Phoebe Baker Hyde - The Beauty Experiment: How I Skipped Lipstick, Ditched Fashion, Faced the World Without Concealer . . . and Made Over My Li

The
Beauty Experiment

The
Beauty Experiment

How I Skipped Lipstick,
Ditched Fashion,
Faced the World Without Concealer
... and Learned to Love the Real Me

PHOEBE BAKER HYDE

DA CAPO LIFELONG
A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP

Some individuals names and identifying details have been changed, and in Chapter 6 two interactions have been combined.

Copyright 2013 by Phoebe Baker Hyde

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Designed by Linda Mark

Set in 11 point Photina Std by the Perseus Books Group

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hyde, Phoebe Baker.

The beauty experiment: how I skipped lipstick, ditched fashion, faced the world without concealer... and learned to love the real me / Phoebe Baker Hyde.1st Da Capo Press ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7382-1543-3 (e-book)

1. Beauty, PersonalPsychological aspects. 2. Self-esteem in women. 3. Self-acceptance in women. 4. Self-perception in women. 5. Clothing and dressPsychological aspects. I. Title.

HQ1219.H93 2013

111'.85dc23

2012035590

First Da Capo Press edition 2013

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

www.dacapopress.com

Note: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. This book is intended only as an informative guide for those wishing to know more about health issues. In no way is this book intended to replace, countermand, or conflict with the advice given to you by your own physician. The ultimate decision concerning care should be made between you and your doctor. We strongly recommend you follow his or her advice. Information in this book is general and is offered with no guarantees on the part of the authors or Da Capo Press. The authors and publisher disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book. The names and identifying details of people associated with events described in this book have been changed. Any similarity to actual persons is coincidental.

Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA, 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail .

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Harriet Maeyu and Molly Maddox,
and for every woman who knows her inner voice

T HIS IS WHO I AM: A WOMAN. Im a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, and a mother. At age seven, I was a girl with braids and rainbow hair clips, and at thirteen, I became a teenager with acne, orthodontics, and teased bangs. At nineteen, I was a college student battling her freshman twenty-five, then a new graduate with a discount poly-blend office wardrobe. For nearly a decade after that, I was an independent young woman in confusing relationships who paired thrift-store finds with designer shoes. At twenty-eight, I became an overjoyed fiance with a shiny new ring, then an anxious newlywed with a new mortgage. When I was thirty-one, I swelled up into a pregnant goddess with superlative melons, then collapsed, nine months later, into a zombie with magenta undereye bags. Then that happened again. Today, at thirty-seven, I am a busy work-at-home parent and spouse. On most days, I wear jeans, and shoes with traction. I have a yoga membership I probably wont use up. On Fridays, I drink a beer in front of the television and fall asleep before ten.

Despite this remarkably average female chronology, I feel I have one small, hard-won feature that is extraordinary. It is this: When I look in the mirror, I dont see wrinkles, anxiety, zits, or exhaustion, although they are all there. Instead, I see a face, a person, a personality, a life. If someone asked me if I felt beautiful, I would have to answer honestly: yes.

I didnt start out this way. Some might call me low maintenance, but in the three-and-a-half decades of my life, Ive done hundreds of ridiculous, bizarre, and embarrassing things in beautys name. I constipated myself with chocolate diet shakes the summer I was fifteen. I broke in a pair of punishingly uncomfortable high heels by wearing them with hiking socks and jogging laps around a parking lot. I was caught kickboxing in my room wearing three sweaters and a raincoat in hopes of dropping weight before a college formal. Convinced of the powers of exfoliation, I tried to scrub the cystic acne off my back with a foot pumice. I once paid a great deal of money for a bikini wax that left me polka-dotted with blood from the crotch down, and another time, I mutely obeyed a teenage beauty technician who barked Lie still while caustic eyelash-dying solution burned under my lids. I felt perversely thrilled, afterward, that the treatment had only fogged my peripheral vision. I had not actually gone blind.

In college, I was an anthropology major, trained to recognize ritualistic, illogical, and masochistic behaviors in other cultures. But when it came to my own beauty craziness, and the insistent voice in my head that drove me to it, I simply didnt care to question. This crap seemed trivial, and I had so many other, better, things to think about: my professional aspirations, my love life, and the world around me. Sure, my own lack of physical beauty and constant need for personal correction and enhancement were often foremost in my mindusually when I wished they werentbut I assumed that one day Id simply outgrow the freaky diets, the wardrobe crises, and the occasional substitution of prettiness for poise. For thirty-two years, I lived with the enigma of my female beauty craziness the way I lived with the Bermuda Triangle: it was weird and creepy in its persistence, but not my problem to solve.

Things changed in late 2005or began changing then. I was living in San Francisco with my husband, John, my best friend and the great love of my life, when he was transferred to Hong Kong by his company. This was something wed both long been hoping for: John is a Chinese American who was born in Taiwan, and this move would give him a chance to reconnect with the Chinese culture and language as an adult. As an avid overseas traveler, I was thrilled to be going abroad for more than a few weeks. Wed been in San Francisco only a few monthsI had yet to establish a professional or social network and figured I could make the classic artists bargain anywhere in the world: taking a low-profile day job in exchange for the luxury of time to write. What Hong Kong might offer in terms of day jobs was less clear, but in the weeks before the move, I fixated on another joyful development: Id just become pregnant with our first child. John worried about having our baby so far from family, but I brushed these concerns off. This was adventure! This was life!

Our flight to Hong Kong was my first business-class seat ever, and we were met the day after our arrival by a team of relocation specialistsboth Chinese and Europeanin silk scarves, bejeweled shoes, blowouts, and Chanel suits. (They might have been knockoff Chanel suitsbut how would I have known? Forty-eight hours earlier, Id been munching spirulina bars from the Rainbow grocery and selling engineered socks to female triathletes in Noe Valley.) These relocation specialists came with advice for a wide-eyed and inexperienced expatriate, and I listened up. At their recommendations, we picked a private hospital and a safe, convenient address (with a pool!), and I joined a womens club. I went to some club events and started making lunch dates. Hong Kong, like many other cosmopolitan cities outside America, is a place where street shoes vastly outnumber sneakers, and since it seemed the thing to do, I started dressing up for those lunch dates. I began wearing foundation to the grocery store and drifting into shops to sample hundred-dollar cosmetics. When I went to the hospital to have our baby, I took mascara along for those all-important first pictures and postpartum visitsall from people Id known only a few months.