Roughly twenty-five years ago my mother started subscribing me to Seventeen Magazine. I guess she did this in a last-ditch attempt to mold me into the perfect image of female her mother had aggressively ingrained in her, since neither dance lessons, cheerleading, Girl Scouts, nor all the Barbie Dolls and all their skimpy Barbie clothes had made me any less awkward or kept me from eating all the junk food that was well-stocked in our kitchen.

I was a chunky tween. I had a very round face, and still do. People used to commonly and openly comment in front of me how beautiful my younger sister was. I distinctly remember asking my mother why everyone said my sister Kelly was beautiful, while saying nothing of the sort about my buck-toothed ass. My mother responded something about my beauty being “ethereal,” a word I did not yet understand, and having nothing to do with my sister’s outward beauty.

I was overly aware of my friend’s bodies. They were thinner than me. Wore smaller sizes than me. Had thinner faces than me.

I carried this deluded way of thinking into college. I went to a large university where there was no shortage of beautiful girls; the type of girls who look amazing immediately after rolling out of bed hungover on a Tuesday. The type of girls who go tanning and to the gym (I barely knew what the gym was) and who all the boys in my coed dorm spoke salaciously about (which I somehow envied). All my roommates were beautiful girls who my few guys friends asked about frequently. Why, I wondered, wasn’t I beautiful?

Then one day in a packed lecture I looked around at my 200 classmates, and beheld a sea of platinum blonde heads. I decided right then and there I was no longer going to try to fit in with all these people whose idea of beauty was the perfect set of highlights, a face plastered with cosmetics and a thigh gap.

Ever since then, I’ve been on a path toward embracing my own beauty–the beauty God graciously bestowed upon me. I have freckles. Skinny legs. Eyes that squint when I’m happy. Hair that is red and blonde and brown and so very vibrant. I am friendly. I love to make strangers smile. I love to compliment people. I hug my 3 kids and love on them with reckless abandon. I have breasts that have nursed 3 babies into good health. Hips that have born those children.

I am 36. It’s a good age, I think. I still have a lot of the beauty I spent my youth taking for granted, and I also have a hard-won attitude toward the beauty industry, and it’s this:

Fuck You.

Every one of us is born with innate beauty, and each of us are captivating to the One who created us. We don’t need to look like the women who are selected by editors and publishers and photographers to sell their publications. We don’t need to look like the women in Hollywood who are so concerned about their appearance they don’t even bear their own children.

And I’ll tell you this: I do not need your beauty products to be beautiful.

I don’t need the lipstick that burns like acid when it’s applied. I don’t need your anti-aging serum, because age is a gift not everyone gets to enjoy. I don’t want your anti-wrinkle cream, because every wrinkle on my face has a memory behind it. I don’t want your night cream that evens skin tone, erasing the freckles I have earned from every sweet day I’ve spent under the Sun. I don’t need the concealer, I don’t need the mascara that makes my eyes “alluring,” I don’t need your brow pencil and I don’t need your ridiculous lip plumper.

I look in the mirror these days and I LOVE what I see. I see a strong, confident, intelligent woman who is living a fulfillment of her dreams. I see a woman who has some really great stories. I see a beautiful woman.

I’m not some impressionable child anymore.

The beauty industry and their advertising and their “independent consultants” have never made me feel beautiful.

The only person who has ever made me feel beautiful is ME.