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3 Women On The Summer They Finally Felt Beautiful

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From ELLE

The Body I Always Wanted

By Avril Mair

Growing up in the Scottish Highlands, beach holidays involved clothes. Layers of them:plastic cagoules over knitted jumpers, woollen socks in thick leather sandals, sand-covered jeans, damp to the touch. There would be a candy-striped windbreak, buffeting in the stiff North Sea breeze, and Thermos flasks of tea sipped as we’d watch the breakers roll in, seagulls crying above us. Though the Moray Firth is famous for its golden sands, spending time on them felt like an endurance test. The idea that beaches were for taking your clothes off? Ridiculous.

But my parents bought a caravan and holidays became more adventurous, not to mention warmer. Dad drove us to France, Germany and Switzerland, then finally, one glorious July in the 1980s, to Italy, ending up on a campsite near Rimini. It was our first foreign beach holiday and I took my Speedo swimming costume, round-necked, highly elasticated and resolutely sensible. I was flat-chested and tomboyish; it was the swimsuit I wore to compete in, a regional breaststroke champion. Putting it on didn’t feel like taking my clothes off.

That summer, Italian teens all wore neon string bikinis, loosely tied at the shoulders and hips, bold against their tans. They seemed impossibly sophisticated but also alien to me; almost naked, but at ease with it. I couldn’t imagine such a thing.

Holidays came and went but the sense of freedom never found me, no matter how hard I looked. And I did. For the better part of a decade, I waged a war against my body: it was the battleground in my fight for self-confidence. I never had an eating disorder but my eating was certainly disordered. At university, I ate the same thing every night. I was thin, sure, but miserable – 1,460 packets of instant noodles will do that to you.

Running was my way out. My body became powerful, weaponised. I didn’t mind that it felt strong and solid. I don’t know why it didn’t feel OK when its purpose was to just be me.

There were always more beaches. I grew up by the sea, so I get homesick for water. But there were also kaftans and cover-ups, worn while pretending to be too pale-skinned to sunbathe. I never liked loungers stretched around a glittering pool; instead, I’d spread a towel as far from other people as possible. I’d run into the water, then stay there for hours; my fingers turning white and wrinkled while I braced myself for the walk back.

Photo credit: ELLE
Photo credit: ELLE

Italy changed things, again. My parents bought a house there– in a beautiful, rugged place only popular with Italians – and my boyfriend and I went to visit. The weather was oppressively hot, so we drove to the nearest beach, as lightning crackled on the horizon. We walked for hundreds of metres to find a quiet patch of sand, not realising that it doesn’t exist on an Italian beach in August. Everywhere we looked, families in their multi generational sweep: from nonnas slathering on olive oil instead of sun cream, to mothers, daughters, children and babies, loud and proud and happily together.

When you’re surrounded by so many semi-naked bodies, you realise something. Bodies are just bodies, different but the same. They’re soft and abundant, lean and bony, muscled and tattooed. They’re firm and young, plump with the promise of what’s to come. They’re withered and wrinkled, lined with age and experience. You realise that your body is just one more body. Nothing more or less. And that feels, finally, like freedom.

I go back to that same beach every summer, preferring it to the smart lidos and private clubs that have sprung up since. It’s always hectic with families. Nothing much has changed over the years. Just one thing: I no longer run to get into the water. I walk, like everyone else.


Embracing My Natural Curls

By Katie O'Malley

My eyes are open but I can’t see. A trickle of water edges over my brows, stinging my eyes. I rub my eyelids as I try to maintain blurred focus on the horizon. I bob atop my surfboard... waiting. In the distance, the lip of a wave emerges. I slowly brush back my knotted hair and fix it into a ponytail. In seconds, it’ll be peppered with salt. For once, how my hair looks is the last thing on my mind.

As a child, I loathed having curls. And it seemed everyone else did their best to avoid them. I’d watch Mum zealously spray Elnett on her Princess Diana-styled bob, and every pull of a brush when I visited the hairdresser. In my room, I’d replicate this choreography on my ringlets, yanking each coil. I quickly figured out that curly hair isn’t aspirational, let alone ‘pretty’. For decades, natural curls have been prefixed by ‘untamed’ or ‘wild’; judged unprofessional and messy. Prejudice that’s worse for women of colour.

So, when I got GHDs at age 13, I leapt at the chance to gain control over my appearance. Amid shaving mishaps and dodgy fake tan, the only constant in my teens was my pin-straight hair.

Of course, keeping my hair straight required hours of commitment: the early mornings I’d tiptoe out of bed before my boyfriend woke up. The years I’d straighten then curl to create a beachy ‘natural’ wave. I cringe remembering parties I’ve left to go home, convinced hair tools were still on.

Then, two years ago, I went to the Philippines. Weeks before, I’d referred myself for counselling to deal with mounting self-esteem issues, and was told I’d start a 12-week course on my return. Removed from life’s worries, the holiday was the start of addressing deep-rooted insecurities.

