Since time immemorial, nearly every industry imaginable has sold outer beauty to an incredibly willing populace. Makeup, retinol skin creams, mud from some ancient swamp that is guaranteed to take twenty years of hard living off of your face, anything to make a buck off of peoples’ fears and insecurities about how they look on the outside.
When we’re so focused on how we look on the outside, we forget to focus on something even more important: how beautiful we are on the inside. Those wonderfully weird intricacies that make us who we are. As modern consumers - how do we ensure that we’re making as much effort to enhance our inner beauty as our outer beauty?
As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time getting ready in the morning⸺five more minutes until my makeup and hair are perfectly done is really 30, 45 minutes if you keep harassing me, or 50 minutes if I actually need to put on lipstick⸺focusing on my inner beauty became something of a summer project for me.
The first step: how do I define inner beauty? Inner beauty, in a way, is just like outer beauty in that personal preferences will help you define what it means to be a beautiful butterfly on the inside. What are the traits and skills that you admire in other people? What are the things that people have said that they like about you? Are there things that you do that make you really happy? That makes you glow from the inside?
Happiness as Inner-Beauty
In my quest to define inner beauty for myself, I made self-care and self-knowledge a real priority. This led me to get my Enneagram done. If you’ve completed the latest version of a personality test, then you know what “type” of person you are. I’m Type #2 - the Helper. I wasn’t too surprised when I got this result. I love helping people. Nothing makes me happier than making someone else happy! I get this lovely tingly sensation all the way down to my toes after helping someone. If that doesn’t sound like “glowy” or beautiful, I don’t know what else does!
To me, part of doing something nice for others is giving gifts. I love giving gifts, and I mean real gifts. Not gift cards — don’t get me wrong, I get gift cards for people all of the time, especially if I know that’s what they need — but real gifts that show that you thought about them. Since I made finding my inner beauty my summer project, I decided to make helping my friends find their inner beauty part of my gift-giving process.
I have one friend who absolutely loves taking baths. She believes it is essential to her personal health and happiness to take a bath every night. As this particular friend has a summer birthday, I decided that she would be the first one to benefit from my inner-beauty project. So I went on the hunt for the perfect bath-related gift. Luckily, I didn’t have to search too far! Best Beauty Finds has the most adorable Bath Bomb Cupcakes Gift Set from Sky Organics.
Yes, you read that correctly. Bath Bombs that also look like cupcakes. You could seriously die from the adorableness of it all. Each cupcake (Bath Bomb) is a Bath Bomb and Bubble Bar. Bubbles, fizzy water, and cupcake-shaped bath products?! The best gift-giving crown shall be mine this year!
While my friend loves her baths, I’m something of a “bath for the purpose of beautification and relaxation” novice. So I decided to buy a Bath Bomb for myself. Best Beauty Finds had the perfect item for me: Handcrafted Hemp Oil Infused Bath Bombs. I just ordered these and I can’t wait to try them out! These Bath Bombs, in addition to being fizzy water bombs, are infused with Hemperia’s bestselling Essential Oil and Hemp Oil. While these Bath Bombs come in six different scents, I ordered Lavender, which is meant to help you relax your body and release tension. I also ordered Eucalyptus Spearmint which is supposed to help you wind down and relax. Are you sensing a theme?!
Alright, I feel beautiful on the inside when I help people. Check. What else makes me feel beautiful on the inside?
Fiscal Responsibility is Sexy
Self-care and self-love. I love it when I do something just for me, like indulging in a tasty treat or buying three pairs — I mean, one pair — of new shoes. Doing small things like allowing myself to have a treat after a long day feels indulgent, decadent, and wickedly wonderful. Unfortunately, I also made a summer resolution to try and save some money. So how do I indulge in new products and still stick to my budget?
Introducing the BBF Beauty Boxes. I cannot even begin to describe how late I am to the beauty box game. Best Beauty Finds offers a plethora of boxes for everyone’s budget and interests. There’s a “Beauty on a Budget” BBF Box for only $30, and it includes products at an estimated $403.90 value. The box that piqued my interest was the Summer BBF Box.
For the mere price of $49.99, you get: Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50, Organic Rosewater Mist Toner, Sea Salt Hair Mist with UV Protection, Better Bean Clean Face Coffee Scrub, and Organic Amazon Rainforest Brazilian Oil-Rich Body Butter. I would seriously pay that much just for the Organic Rosewater Mist Toner! This Box is the perfect recipe for a decadent and skin-friendly summer.
Getting My Inner Glow to Glow on the Outside
Alright. I’ve helped a friend by giving her a killer gift, and I got myself some wonderful beautification treats. Inner me is getting her glow on. So is it wrong to want outer me to feel some of that inner-beauty glow? Absolutely not. The final step of trying to figure out what makes me feel beautiful on the inside was realizing that I absolutely love pampering myself — fun facials, special face creams, and now fun baths thanks to the Bath Bombs from Best Beauty Finds.
Part of inner beauty for me is absolutely loving my skin, and that does require some maintenance, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun. Have a spa-day at home with your friends and treat yourself to some fun face masks or soak in the tub with a hair mask like the Professional Grade Blonde+ Nourishing Hair Mask from Avalanche Hair Laboratory. That one’s my favorite because it’s safe for color-treated hair, specifically blonde-colored hair, which, I’m admitting to not being a natural blonde … Inner beauty, inner beauty, it’s all about inner beauty.
With the summer heat causing me to sweat something fierce, my skin has been having some fun flashbacks to middle school-level acne. Nothing makes me feel less than stellar than having to face breakouts just before a big presentation at work. One of my new favorite finds is the “Queen Bee” Blemish Fighting Mask with Honey from Shray Skin Care. This is one of my favorite face masks because it draws from the beauty regimen of one of history’s most glamorous queens: Cleopatra. Cleopatra used to have face masks of raw honey applied. This “Queen Bee” mask uses Honey Extract, a natural antibacterial, and is meant to prevent pimples and redness.
Another fun mask meant to tackle fine lines, wrinkles, and sagging skin is D24K by D’OR. These 18-in-1 Pure Luxury Lift & Firm Mask Sets are normally $795.00, but Best Beauty Finds is offering them for the alarmingly low price of $69.99. These lightweight gel-like masks are saturated in gold nanoparticles to allow maximum serum absorption, delivering exceptional hydration for your sun-soaked skin.
If you don’t have time to indulge in a mask, letting your skin soak overnight is a great alternative. Beautify while you sleep! I like to put serums on my skin, mostly because they sound a bit fancier than creams and they’re usually a bit lighter, too. I don’t know about you, but waking up to an oil-based outline of my face on my pillow does not sound fun.
The Hemp & Hyaluronic Acid Facial Serum from Dynamic Innovations is wonderful because it is light in consistency, but deeply moisturizing and filled with the right nutrients, proteins, and antioxidants to help your outer glow match your inner glow. This serum is specifically designed to rejuvenate the skin’s natural ability to remain firm and smooth itself. How?! Peptides, my friends. This serum includes peptides meant to improve and maintain skin elasticity for a more youthful and tighter appearance.
While this serum may be used in the morning and evening, I prefer to use this serum in lieu of a heavy night cream. I wash my face and put the serum on. Then by the time I’ve brushed my teeth, the serum is completely absorbed, and I can go to bed with a soft, not oily, face.
To recap: for me, inner beauty means a happy inner-self. How do I accomplish that happiness to get that perfect inner-glow? I indulge in gift-giving, the occasional treat for myself, and taking care of my skin. What about you? What does inner beauty look like for you?