The Power of Red

Have you ever rolled out the bed exhausted but you have things to do and places to be! You look in the mirror and the only thing you see is your flaws and imperfections.  Just to make yourself presentable you put on some foundation and conceal those dark circles under your eyes.  At least you don’t look like the walking dead. If you have never experienced this keep living! If you are blessed with flawless perfection you probably can’t relate.

This has been me many times over the last 10 years. I look in the mirror suck in my pudgy stomach, turn and check out my rear manage a half smile and tell myself “could be worse mama!”

Based on the title of my blog don’t assume I have arrived on the self-love train.  I am very much a work in progress. I regularly have to challenge my thoughts as I focus on the not so nice aspect of my features.  I know that I’m not alone!

I love all things fashion, beauty, and natural hair care. I have worn makeup since 8th grade. I’m a girly girl who self-taught myself to highlight my best features.  When I started wearing makeup I didn’t have permission and my mother tossed it when she found it in my drawer so I bought more and hid it in a different place!  At 14 I found red lipstick!! Oh, happy day.  I would take it out my bag in the girl’s room and paint my lips a vibrant red! I walked out with a new pep in my step I just knew I was a fly girl!

Then one day I was informed that I was too dark for red lipstick and that my lips were much to big for that shade!! I don’t remember who offered up their nonrequested opinion but I believed what was said and embraced it as my own thought.

Fast forward  many years. I wondered why I accepted the words of someone I didn’t even remember.  I mean how many years did I go without wearing red lipstick believing I was too dark and my lips too big.  As a little brown girl, it took me a while to accept and embrace my shade of brown.  It’s funny how we let others define us and how we allow others to shape our views of ourselves.

Eventually, I fell in love with an exquisite shade of red for my lips.  Red lipstick, like  a magic wand, transforms you from the ugly step sister to Cinderella.  I believe in the power of red lipstick.  It highlights my inner and outer beauty reminding me to continue pursuing the woman I strive to be. It shakes me from the negative self-talk that says I’m not worthy, not pretty enough, to dark, or to old.   I smile  when I look in the mirror and I love what I see!  I don’t need it everyday but when I need that oomph I pull out my lipstick and pucker up. A lot more forgiving of my imperfections I can embrace the woman who I am, flaws and all.