That Time I Spent $200 On My Chin.

Burnt Toast by Virginia Sole-Smith

You’re listening to Burnt Toast!

I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. Today I’m chatting Anita Bhagwandas, author of Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards.

Anita is an award winning journalist who explores beauty culture, unpicks aesthetic standards, and questions how pretty privilege holds the power to shape so much of our lives. Anita also writes , is a beauty columnist for The Guardian, and a freelance beauty director at Conde Nast Traveler. She lives in London. I really loved talking to Anita about the origins of so many specific beauty standards, some of which you might already think you know, but a lot of which was new even to me, a person who does think about beauty standards pretty often.

I also took Anita on my chin hair acceptance journey, and we talk about the absolute dumbest beauty purchase I have ever made.

Ugly is available in the Burnt Toast Bookshop!

Don’t forget, you can always take 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk from Split Rock Books! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)

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Episode 152 Transcript

Virginia

So I got to read Ugly when it first came out in the UK and adored it. The book goes very deep into the origins of our beauty standards. What surprised you the most about how we’ve come to value the specific physical traits and characteristics that we have been taught to value?

Anita

There was so much that surprised me. I thought I was very well-versed in all of this, I’ve always had an interest in obviously beauty, but also the history of beauty. There were definitely so many things that just made me think, “Oh my God, if everyone knew this, I don’t think they would hate their bodies, or their faces, hate their appearance in the way that they do.” In the way that I know I had, for most of my life.

I think was one of the most surprising things is how thinness is linked to race. I looked through various journals and books and old texts to look at where this came from—and lots of people have written about this as well. There are old references that specifically talk about in that era where colonization is still a very big part of the British Empire, etc. It’s almost like things are starting to shift a bit and you can tell that there’s something going on and essentially all the descriptions of people of color in the colonies were quite nice up until a point and I think there is a point where maybe Britain thinks they’re about to lose some of their control or something is happened, that it that all of those descriptions switched to being really just derogatory and positioning white beauty above everything.

You see it in the art of the time, you see it in all of these texts, you see it in these very famous books written by people at the time. You see it everywhere. And I think, if people knew that [our thin ideal] was so, so closely linked to colonization, I think they would be shocked. Because I know that when I heard that—and I had always known there was a link. But I think once you read the specifics, you’re like, wow, this is wild. This just blows my mind. So yeah, I think that was a really big one for me.

Virginia

We have a parallel and equally depressing and dark story in the States about how the end of slavery led to the same kind of transitioning of language and doubling down on negative descriptions of Black folks’ bodies. It’s just fragile white people trying to hold onto power in both scenarios. That’s the root of all of this. It is a lot to sit with.

Anita

It’s one of those things that we have to know. Because, probably everyone who is listening to this and listens to your podcast hasn’t signed up for that. They don’t agree with that. So, you know, it is just going okay, wait, you know, what is my obsession with thinness? What is my obsession with dieting? It makes me complicit in something I don’t believe in and I don’t stand for.

And I think that for me, it was a real turning point.

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Virginia

How do you think about navigating our complicity in that? Because it’s hard. On the one hand, we can say, “None of this is my values. None of this is what I want to replicate.” And yet, these standards have such a hold on us. The stakes of not participating in thinness and beauty culture can feel so high.

Anita

I don’t think we should beat ourselves up about these things. I don’t think we should be horrible to ourselves about these things. These beauty standards have come as a result of years and years of levels of oppression and forces that have tried to control us. So, I think that’s the first thing, is having a bit of compassion towards ourselves.

But then also looking at how you can unpick those narratives and make some decisions for yourself that are truly, as much as we can, based in what you really believe and what you really think. I had thought my entire life that if I was thin, everything will be okay. Because that’s what we’re sold, right? We’re sold that if you’re thin, you’re successful, you’re rich, you’re pretty, you’re popular, you get everything. That’s the narrative we’ve all been sold.

