Before I start I will
warn you that this is an
extremely long post!
I used to be an ugly duckling and I am still in the process of becoming a 'swan' (which, to me, is being completely satisfied and content with my appearance). People might find me attractive, but there are still parts of me I consider to be ugly or unusual compared to the rest of me.
I never had many friends in secondary school, but instead of suddenly gaining friends when I began my slow transformation, people hated me
more. I did get asked out by more guys, but since they bullied me before (or bullied others) I rejected every single one of them. I don't date jerks just because they might be 'cool' or 'popular'. However, since I was improving my appearance for myself I carried on doing what I was doing, regardless of all the worsening bullying and rejection.
Before I tell anyone how I transformed myself (and how I got set back) I have to tell you what I looked like in the beginning because some things I did might not work for others due to different appearances.
I am 158cm /just a little over 5'2” and a size US 2-4/EU 34-36/UK 6-8. Sometimes I fit into a US 0 in some stores. I had smaller boobs back then (only a 32AA), but I never really noticed them (though there wasn't much to notice!) and I was glad because I was afraid of being sexually harassed by the guys like other big-breasted classmates were. I was also pear-shaped as although my breasts were practically non-existent, my hips were 89 cm/35 inches. They appeared almost overnight and so I had stretch marks on my hips and thighs, despite never being 'fat' in my entire life.
I am half Asian, half Caucasian, with light tan skin, dark auburn hair and hazel eyes (brown with green around edges and a tiny bit of grey). I have oily skin and back then I did nothing about it and would come out from school at the end of the day with my face looking like a beacon. This oiliness gave me a million spots that were aggravated by me always leaning my cheek/jawline on my hand in class. My hair was also oily and I would worsen that by always running my fingers through it. I had the longest hair in the school that went past my butt and it looked awful because I had lots of split ends lower down and the weight of my hair made it look flat on top. Despite my hair being dark auburn, my eyebrows and eyelashes were jet black. This made my extremely thick eyebrows look even worse than they already did and people would mock me about them. I had hairs between my eyebrows and on my upper lip that were slightly darker than the palest peach fuzz everyone has on their face, but as I am sure most of you know, bullies will scrutinise you as much as they can to find something they can pick on you for. I knew other girls who had darker hair there than I did, but since they were popular nobody said a word. What was even worse though, was that my grandfather on my mother's side was very hairy. My mum had inherited that and so had I; I had horrible hairy arms. Asians are mostly hairless, so that made things even worse, although there were plenty of other girls who had arms as hairy as mine and even hairier. I had crooked, overcrowded teeth, my lips were always dry and chapped, and before I grew hips my legs were like sticks with ugly, knobbly knees.
What did I do to transform myself into something more attractive (I guess these can double as tips for those who have similar problems)?
Before I went to secondary school, I already had been maintaining long, oval-shaped nails and they were the one thing all the girls were jealous of: my elegant hands with the nails they could never have because they couldn't stop biting them. I continued to keep my nails this way.
I started wearing high heels, even though the only ones allowed by the school were ugly, chunky ones. Along with the growth of my hips, this also helped fill my legs out more so they were slim, but shapely.
I came from a poor family, so I could not afford to buy expensive make-up or face care products to combat my extremely oily skin, so I made do with taking an old eye-glitter container (free from some magazine) filled with baby powder to absorb the oil. It worked, but it also set me back by causing more spots and making me look slightly paler and therefore ill...
I trained myself to stop touching my face in class and running my fingers through my hair in boredom.
I started washing my hair every single day to stop it from getting so greasy and began using conditioner to prevent the dryness that led to split ends lower down. Despite all the glares I received from girls who bossed me around and demanded I raise money before cutting my hair, I went and cut my hair to just below shoulder length and used volumising shampoos to try and stop it from looking so flat.
I started plucking my eyebrows. For a few years they were over plucked and I did not realise this until I saw some awful photos from my eighteenth birthday. I grew them out thicker and reshaped them into beautiful arched eyebrows that I even get compliments on.
I plucked and bleached unwanted facial hair and began shaving my legs and plucking my bikini line (couldn't afford wax and was afraid to mess it up, anyway). I was bullied so much that I became obsessive and paranoid about hair removal for a long time; I would spend hours locked in the bathroom, every single day, inspecting my body with a pair of tweezers in my hand and my bleaching kit and shaver nearby. I was scared to shave my arms in case I made it worse, so I always wore the school uniform jumper (sweatshirt) even when I was so hot in the summer I could feel sweat dribbling down my legs.
Eventually, I discovered an epilator and I believe I received one as a gift either for my birthday or for Christmas. I epilated both my legs and my arms, but I was still afraid to wear short-sleeved clothes as instead of hair, tiny amounts of thick dark oil collected in the hair follicles and it looked like I had blackheads. I have no idea what they actually were, but they were not noticeable unless you brought your eyes within 3 inches' distance from the skin on my arm. However, being so obsessed and paranoid with hair,
I noticed these tiny, little marks and could not bear the thought of wearing anything less than long-sleeved.
