Written by Bend Beauty Humans, especially women, are constantly receiving messages from the media about how to “turn back the clock,” or what “anti-aging” products to use, and how to achieve “youthful skin.” This terminology reinforces a perception of aging as a negative thing; that it’s something we should fight back against. The collaboration between Bend Beauty and The Beyond Beauty Project is meant to educate and highlight brands who are celebrating aging as a magical th

Written by Bridgett Burrick Brown Entry September, 27th, 2022 "Mental health is nothing to be ashamed of and neither is talking about it." September is National Suicide Prevention Month - a time to raise awareness about a highly stigmatized topic in our society. So before the month ends, I have a story to share… it is the story of my rock bottom. I am 41 years old and standing in my closet in tears, struggling to fit in my favorite jeans I have had for years - having full-on

Entry: August, 31, 2022 When we use beauty, especially "youthful beauty," as the barometer of what tells us if we are beautiful or not, we use our beauty to harm us. There's no beauty fix for not loving yourself. We have been completely brainwashed to keep our aesthetic youth for as long as we can because, unfortunately, "youthful beauty" is our standard for beauty in our society. But what if it isn't? ...or what if it doesn't have to be the standard? What if? Can you stop fo

Written by Bend Beauty We’re all about creating beauty you can see and feel from the inside out. Diet is one of the greatest contributors to a radiant complexion – and in this post, you’ll learn more about the best foods to eat to support skin health. Let’s dive in! Walnuts Walnuts have a unique nutrient profile compared to all other nuts (1). They’re helpful for your microbiome, which we know is heavily connected to skin health! Eating walnuts promotes biodiversity and enri

Written by Bend Beauty Your skin is more susceptible than your other organs to damaging environmental factors. For example, it is highly prone to drying by indoor heating and parched winter air. This weakens and dehydrates the skin barrier, making it appear dull, flaky, and wrinkled. Heat from the sun can pass through to the dermis and trigger production of enzymes that break down collagen and elastin. Chronic exposure induces inflammation, damages the dermal extracellular ma

Written by Dr. Sura Devi Corrigan DC I was scrolling through Instagram and a video got my attention of a man styling a woman’s hair. The woman was by society’s standards very beautiful. I could tell she had a good amount of plastic surgery done and was wearing a lot of make-up. Her self-hatred was loud to me; almost overtaking her. My feeling was that the more she does externally to make herself beautiful, the more she doesn’t like herself internally. I felt for her. I realiz

Written by Carla Hamilton I saw a blazing, pink sunset in the homogenized, shopping complex last night. Spirit alive and saying, “There’s beauty in the mundane, in the cinderblock of box stores and parking lot grids.” You’ll go back to the pyramids and energy vortexes; the blue zone and the places with etheric cities, overhead or inside of glacial mountains. But for today, there is magic right here in the Olive Garden parking lot, and hand-delivered pasta and cheesecake are n

Written by Bend Beauty Sun protection is key to skin health. Your skin is your largest organ. Necessary to your survival, it provides a chemical and physical barrier that protects you from harm, including UV exposure (1). Like any other organ, your skin needs to be healthy to function correctly. The health and appearance of your skin depends on many internal and external factors. While sunscreen is key to skin health and longevity, we can further protect ourselves by choosing

Written by Amy Polacko “Letting go of a toxic partner is an act of self-love.” - Unknown You might be shocked by this - but when a woman named Brooke hopped on a Zoom coaching call with me and said she was grateful for her toxic relationship, I wasn’t. I help women take their power back during and after these devastating situations because I’ve been through it myself. I know firsthand how betrayal, emotional and physical abuse, plus narcissistic behavior can leave victims ree

Written by Bend Beauty When we nourish all the connections within us, something beautiful happens. Your skin performs many functions that are important to your overall health. It provides a protective chemical and physical barrier between you and the outside world, helps you interact with your environment, makes vitamin D and is part of your body’s total antioxidant defense and detoxifying systems. Many factors impact how well your skin can do its job including: Your unique g

