminists go back to the beauty industry, go back to fashion, and create an ongoing, sustained revolution, we will not be free. We will not know how to love our bodies as ourselves.”
This is why we are here. To be a company in the beauty industry to empower you, instead of profit from your oppression. To fortify you, instead of poison you.
You can vote with your dollars.
You can say “no” to companies like Dove whose advertising makes you feel ‘less than’ because of your brown skin.
You can say “no” to companies who poison you with SLS, parabens, phtalates, and other nasties.
You can say “no” to companies who make you believe that thinner is better, whiter is better, younger is better.
If you’re unfamiliar with From Molly With Love (http://frommollywithlove.com), this is what we stand for. We provide all-natural skin-care & personal care products for radical self care. And we believe that all bodies are beautiful.