On the first day, I plugged in my straighteners. ‘You can’t seriously be worried about your hair?’ my boyfriend sighed. He went to the pool; I turned them on. As they heated up, I burst into tears. I didn’t want to straighten my hair, but felt compelled, so I’d feel confident enough to leave the room. My fixation with perfection meant that straightening my hair had turned into ‘correcting’ myself. Turning off the irons seemed like the first step in silencing the critical voices in my head.

Over the holiday, I let my hair dry naturally. At first, I ignored my reflection and refused to be in photos. But, slowly, I began to enjoy the freedom; I didn’t have to make time to tame my hair. My hair enjoyed the freedom, too – it looked thick and shiny. My relaxed attitude to my hair translated into my mood; I felt less stressed and self-conscious for the first time in years.

Photo credit: ELLE
Photo credit: ELLE

On our return, I threw out old anti-frizz serums and donated my GHDs. With every wash and air dry, I became more confident with my effortless ’do. Friends complimented my new look and asked how I achieved the loose waves. ‘I just leave it,’ I’d reply.

In the first few months of my straightening ban, I had moments of feeling self-conscious; I couldn’t ‘fix’ my hair if it was fluffy. I was tempted to use heat tools for a night out and felt jealous of girls in the club swishing their straight hair like capes, while mine bounced to its own tune. But I worried less about adhering to an unrealistic version of perfection. I like that my curls are unpredictable. I sometimes miss straight hair, but I don’t miss the stress that comes with it.

Back on the beach, it’s midday. The surf is up and the sun gently tickles my face. Curls cling to my neck, like barnacles on a rock, drying in the breeze as the ocean’s swell builds. My hair feels knotted and gritty. But, like the sea, I don’t care how it looks. I see the wave, and it’s all mine.


The Skin I'm In

By Alice Wignall

On my right shoulder I have a two-inch swoosh of freckles, a spray of dense pigmentation against the blank canvas of my skin. It’s a reminder of two things: one, a day in Florence aged 22, when I sat in the Boboli Gardens, having missed a strip when applying factor 15. (Yes, it should have been 5O+.) And, two, that the sun and I? We don’t mix.

This wasn’t my first – or, sadly, last – brush with UV damage, though it was the most dramatic, with a welt of red raw skin bearing witness to my carelessness for weeks, leaving a permanent calling card. But at least it was entirely accidental, unlike the other times, when, while I wasn’t trying to burn, I wasn’t not trying to either.

For many years my paleness – which is not a gleaming alabaster but a slightly blue-tinged whey colour – was a perpetual source of irritation and embarrassment. The first time I was made fully aware of it was a warm spring day, sitting on the grass behind my sixth form college. I was wearing a short dress and somebody pointed and said, ‘Look at Alice’s legs, glowing in the sun!’ I looked, and they were. They weren’t just pale; they were so white they were reflective. The incandescent effect was added to by the blurring of ashamed tears, quickly blinked away.

Photo credit: ELLE
Photo credit: ELLE

This event was not coincidentally followed by my disastrous first experiment with fake tan, which left my parents breathless with hysteria at the result, and necessitated me wearing opaque tights for the remainder of that mini heatwave.

Over time, my technique improved, but one thing never changed: my conviction that tanned skin was preferable, without exception, to my own barely pigmented complexion. So I slapped it on, wondered why it never looked natural and enviously eyed anyone who could cultivate the real thing.

I’m sure I don’t need to reiterate why I didn’t want to be pale. The golden tone the sun turns Caucasian skin has become a signifier of good health, of having time to relax outdoors; it has a particular sort of carefree glamour. Things that look better with a tan: gold; white; weirdly, also black; neon; your teeth; denim; things made of straw; anything above the knee; anything by cool-girl French clothing brands (aka where I most want to shop). It’s true that pale people rock midnight blue and diamond necklaces, but since I don’t go to the Oscars every night, I don’t feel the benefit.

But I haven’t applied fake tan this year. I no longer regard the skin I’m in as a disappointment that has to be constantly fussed with and improved upon. What changed? Last year, I got bored. Of exfoliating, of the uneven fade. I went a summer without tanning and, by autumn, my self-image was intact. Enhanced, even.

After a bit of fresh air, my legs lost their grey tinge. Body scrub and moisturiser make a world of difference, and highlighter and a bright lip are quicker to apply than a full lacquering. My natural skin looks good against dark glasses and, most importantly, gives the most enviable look there is: one that seems effortless.

I still catch myself feeling forlorn when I see laidback bronzed beach babes. But is it at the colour or the attitude? The bronze or the beach? All my life, I’ve longed for the ease represented by tanned girls in white cotton dresses. But I’ve worked out that it was the ease I wanted, not the tan. I’m working on channelling that relaxed Californian vibe, but ultimately, it’s less hassle to change your mindset than your colour every five to seven days.

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