%20jpg_edited.jpg)
I used to see filters as a fun way of sending pictures to friends and family and to add silliness! However now in my role as an aesthetics nurse I have seen an increased demand from patients, asking for treatments that are neither safe nor obtainable, to alter the way they look. As an aesthetics and wellness clinic, this concerned all of us and we tried to think of a way to change people's expectations of themselves and promote natural beauty.
As yes, I have received comments that, what we do as a clinic isn’t natural, but my reply to these comments is this. We DO NOT, pump filler into patients faces in a non-ethical or safe way. We are able to discreetly enhance individuals in the slightest and most natural way, which I call tweakments: we don’t alter face shape, size, color, add or remove any of their own beauty. We simply enhance what they already have.
As some of you may be aware, I have bilateral talipes. This means both feet are club feet. I was born this way. I have had extensive surgery since birth all the way up to 12 years of age. In total 26 operations. I was in plaster casts from the day I was born. Hospital was like home. Theatre was the norm for me! As you can image this has left a mark. I have millions of scars on the legs and feet, and my feet aren’t a “normal” shape. It has taken me YEARS to accept that this is Just the way I am. I would never wear shorts, dresses or skirts. This used to limit me massively on what I could wear. It has taken me to at least my 30s to accept and now my thought process is.. I can’t change it, it is how I am, and I am going to embrace it now. I love that I can have the confidence to wear what I want and not be concerned about what others may think of me! Yes people look, they stare but I just smile and tell myself I am beautiful! These scars I have, enable me to walk, they enable to me work, the enable to take my boys out, and lastly, they allow me to dance!!
It concerns me that, me included, women and men, take so long to accept themselves the way they are. We always focus on the down sides and not the ups! I am a mum, a nurse, have a successful career, I am a happy person, I have nice eyes…. But i always focus on the scars.
Moving slightly away from filters, I crop photos so are above waist height, but it is exactly the same concept of filters, hiding behind a screen, altering the way we look, to what we assume will be more appealing or accepted.
I worry for my children that what they see online, behind the filters isn’t real life. It isn’t achievable.
As my boys are quite young still, they see apps as funny, they can make silly faces, add silly pictures and to children that is funny. The older children however, who aren’t as mentally mature as they like to think they are, will struggle.
So as a company, we bared all, to show it is ok to be natural. We will scream and shout and educate as much as we can go o the message across! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, just the way you are ….
Harriet x
