MilliOnAir Magazine July/August | Page 283

Have you ever had a treatment—aesthetic or beauty wise—that has gone wrong? 

After having a car crash at just 22, I was keen to try and get my face, body, and emotional well being back to some kind of resemblance of the person I was before. I very naively underwent a lot of procedures to feel better about myself, and I have had a total of eleven surgical cosmetic procedures. Some were good and some not-so-good, and it was this ‘walking blindly’ into the cosmetic wilderness that led me to question; who do we turn to when things go wrong?

The answer for me all through that decade of procedures was ‘no one’. A few years later, I set up the Safety in Beauty Campaign after writing my first ever book for Apple Press and Firefly Publishing called The Cosmetic Surgery Companion. My experiences led me to vocalise my concerns, my highs and lows, and encouraged me to write a blog that gathered a staggering Twitter following of around 50,000 people, which in turn led to people coming out of the woodwork and share their stories with me. In that unity, I knew I had to start something to help these people and in turn influence and pressure change in the cosmetic and aesthetics industry for the better.

What was your earliest beauty experience you remember having done?

Sadly my family didn't have a lavish income when I was growing up; laser hair removal was an expensive luxury and makeup seemed unaffordable. I didn't really have my ‘glow up’ until I was almost 20. I clearly remember having my long Brazilian-style wild and curly mane being chopped off to a shoulder blunt cut bob, and then blow-dried sleek straight. That to me was a huge turning point in my life and it made me feel elegant, lady-like, and sexy.

I really started to focus on everything else, and began to really get into grooming and skincare and the joys of discovering good quality makeup, no cheap teeny gimmicky stuff. Sadly, around a couple of years later I suffered a terrible car crash and my worst nightmare as a young lady happened; I sustained a good deal of facial injuries and developed body dysmorphia as a result. It would then take years to heal from that, but I am lucky that I did. The power of a good haircut and style at such a young age was the catalyst for me personally, and I will never forget that.

 

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