And there was a real point for me, I think it was probably about 10 years ago, I just went, “I actually don’t want to be thin.” And this is no shade to anyone who is really thin, because all body types are beautiful. But I was just like, “For me, I don’t actually want to look like that. If I’m honest with myself, I actually don’t want to look like that.” I think it was the first time I’d actually tuned into what I wanted. And it was really liberating.

Because then when I was working out, I wasn’t working out to be thinner. It was working out to improve my strength or whatever it is. It was just a real shift for me to actually pick what I wanted and pick you know, pick to celebrate my body and pick to actually celebrate the something that wasn’t the sort of standard beauty ideal.

Virginia

We’ve been sold a certain aesthetic so much, and so often that the idea of your preferences being something different—you just assume that’s what you want, right? How do you look at what you actually want?

For example, I’m not a big makeup wearer and I notice whenever I go through phases of wearing more makeup, I start to expect my face to look the way it looks in makeup. And then if I stop wearing makeup, there’s a rocky dismount period and then I go back to being like “This is my face and I’m fine with this.”

Aurora Gonzalez Carrascosa, Getty Images

Anita

I’ve had that experience with makeup, too.

Even though I’m critical of beauty culture and the beauty industry, I love makeup and I love self-expression. I like playing with different things versions of myself. And I know I’ve experienced this, where I have become addicted wearing really, really thick, heavy makeup. And then it’s almost like, when the seasons change and I have to go without any makeup on, without anything done to it, it is fine. I try and have a day, usually on a Sunday, where I will try not to wear any makeup or do anything and just go out and be that in the world. To be okay to go meet your friends for brunch or whatever and challenge yourself to be the same level of confident as you would be fully made up. It’s really hard at the start. And then it starts to normalize. And it starts to be a choice, which I think is the really key thing.

Virginia

Do you feel like going out is an important part of it? My first instinct would be like, well, sure, when I’m just hanging out at home watching TV, who cares? But that is then reinforcing the idea that it’s okay to look a certain way without an audience. But if there’s any kind of external gaze, you have to make changes.

Anita

I think it depends on your level of comfort. For some people even being at home without makeup on or their hair done or whatever it happens to be, would be really, really challenging. So if this is something you want to try, start at your level of confidence. It might just be that you don’t wear a certain thing that you always wear outside one day a week or one day a month. And I think you can almost build it up. It almost just helps decondition you to thinking you have to look a certain way. Then it becomes more of a choice. And I think that is more of an empowering place to be in.

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Virginia

We should name, too, that it’s safer for some of us to experiment with this than others, right? Folks in fat bodies know that they’ll get treated worse if they show up looking sloppy. People of color experience this as well. There is the stuff that we’re working on inside and then there are the realities of the external world, right?

Anita

That’s definitely something I’ve experienced as a person of color. My parents moved from India to the UK. I had it drilled into me from a very young age that I always had to look presentable. As I got into my teen years, my mum would always say, “Go put some makeup on.” It’s constantly trying to look like you’re part of society, like you’re worthy of being in society. And that does come with challenges because the outside world does discriminate and it does treat us badly.

I guess it’s looking at how comfortable you feel within to resist that. And that’s really different for everyone. And I guess if you can resist that safely and in a way that doesn’t harm you. In a way, I think that could be a really positive thing.

Virginia

Even just being clear when you do decide the armor is necessary, it can be helpful to be clear on, “this feels necessary for safety.” Because that’s still putting some distance between you and the standard.

Anita

That’s really helpful. I think that could be really good for people who feel like they definitely need that. That’s a really useful way to frame it.

Virginia

I’m just thinking about your mom—she was doing that to keep you safe. It was rooted in love, even though it was also constricting.

Anita

Yeah, absolutely.

Virginia

I love the section in the book where you run down this whole list of questions you ask yourself before buying a face massaging device.

Anita

That script is really helpful because despite knowing how the Internet works, social media, the beauty industry, ads—despite being in that and knowing how that works, I still find myself clicking on things and going to buy things very impulsively. I’ve also got ADHD and quite high on the impulsive scale.

