healing the beauty industry to heal our community

We have a responsibility to care for one another. 

To celebrate each other and build each other up.

Connection to our community is what makes us human.

Supportive space for community to gather is essential for our growth as humans.

Image-based industries have been divisive places, lacking in supportive community, for far too long. They defined beauty ideals in advertising decades ago that still cover every magazine, billboard and social media page. While there is evidence of a slow shift in a more inclusive direction with advertising in the last few years, it’s not enough. The time has come for the practitioners and members of the beauty and skin care industries to correct this behavior, to bring awareness to the harm it’s caused, and work to heal the communities effected by this messaging in a more direct way.

Full Heart Healing offers a number of sliding scale facial and massage sessions each month in hopes to help undo some of the harm that has been done by the beauty industry, and for those who are in need of care at a more accessible price. This offering was created with an intention to encourage deep self love within my clients, to prove that every single person deserves to be here and celebrated for their own unique beauty, and that face and body care is deeply therapeutic care. In my opinion and experience in this business, there are two main communities that have been mistreated and underserved by the beauty industry since its creation that deserve reparations and a loving space created just for their needs. 

The queer community and people of color have historically been omitted from or exploited by marketing & images in beauty, cosmetics and skin care. While I am not the person to speak about the experience of people of color (community collaboration on this topic will be coming this Spring) I can speak to the experience of being a queer person effected by lack of representation in beauty industry media. Growing up I had no examples of alternative beauty in my life. No media or advertisement that targeted me told me that I had value. Instead, daily examples, both aggressive and subtle, defined a very specific type of beauty for me. Often white, often young, often with pristine, airbrushed skin & a very specific figure, often looking happy, and often forcing a very specific definition of femininity that I didn’t identify with. This was the example of what I should be striving for. This was the standard I could either effort to meet in order to gain the social acceptance one craves in young life, or fall short of. This influence is damaging to everyone (even if the ads are not directly targeting you) but especially for folks in the queer community who may not have been given the gift of being accepted in their true embodiment and self-expression, either internal or external. It can be the queer experience that we have to work for identifying what is us vs what is not us. To undo years of ‘hiding’ behind a public representation we’ve had to adopt for survival. Who are we when we are without the influence of what others will accept? What is our unique expression? What defines our beauty? We can devote years to shedding the skin we were told to wear, and years further to love and celebrate ourselves fully. Much of this depends on our upbringing (if there is a lack of acceptance within our family, for example) but the insidious messaging from image industries deserves a lot of credit for shaping young minds and setting expectations in place.

This messaging is toxic to all who receive its influence in endless streams each day, but especially for LGBTQ and BIPOC folks. It communicates to anyone who is ‘other’(and based on the narrowly defined beauty industry standard, most of the population is ‘other’) that what you’re seeing in this makeup ad is what you should desire to look like. And worst of all, if you don’t look like this or if you aren’t this happy, you should buy this product and that will change. Then you will be worthy of love and acceptance. It’s abuse of power and it’s creating, then preying, on insecurity and it must change.

Through my work I hope to shine a light on this issue, discuss how we can bring radical change in the way we love ourselves, and offer healing support to those who are in need of validation of the harm they’ve experienced. My wish for each of us is to interrupt the messages we receive, to replace them with self-acceptance, and establish daily practice to solidify our value for ourselves. Up until now I’ve worked on this individually with my clients, but its time to think bigger and reach further. Full Heart Healing will be announcing classes (offered both locally and virtually) in the coming months to aid in this movement. Until then, our sliding scale sessions are available to LGBTQ+ folks and people of color, as well as students. Click here to email me with questions about these supportive offerings or how you maybe of support to others.

Let’s heal together.