Written by Doreen Godfrey I am sure I am not alone when I say “I love music.” It has the ability to evoke a full range of human emotion, transport us through time and even make us feel like a bona fide rockstar. Let’s be honest, who hasn’t been caught belting out their favorite 80’s jam in the car? Yep, I’m with you. So in this month of love, while many may pick up the pen to write to their loved ones, I write this note to music, a true love, now and forever. Dear Music, You

Written by Vicki Stojkovic Regenold “I’m getting free new boobs and a tummy tuck for my 40th birthday. PM me your email address and I will tell you how.” That was my social media post which led to the announcement of my Breast Cancer diagnosis. I was thirty-nine while drying off after a morning shower and noticed my left nipple had sunken in. I turned sideways and lost my breath, noticing the dimpling on the side of my left breast. I crawled back into bed before driving

Written by Jaclyn Willms For years my clients would come to me and say I had too much dessert last night, or I need to work out hard today, or I need you to kick my butt, and the best one yet – I need to have a good workout today because I need to look lean for an event tonight. I started to wonder how many of us work out because we are thankful for the body that we have been gifted with. Who is working out to celebrate what their body can do? Rather than being frustrated a

Excerpted from Ignite Your Light: a Sunrise-to-Moonlight Guide to Feeling Joyful, Resilient, and Lit from Within by Jolene Hart ©2020 Running Press. Your personal energy— a mix of thoughts and feelings, food and movement, people and surroundings that are uniquely yours— shifts across different parts of your day. In the sunrise moments, the earliest parts of your day from about 5 AM to 9 AM, the energy of your mindset, movement, and the way you prepare yourself for the day

Written by Bridgett Burrick Brown from BBP For 23 years, I consciously, deliberately, and sometimes rigorously upheld the image of a model. When I decided to take modeling seriously at nineteen, I had just quit a competitive six-day-a-week dance life - so I was much more athletic than the fashion world wanted me and was told to lose weight immediately. I was also a little shorter than they wanted me, so they told me to lie and say I was an inch taller. - "Everyone lied," they

Written by Lexie & Lindsay Kite, Ph.D. Excerpt from their new book, More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument Not an Ornament "In our doctoral research among eighteen-to thirty-five-year old women and in the online body image course we have offered for several years to girls and women ages fourteen and up, we started with that same simple question: How do you feel about your body? What we’ve found over and over is that when you ask women about their body image — in other w

Written by Marla Boehr Browsing through an array of glossy beauty magazines, strolling the main floor of the local department store, or simply taking a quick scroll through Instagram is a window into our culture’s obsession with youthful beauty ideals. Youthful skin is indeed beautiful – smooth, plump, and supple, it can almost have an otherworldly glow at times. I often caress my young children’s cheeks and simply marvel at their perfect pores. Although it seems like lightye

Poem Written by Mary Heaven Hands are portals to our hearts, they are an extension of the way we love. Think about it. How many times has someone been transformed by the gesture of a loving hand extended to them? A hand says, hold me while we cross the road, I will keep you safe. A hand says, I yearn to interlock our fingers, I love you. A hand says, let me be the guide, I will detect what is causing your pain, I can heal you. A hand says, it’s nice to meet you, I am so hap

When you are feeling anxious or overwhelmed, stop and ask yourself... "What is the next self-loving thing for me to do?" -Dr. Susan Plunket I always say we each need a box filled with personalized self-care tools. For me, this sets the foundation for everything to feel healthy and balanced in my life. Some of these tools I use daily, and some just as needed! My mental health, physical health, spiritual health, and relationships thrive when I am taking care of myself. After y

I was recently asked on a podcast why I created the Beyond Beauty Project. As I started talking, I realized how damn long my full answer is! The reason being is that the creation of it truly came from the history of my life. By the age of five, I started watching my Mom struggle with her self-image as the horrific disease of multiple sclerosis debilitated her body and stole her mental health. As her only daughter, I shared her tears and defeat as she unsuccessfully tried sh