If I’m not careful, I will buy into the promise of some thing that says it’s going to change my life. Maybe you feel this too, but I feel like I’m being sold to constantly when I don’t want to. Particularly on TikTok I find this quite hard. I feel like I’m just being sold to. And I just wish there was a button to turn it off.

The technique I have coined for myself is to just give myself some boundaries if I do want to impulse buy something that I think will change my life in some way. And at the point, when I was writing the book, I gave the example of a face massaging sort of tool that said it was going to help tighten and tone your skin. And I was like, oh my God, I want that. Like, it was my first thought that I want to tighten and tone my skin.

Virginia

Add to cart.

Anita

And then I was like, wait a minute. And then I talked myself down a bit and talked myself out of this place of anxiety—because that’s where that was coming from—that I need that to fix this thing that actually isn’t really a problem. It didn’t bother me a minute before I saw this ad for it. I was cool a minute ago.

Virginia

I hadn’t been plagued by my lack of tone. It was all fine.

Anita

Then all of one minute later, I’m like, I’m so withered. It’s to take you out of that frame and to just go, okay, why do I want this? So there is a series of questions in the book. Starting with: Why do I want this? Maybe I do really, really want it. But I only saw it a minute ago, so I probably don’t really want it that much.

Then it’s sort of just probing into why that could be. And quite often for me personally—and this might be different for different people—when I keep going, why do you want this? What’s the real reason? And you keep digging, layer by layer by layer, underneath all of that initial impulse, quite often for me, it comes down to I’m really tired. I feel like shit and I actually just need some sleep. I look in the mirror, like, oh, I look tired, I probably just need a bit more sleep.

I think that’s probably true for a lot of people, particularly women. We have so many different roles in society, we probably just need a bit more sleep.

So that will save you a ton on anti-aging creams and de-puffing products and all of that. Let’s just have some sleep.

Virginia

And how depressing that buying this device feels more doable somehow than reorganizing your life to get more sleep consistently. That’s a whole other thing.

Anita

Most of the best self care and wellness stuff that you can do is free.

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But it’s a bit of investigation to find out what’s really going on. And quite often it is something else. Maybe you’re trying to distract yourself from something, maybe you’ve had a fight with somebody and you feel shit and you need to pick me up or whatever it happens to be. And there is almost always something. And, you know, when sometimes there’s not, in which case, what I tend to do is put it on a list. And then I’ll revisit that in a certain time period. That can be different for everyone. It could be a month, it could be a week, it could be three months.

Virginia

Instituting that pause is so helpful.

Anita

The pause is amazing. I have to do this with everything I buy, because I am so impulsive. I have to put it on a list and come back to it. Otherwise I would just be in tons of debt. So yeah, I think that’s a really helpful way to take the pressure and anxiety out of stuff.

And if you still want it in a month, if you can afford it, you’ve done your research, you think it’s going to work, whatever, cool, go for it. And you’ve used up everything you’ve got at home, as well! I think that’s a crucial thing. Quite often we might have something that we could use at home instead of whatever this new thing is. That saves us money, saves the planet, etc. It’s good to use those things up before you go and buy something new, like a new serum that promises it’s going to take 10 years off your whatever—which is never going to happen in a serum.

Virginia

Okay, I have to tell you about my purchase that I should have put through all of these filters.

Anita

Call me next time.

Virginia

My most embarrassing beauty purchase. There we go. There’s the headline of this episode.

So I have a lot of chin hair that I manage. My part-time job is managing my facial hair. And I’ve tried laser, but it’s expensive and you have to drive to the place and it’s such a project to keep up with it. So, mostly I shave it but then sometimes when I’m shaving, I get breakouts, and then I’m like I should just embrace this but I’m just not there on my chin hair acceptance journey.

So Julia Marcum, from Chris Loves Julia, recommended this product called Nood. Have you seen this? It’s a handheld laser you plug in at home and you can zap your whole face. And it was $199. I’m not proud of this. In a moment of weakness, I purchased it. And I used it for six months and…nothing. Zero reduction in hair growth. Nothing. I just was like, “What happened there, Virginia?”

