I know what you THINK I’m going to say here.   You expect me to puff my chest and proudly say that I embrace myself, flaws and all.  That I want to celebrate my curves and everything about everyone defines their uniqueness, and unique is beautiful!  And yes, those things are true.  But transparency is the premise of my entire blog, so I want to share the real reason I have decided I will not photoshop my body on my blog. And it’s pretty straight forward.  It’s because I REALLY, REALLY WANT TO.  

Wait.  What?  Yep.  I want to because every other picture I see on blogs I admire looks perfect.  The bloggers look gorgeous, flawless, and fit.  They have photoshopped away every imperfection we could possibly see.  And so then, that makes me want to do the same.  So the cycle continues.  But if I do that, doesn’t that make you want to, too?

When I first contemplated blogging, one of the biggest potential deterrents were the few blogs I had seen.  Sound strange?  They just looked so professional.  And beautiful.  And their BODIES.  Wow.  I wear relatively little makeup, have little to no photography skills, have nobody around me who really does either, and I feel like I look nothing like the majority of these gorgeous divas on their blogs.  So I felt VERY inferior.  I just wanted to share pretty things and amazing travels with great prices.  But it dawned on me I’d have to MODEL the clothes and show you pics of me in those amazing places! Crap!  And I wondered what the heck I was thinking.

When I started looking at some shots I had forced my husband to take and wondered where those extra chins came from, I decided to consult trusty Google to get some tips on looking decent in pics.   My initial thoughts immediately took me to this beautiful blogger with incredible style who I’d accidentally stumbled across while researching my recent trip to Italy.   She is young, effortlessly confident in her photos, and incidentally looks incredible in bikini shots.  I figured, this chic has it down.  I need her tips on how to pose to maximize your natural beautfy.

So I began googling “how [her name] poses for pictures in bikinis.”  My research revealed a bit of a scandal a couple years ago where she was exposed for photoshopping her pictures.  I’m not going to lie.  I was shocked.  Call me naive, but she is SO YOUNG and seemed so confident!  How could she have succumbed to this?  She apparently denied it for many months claiming she just “knows how to pose and knows her angles” but when someone took pics of her with their own camera and compared them to photos she posted later that day in the same swimsuit to her Instagram account, she finally fessed up.  She explained she thinks “everyone is doing [it] because of what they see in the media.  I think the general population are just trying to follow exactly what they see with pictures being edited.”

To be honest, my heart sank when I read that.  Didn’t her mom ever tell her that “if all of your friends are jumping off a bridge” business?  Even her, this sensational woman who is genetically blessed by today’s societal standards doesn’t think she is good enough to be herself.  And I don’t blame her!  When you read more about the “expose,” you see hateful comments discussing her cellulite and other “imperfections.”  So she succumbed, much like most other people posing in front of cameras.  And I wish she would know how beautiful she is even without that photoshopping.

So I don’t judge her or anyone else who plays around with photoshop and completely get where she and they are coming from.  But when I considered whether I should do the same, I had to ask myself.  Is it really completely harmless and just in good fun?  Because you see, here is the thing.  That powerhouse blogger has millions of followers.  And the majority of her followers are young girls.  And we all remember how undevelpeled our self esteem and self awareness was at that age.  And it’s so much worse now. So to see unreal representations of a woman’s body, to see someone who–in real life–looks better than MOST humans walking the face of the earth–STILL feel the need to photoshop her body for pictures,  what message are those young girls receiving? How can they EVER appreciate their bodies for what they are? How can their best ever be good enough?

So if I fall into that trap–if I follow suit–what am I saying to my readers or anyone who happens to stumble across my Instagram or website?   Love yourself–but only your photoshopped self?  Love yourself, but only when “yourself” is a perfect version for the world to see?  To go deeper, I feel I’d be telling anyone who sees my blog to present an altered and FAKE version of themselves, because their actual best isn’t good enough.  And I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I affected people like that.

The reason I started this blog was to be real.  When my good and so supportive friend, Tobi, told me she was excited about me starting a blog, I joked back in a self-deprecating way something to the nature of “thanks, it’s not saving the world, but it’s fun!” She kindly and seriously responded to me that making even one person feel good about themselves is making a difference.  And she was so right.   That’s what I want to do!  I firmly believe and want to share that you can feel and look beautiful without a celebrity budget and without a celebrity body.    So how does it help anyone if I hide my own imperfections or change the way I look in an outfit I’m recommending to you?  You need my candidness and honesty to find the best fit or look for you.  So I have to give it to you.

So there you have it.  The reason I won’t photoshop my body in my blog posts is simple. It’s not because I’m super confident and fearless and amazing.  It’s because I REALLY WANT TO.  But I don’t WANT to want to. And I don’t want YOU to really want to.   So I’m going to try hard to be just me.  I will probably never become as popular or esteemed as the girls who alter their bodies to look unbelievable.  But that was never my goal.  I wanted to be transparent and fun and light.  I’ll play with poses and light and colors.  But I won’t cinch my waist, I won’t slim my legs.

Ironically, when I take this stance, that “right” answer to the question of why I don’t photoshop my body in my blog becomes my truth!  When I shed the fear and take the stand that this is just how it’s going to have to be, I DO embrace myself!  And I DO want to celebrate my curves and uniqueness and am grateful for the one body that I have!   And I hope you will find a way to make that your truth, too.  Love the body you have. It’s the only one you’re going to get! So here’s to us, celebrating beauty in ALL shapes and sizes and levels of imperfection!  Because we are all PERFECTLY IMPERFECT!

XOXO

Elisha