I got braces to correct my teeth, but this set me back because the man was not an actual qualified orthodontist. He misaligned my jaw and I was told I would need an operation later on in life if I did not have braces again. So, here I am at age 21 with braces. Hopefully they will be off before I turn 22.
I started wearing lip balm to combat my chapped lips and I trained myself to stop licking them all the time in an effort to keep them from going dry. However, the lip balm (Vaseline) created white slime at the corners of my lips, which I had to wipe away every few hours. It was disgusting.
Once I was in sixth form college, I could afford to spend some money on skincare products. I bought acne treatments, toners, oil-reducing face washes and oil-preventing moisturisers.
I became interested in a guy and he seemed to like another girl. I tried to emulate her sense of fashion to attract him by wearing more sporty, neutral-coloured, masculine clothes even though I had never found them attractive.
After all of these transformations, I got a lot of attention from guys, but this set me back after verbal and physical sexual harassment and being stalked (I was stalked twice, but the second stalking in university was less of a setback even though it was much scarier than the first). I began to dress even more masculine and made sure to wear baggy clothes in an effort to draw the least amount of attention. I was paranoid I was going to get raped and sometimes I had small panic attacks when walking home in the evening.
I needed glasses. I made sure to buy ones with a frame that looked elegant and sophisticated and suited my oval face shape. Later on I invested in contact lenses.
In university I started to wear oil-absorbing powder on my face instead of baby powder. I looked more normal instead of ill now, but it still caused more spots.
I began wearing concealer to hide blotches left by spots on my face and bought a cream that claimed it would fade them.
I discovered oil-absorbing sheets and began using these instead of clogging my pores with powder and concealer.
I started wearing perfume.
I built up the courage to wear shorter-sleeved tops despite the hideous blackhead-like things on my arms that only I could see.
I found a better lip balm that did not leave disgusting white slime at the corners of my lips.
I swapped the loose, masculine clothes, for more form-fitting and feminine ones. Out went the trainers, combat trousers (khakis), tracksuit bottoms, baggy jumpers (sweatshirts) and hooded tops; in came the suede boots, stylish jeans, little pink tees, elegant long-sleeved boat neck tops and dangling earrings. I looked and felt great and received a lot of compliments in university, whereas in secondary school I knew I would have only received jealous criticisms and looks of disgust for attempting to rise above the lowest step where the bullies had pushed me down to.
I got even more attention, but now I had grown I was stronger and more confident so I could handle things better than when I was a teenager. Now that I had transformed even further, it seemed men were more hesitant to harass me even though I caught more eyes staring in my direction. However, somewhere inside me, I still had the lingering fear of being attacked by a r*pist and I felt nervous when receiving attention.
After moving to Canada I began wearing more skirts and high-heeled sandals and boots. I painted my nails more often and carried myself with pride and confidence. I started realising exactly how to flatter my body type: although I did not have large breasts (at this point they had grown to an A and are now a small
my ribcage was shaped in a V and so form-fitting clothes showed off a nice hourglass figure. I realised that jeans and trousers had to be more than just tight to show that I did have a nice and shapely butt (despite it not being an enormous bubble-butt); I had to pick a pair where the pockets were not so large or long that they prevented the crease of my butt cheeks showing (this makes your butt look flat and saggy, no matter how big and round it is). I received much more attention than I ever did in England. I felt like a supermodel sometimes; the way people gawked at me.
My boyfriend convinced me there was nothing to be ashamed about with the hair on my arms, legs, or on my face. I became a lot less obsessive and paranoid; cutting down the time I spent bleaching from two hours to ten minutes, and from almost every day to once a week. I also stopped shaving/epilating my legs every day unless I were going to wear a skirt. I allowed the hair on my arms to grow back and realised it was not so bad apart from a small number of dark brown hairs here and there that could easily be plucked. I decided leaving the hair looked a lot better than having those blackhead-like spots. I did not feel they were ugly any more and was not so paranoid, but I have decided that it does look a little unusual with my very feminine hands and am considering trying professional waxing.
I drank a lot more water and started seeing improvements in the decreased number of spots on my face. I also discovered many of the products I have been using could have been making my skin worse rather than better as most products are designed for white people and can have a negative effect on non-white people's skin. I am still in the process of using up all my old products before buying something that will help me get rid of the dark blotches on my face from acne and I have yet to find something that will get rid of the stretch marks on my hips and thighs.
I rarely wear make-up unless I am going to some special event as I know it can cause acne and speed up ageing (or so I've heard). I also have yet to find a lipstick that will keep my lips moisturised so that they don't crinkle up into raisins after an hour or so of applying the lipstick (chapped lips under lipstick does not look good at all).
Also, I am still trying to eat even healthier than I already do, conquer my fears of being the centre of attention and tone up a little.
I think the best thing I ever did towards the end of this was: to
stop caring what other people think! It saved me a lot of stressing over nobodies and made me feel much happier, relaxed and carefree. I dress and change my appearance as I see fit and if someone is bothered by me not looking how
they want me to look, that is their problem and not mine.
and i'm lifting weights to make my self strong.YOU HAVE TO RELY ON YOURSELF BUT NO ONE
Glad it's not.
It all starts from the inside.