And now it’s just sitting in my bathroom mocking me because I can’t donate it because it doesn’t work. Do you know what I mean? I can’t pass it on to someone else and be like, maybe it’ll work for you. Like, it probably won’t. I don’t think it works for anybody.

Thank you for hearing my confession.

Prostock-Studio, Getty Images

Anita

See, it’s so disappointing! I definitely have had experiences in my life where I thought “This one thing is going to be, amazing. It’s going to change everything.” And then it just doesn’t.

Virginia

Even though the influencer said it would on TikTok!

Anita

I mean, was she being paid to tell you that? I’m sure it was at least an affiliate link.

Virginia

Absolutely. Of course. I know this. And if I had done your process—I don’t think it was tiredness, exactly. But I do think it was just a feeling of flatness. And also, this is a chore and I would love it to be easier. I was like, well, it’s $200. But that’s so much cheaper than laser at the dermatologist. And there were just a lot of hopes and dreams that weren’t realized.

And at the end of the day, I would love to unpack my issue with that beauty standard, but that’s hard work too.

Anita

It’s really hard. I have had those those hairs lasered off myself and it’s really tough. I think we have to have a bit of compassion with ourselves for these things. Because there are so many people that have grown out hair in different places. And that’s really cool.

But there are some things that are so hardwired into us. And we are all in different places in our lives. Generationally, I think people have different experiences with this as well, because I think each generation has a very strong set of sort of beauty parameters that we have been sold and indoctrinated with. It can be really hard to step outside of these norms. There are people that do and that’s awesome. I think they’re really inspiring. But it can be really hard and I don’t necessarily think we have to push ourselves to do that. We don’t have to feel bad about those things.

So if the hairs are there, you don’t have to feel bad about that. Then it becomes a choice to actually remove them. But, you know, in a way that actually doesn’t waste your money.

Virginia

Yeah, at least don’t buy products off the internet that are not going to work. Probably just shell out for laser or keep using the little face razors.

Anita

Laser has made a massive difference for me. I guess as a side note, I was plucking them out and it was causing loads of hyperpigmentation on my dark skin. The laser was actually a real game changer. And because I would find myself sort of playing with them in a meeting. I was like, What am I doing? And then I realized I was, stroking my chin hairs.

Virginia

I do it all the time! But it’s a hard thing to talk about. That’s the thing. Often you feel so vulnerable even admitting you have this “beauty problem” because our belief systems around these beauty standards are so entrenched that then the only people who want to talk to you about it are the people who want to sell you a solution. And that’s tricky.

Anita

Conversations like this and normalizing things like this, I think are really important. Definitely when I was a junior beauty editor and beauty journalist I had never heard anyone admit to having chin hair or any of those things. And it is those honest conversations that make us go, oh, I’m not alone. It’s not such a bad thing. I’m not a freak. I’m not this. I’m not that. I’m not ugly.

Virginia

I just have a face. And human faces grow hair.

Anita

I just have a little furry face and that’s cool.

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Virginia

I’d love to also hear a little more about working as a beauty editor. I spent years in women’s magazine trenches here. I wasn’t in beauty but I was in health and wellness, which is very beauty-adjacent.

What are your thoughts about having navigated the beauty industry from inside it? And now as a critic of it? Is there anything you look back on and you think, well, that was wild that we did that? Or is there anything that you feel like this was actually really valuable but we need to do it in a different framing?

Anita

This is something I’m asked about a lot, you know, is there anything I regret writing, stuff like that? I think particularly for journalists, they probably you know, as time goes on, there are things you probably regret writing.

Virginia

Oh, for sure.

Anita

I think in pursuit of being funny, I definitely was a little unkind about people in features, as a bit of a joke. You know, like celebrities. And we’re in an era now where we don’t say things like that about people. It was a different time.

