Dove #RealBeauty Campaign: Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful

Dove believes every woman should celebrate her real beauty. With its "Real Beauty" campaign, Dove continues to help women express their unique beauty with a message of female empowerment, "Be your own kind of beautiful."

I was reminded by this beautiful message with an amazing gift from Dove. This pretty box contains all my favorite Dove products;  Dove Deeply Nourishing Body Wash, Dove Hair Therapy Intense Repair Shampoo, Dove Hair Therapy Intense Repair Conditioner, Dove Original Whitening Anti-Perspirant Deodorant Spray, Dove Original Whitening Anti-Perspirant Roll-On and Dove Beauty Bar.  Also, it  has a personalized water bottle, stationery pad, a Parker pen with my name engraved on it and a Dove necklace.

I thank Dove for keeping this great campaign going. Have you watched their latest video yet? It features a group of real women as they celebrate refreshing revelations of their unique beauty. Here’s a look at the latest Dove commercial:

Real Beauty is not only one type. It is universal.

From the young daydreamer to the devoted educator; the radiant and curvy multi-tasking mom-of-two to the designer who’s learning to love her gray locks—everyone can be beautiful in their diversity.

There are different beauty standards and beliefs women hold about their own looks. We see hundreds of photoshopped ads and photos of celebrities and models online. We see them as beautiful and it makes us want to look a certain way today more than ever. No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. Even young teens are more afraid of getting fat than having cancer or losing their loved ones; trying to look better, thinner.

Contrary to popular belief, being a mom is not a safe haven from body shaming. "Oh my, you're huge!" is just one of many things some have said to my face. But I only listen to two people, my daughter who thinks I'm (forever) sexy and my husband who constantly reminds me that I'm still beautiful no matter what. It's easy to get caught up with the perfect lives we see posted on social media but the truth is we are all messy and beautiful. Media has been messing up our brains with all these "ideal body types" where each post is only a well-curated moment of their chaotic and imperfectly perfect life.

As for me, I grew up not being happy with my body shape and size at all. I hated being curvy. I hated having large forehead. Oh, and I hated having wavy hair. In high school, I was a shy little girl dying to fit in with a fat injected smile. The smile I was born with, the smile that can endure, even if I’ve been through a lot. In my 20s, I was that insecure girl, lips stained, hair deep fried by a straightening iron, pores clogged by cakey foundation, all in an attempt to be different from how I naturally was, to look pretty for someone else.

Now that I'm in my 30s, I realized all those negative thoughts and ideas were self-destructive. One of the most amazing things for me was learning that most of how I felt about beauty was all in my head and I used to see it as superficial. That moment I started to develop a new definition of beauty, that's when all of it started to fall into place.



If you ask me what's the most beautiful part of my body, my answer would be my C-section scar. I see it as a 5-inch reminder of how my beautiful baby boy came into the world. At first, it bothered me a lot more than I expected but now, every time I look at my scar, it reminds me of how close I was from losing my baby. I find beauty in my scars, fats, and imperfections and I need not feel ashamed but beautiful. It is beautiful to have lived, really lived, and to have the marks to prove a testament of my inner strength. It matches all my other battle wounds and while it’s dark and ugly, each one is as unique and beautiful as the last and I wear them all with the same kind of pride.

Having said that, I'm proud to say that now I see myself as a multi-tasking mom-of-two with a perpetual messy bun who’s learning to love her post-pregnancy body. Oh, and I am beautiful, just like you. I believe everyone is beautiful in their own way, so just be yourself. Every part of you is the best of you. And you, my dear, are not a parking ticket looking for other people's validation. Because, beauty should not be defined by what other people think or say of you. So if you're reading this, please take a moment and think again. YOU are more beautiful than you think!

Thank you Dove for sending these over and for reminding us to celebrate our own kind of beautiful. Here's to a beautiful 2017! Let's celebrate all types of beauty at http://bit.ly/doveph.