In terms of the actual content, I think there was only one time that I felt like it was out of sync with what I believed in really. It was when I actually worked on a health magazine, so I was a beauty and health editor at Women’s Health. None of it was sitting right with me. And I it took me ages to work out what that feeling was. And it was because number one, I was the only plus-sized person on the team of this big health and wellness magazine. I was one of the few people of color and the only plus-size person.

And, you know, we were writing about losing weight and macros and all of this stuff. Keto was huge then, when I was on that magazine. All of these things were normalized. A lot of our content was about cutting calories. When I looked at some of the cover lines, they really stayed with me because I just find them wild now, because they feel so out of date. There was one—I mean, it’s terrible but it was quite funny at the time. But it was like, “tapas that won’t give you a fat ass” or something like that. Which is actually slight genius.

Virginia

The magazine editor in me is like, so good. And then the fat activist in me is like, no.

Anita

And I remember thinking, Oh God. I remember being in a meeting and someone quite senior, a man, was talking about fat. And I just remember going, “But I’m fat.” And I just felt so out of place.

I think that if I could go back in time, I think that was probably not the right place for me. It didn’t feel like a right fit. I didn’t feel empowered doing it. It was a shame. I did I actually, when I was there, I did do quite a lot of content around being plus size, etc. But annoyingly I did do it from a weight loss place, because I was very much still in that zone.

It was before those conversations were being had. And although I was pushing for that internally, and I’d always push for those things wherever I worked. I look back on that and I’m like, That was not me. That didn’t feel empowering to me or anyone else actually. And I felt a little empty, I have to say.

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I’ve been lucky in that everywhere I have worked, generally speaking, apart from those very early jobs, I have been able to have a voice to a certain extent. Or I haven’t had to do too much that has jeopardized anything for me morally. I’ve always pushed to have diversity and inclusivity. I’ve always pushed to make things real. Wherever I have been able to control that, I have tried to do that. It’s been tricky, though, when I do look back and I’m like, that was not great.

Virginia

I have a million of those stories, too. I also think these big mainstream media outlets are reaching huge audiences. Anything we can do from inside that space to push the conversation in a better direction is also valuable. So it’s that push/pull.

And obviously, at a certain point, I was like, okay, I’ve pushed and pulled too much and I’m done. But I still think it’s hugely important to get the conversations into those spaces. It’s a both/and for me.

Anita

I think I got to a point where I felt like I was swimming upwards and I was like, I have got no more fight left in me. I cannot.

This is slightly a side note, but I remember actually drawing a diagram, like diagramming a picture of levels of oppression to have to explain intersectional feminism to an editor. And I was just like, No. Can’t do this. I thought I’d reached the peak of awful women’s magazine. I was like, I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. I shouldn’t have to do this.

Virginia

I shouldn’t have to justify my existence in this way.

I’d love to hear how working on the book has changed your own relationship with beauty. I mean, obviously, it’s part of this professional evolution, but personally as well.

Anita

One of the things in particular was just how much cosmetics, how the cosmetic surgery industry came about. I had no idea. To tell a very short version of the story: Post-World War II there were a huge amount of surgeons with nothing really to do. So they all were looking for work because they had fixed everyone that needed fixing from the war. They needed something to do to make money because they’d all trained in surgery. So they went, okay, what can we do? We’re going to manufacture some anxieties and try and fix those instead.

Virginia

“If only the war had given us more casualties we could have worked on.”

Anita

I mean, they still would have gotten done with those at some point, and turned towards fixing women and making us more anxious.

Virginia

That is a depressing origin story.

Anita

But fascinating because we don’t know that. I didn’t know that as a beauty journalist. I think just knowing some of that history can really give you perspective on things.

Because we are told, you know, “love yourself” and like “self love” and like “do some affirmations in the mirror,” etc. And that’s all great. But for me, I had been doing that for ages. And I’ve had loads of therapy and nothing had helped until I went back into history to find out: Why did that happen? Why has this become a thing? Because at some point, someone must have decided this was a thing. It was better to be lighter skinned, it was better to be thin, it was better to be young, etc. So where do all of those things come from?

So in the book, I’m almost learning these things with the reader. And it was just light bulb moment after light bulb moment. They all sort of sit together quite well. By the time I’ve done all the research and come out of that process, I was like, Oh my God, I feel like I have to rethink everything I ever thought about beauty and beauty standards, because there is so much here.

I think the thing that really struck me was actually just how much I didn’t know, even though I thought I knew a lot. And I think a lot of people, probably a lot of your listeners, we all think we know where this came from or why this happens. And actually reading those specifics can be really valuable.

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Virginia

It’s a little bit like how we all think we know the models are photoshopped. But when they do studies, they see that the photoshopping still impacts us. Even though we think we know what’s happening, we don’t know the extent of it and it still gets in your brain. So I think that’s like on a meta level what you were doing, like oh, yeah, I think I understand this and then it’s like, holy shit, there’s so much more.

Anita

As a modern example, I feel like if people saw what some people do for their pictures—celebrities, people who are in the limelight, influencers, etc. If people saw what they did to their pictures, they would probably be shocked. I don’t know, maybe in this day and age, people expect that but we still don’t know when you look at something for a tenth of a second, particularly with celebrities. I think a lot of people do really unfairly hold themselves up against celebrities and I know this firsthand being a beauty editor and having interviewed hundreds of celebrities.

There is so much that goes on to make a celebrity look how they look. Like, they do not arrive on a set looking the way they do at the end. And that’s no shade. They look great but there is a long process of transformation. And that comes from wealth, the privilege of wealth. I think we do often hold ourselves up to really unrealistic expectations and role models.

Virginia

Not to make this just about my continued chin hair acceptance journey, but because I have a feeling this question will come up in the comments: Is there a similar backstory that people don’t really understand about why facial hair on women is so stigmatized? I’m just curious if there was anything you came across in your research that helped connect those dots.

Anita

The story with body hair and underarm hair, I think is quite interesting. There was a certain point where leg hair and underarm hair, some people removed it, some people didn’t. But it wasn’t taboo until around the 1920s, where the fashion silhouette changes. But within that, Gillette launched a women’s razor, because they had conquered the male market and everyone had a razor, the old steel razor. It really seemed like if anyone had a razor, it was probably a Gillette razor. It was this really well made proper razor,

Virginia

You didn’t need to buy a new one every month.

Anita

There’s only so many of those you need. So they were like, oh, what can we do? Similar with the cosmetic surgery? What can we do next? Who can we target next? And then they were like, women. Okay, so what are we going to do with women? We’re going to shame them about their armpits. We’re going to shame them about their legs and make that a taboo. So there are quite a lot of stories of those things in beauty.

There is another one which is shampooing the hair. It was essentially people washing their hair once a week, and then all of a sudden, to sell more shampoo, this myth was created around us needing to wash our hair more, and to buy more shampoo. So yeah, there are quite a lot of stories like that.

Virginia

And the only reason we can shampoo less frequently now is if you’re doing an elaborate curly girl regimen where you need 12 products, so you’re still going to buy more things.

I guess one top line question to always ask ourselves is: Who created the market for this? Because it is a market that was created. It’s not an actual flaw that needs to be addressed.

Anita

I think most of those things that we don’t feel okay about or that we’ve been shamed for, that are shameful within society, have been manufactured by somebody. That somebody is quite often patriarchy. A lot of those ad companies, most of those companies, were owned by men. There were lots that weren’t actually, particularly makeup, but a lot of those companies were owned and run by men. The ad agencies were almost certainly run by men. That’s one system of oppression that was definitely very present and still is. And then there are lots of different ones on top of that, when we think about class and how that is so woven into beauty in a way that we don’t really think about.

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The tanning example is actually a really interesting one. Because there’s that flip. People talk about it all the time as an interesting anecdote, of Coco Chanel, she was on a yacht and she got a sunburn. And all of a sudden, people went from not wanting to have a tan because it signified that you worked outside and were of a lower class, to it being cool.

But the flip side was because of the industrialization that was happening at the time, people who were inside were now taking leisure time outside and people who were out working outside were now working inside in factories. It does all come back to class.

That narrative still lingers. I have so many friends who look in the mirror and go oh, I look so pale. I look pasty. And I always think that’s really interesting. You don’t think your skin tone looks okay. You don’t think you look well? Why is that? Because we’ve been sold golden skin. Not dark skin. Not naturally dark skin, however, because that is still not aspirational. But that lightly tanned, in the sun glow, we’ve been sold because it’s linked to wealth. There are just so so many things that have become part of our society and our narrative that actually really do come back to class and I think that’s really fascinating.

Virginia

Oh, that is really mind blowing. There’s so much there. Well, the book is fantastic. I’m so excited for folks to check it out.

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Butter

Anita

If I think about the thing that I’ve really enjoyed most recently, there was a really brilliant British photographer and she’s actually passed away now, sadly. And her work is sort of just becoming seen for the first time, in a public way. There’s actually a documentary about her that I think everyone can access. If you are in the UK, it’s on the BBC at the moment. And her name is Tish Murtha. She was a photographer from the 1970s to 1990s and was a real activist. She grew up in working class Newcastle in the UK in a time where there was a huge economic issues. People were really deprived. It was a really, really awful time.

tishmurtha

A post shared by @tishmurtha

She documents the reality of working class life, and the way she captures subjects is incredible. Because she’s one of those people, she really is able to embed herself in communities. I just think the work is beautiful. Very definitely worth checking out because she is this undiscovered, amazing sort of genius.

Virginia

Oh, these are incredible. I had never heard of her and I’m so excited to learn more about her. This is wonderful.

My Butter is actually also photo-related, but not professional, brilliant photography. But something I’ve been doing recently is making a point to print out more casual photos. I don’t know if you have this as much in the UK, but in the US, there is a very big culture here around having professional family photos taken where you all dress up in cute outfits. We did that for a few years when my kids were little and then they were just absolutely not available for it anymore. So I hadn’t printed out any family photos in the last few years.

And I was like, well, first of all, we all have an iPhone. So we all take good photos all the time. And I love some of the professional ones we’ve done with a photographer friend, they’re beautiful. But they don’t capture who my kids are, or who I am, on a day-to-day basis. And so I have been going back in my Instagram and my phone archives and just pulling out some random ones and getting them printed. And it is bringing me so much joy to have these very imperfect, candid shots. They remind me more of the family photos I would have had growing up.

And I am not wearing makeup or anything. Like, there’s a real ignoring of beauty standards because a lot of them are like, we took this in bed one morning or whatever. I’m just here to say we need to get some of those photos off our phones and into our lives because it’s really, really special to have them. I think particularly for moms, there’s a big erasure of moms from photos often. Like we’re often the ones taking the photos, we’re not in the photos. So make a point to get yourself in photos and then print them out and have them up.

Anita

Yeah, that’s really lovely. Actually, as a side note, on my 40th birthday, I took a random old school disposable 35 millimeter camera out with me, and gave it to one of my friends. And I was like, just take some pictures of people.

Virginia

I love that.

Anita

And I got these pictures back and it was so joyful. It felt like taking pictures in the 90s. As a result of that, I bought a proper, it’s actually a Lomography camera that does all like the mad color and light leaks and stuff like that. But I actually bought myself a manual camera to take take proper pictures again. And I bought a Polaroid as well because I was like, this is so joyful to capture a moment like this in the actual moment.

Virginia

Yeah, and with old school cameras like that, you can’t look at your phone and then pick the one that came out best. You just get what you get. I was trying to explain that to my kids. Like, back in the day we’d have like 20 pictures on a camera and they just couldn’t wrap their brains around that. Now I want to try that, too, and bring back the candid not at all styled photos. Really joyful.

So, Anita this was fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. Just tell folks how we can follow your work and how we can support you.

Anita

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been such a such a lovely chat. You can follow me on Instagram at itsmeanitab and the same on TikTok. And my Substack is .

Virginia

Fabulous. And we will of course link to the book which is called Ugly.

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