SUMMER IS A STATE OF MIND: MADDIE EDWARDS ON BEING FREE OF CLEAR SKIN EXPECTATIONS

What do beauty therapists, big sisters and skinfluencers all have in common? They all want to help women feel strong, empowered and beautiful... and they’re all the ways that I realised my mission in life. My name is Maddie Edwards, and helping people fall in love with themselves is my passion. 

MY INFLUENCES GROWING UP

Growing up with my four sisters and my beautiful mum, our appearances were commented on very often. Everywhere my sisters and I went when we were little, somebody would tell us how pretty we were. It didn’t move me really. Of course, the compliments were nice, but most of the time, they fell on deaf ears because I was busy being a kid. I think like most 90s babies, I’d hear my mum talking to her friends about this new soup diet she found in a magazine, or about an easy exercise that could give you abs in two weeks, all while she lay outside in the midday sun, covered in coconut oil to keep her skin bronzed. I remember my Dad telling her: “You have no good pairs of jeans, you’re always in tracksuit pants, let me buy you some nice jeans”, and mum would say “I can’t justify spending good money on jeans when my bum and legs are this big”. She was always at war with her body, and I just couldn’t for the life of me understand why she didn’t feel good enough the way she was. I thought she was perfect. She was cuddly and warm and had the kind of smile that would make everyone around her smile back. She was undeniably stunning, but the way she looked didn’t matter, because the most beautiful thing about her was all the love she had to give. She gave it to everyone but herself. Constantly rejecting herself while striving for unattainable perfection. 

When I was 19, we had a family holiday to Hawaii. In the months leading up to the trip, I felt I had to get my body ‘summer ready’. The regular compliments on my appearance and my distorted perception of what was considered beautiful had manifested itself into something quite negative. I felt like I owed it to people to look perfect and I was struggling with poor body image. If I didn’t hit the gym and the solarium hard enough, I’d be ‘too pale’ and ‘chunky’ to be worthy of going on a beach holiday. What kind of ‘summer body’ would that be? Desperate to look tanned like Alexis Ren and less like my ‘pasty’ self, on the first day in Hawaii, I lay out in the sun, drenched in oil, and accidentally burnt myself to a crisp. I had heat stroke so bad that I fainted and wet myself at the airport on the way to another island. I remember thinking how crazy the lengths us women go to in trying to achieve perfection are. Who decides what perfect looks like anyway?  

Soon after Hawaii, I completed my beauty therapy studies, and eventually found myself in an incredibly fulfilling little corner of the beauty industry as a Brazilian waxer. Somedays I would see more than 10 vulvas. I noticed two things almost immediately. 1) Vulvas all look the same. Of course, they have their differences and little quirks, but the ‘bits’ are the same, and they all serve the same purpose. And 2) women are constantly apologising for simply just being. “Sorry I’m so hairy, I’ve been busy and haven’t been able to get here.” “Sorry, my C-section scar is probably in your way.” “Sorry, about my belly, let me know if you need me to stretch it out of your way.” All the things they’d apologise for were normal. What are they comparing themselves to? Who has told them that they need to be sorry for having pubic hair and scars, and for not having a flat stomach? Our bodies are incredible. Our skin stretches with us from the day we’re put on this planet until the day we leave it. It allows us to run, to travel, to cook, to eat, to hug each other, to love, to grow life. Is it meant to look flawless while it does all that?  

MY SKIN STORY 

My skin started to break out in cystic acne in my early twenties. I’d had perfect skin most of my life besides the odd pimple and little inner elbow eczema flareup. I freaked out. I wasn’t met with compliments anymore, but I had unsolicited advice coming at me from every angle imaginable. I knew people just wanted to help, but every time someone asked me if I’d tried Roaccutane or cutting out dairy, my self-confidence took a hit. I felt worthless. If I’m not pretty, what am I? I didn’t like the feeling of wearing make up while I had acne, so I went to work without foundation one day. My boss told me that I looked dirty and unprofessional and that I had to wear make up to work. The humiliation brought me to tears and I never wanted to be so vulnerable again.  

ACCEPTING MY SKIN

I opened my own beauty business from home and started posting about my real skin online. It was nerve-wracking but it felt like I was closing the chapter of self-hatred and beginning my journey to healing and self-acceptance. I garnered a beautiful and supportive audience on Instagram, and I owe so much to that community. I started incorporating daily habits that I knew would help me find self-love, like telling myself I was beautiful in the mirror each morning. Those affirmations felt like strength training. It didn’t matter what other people said about my skin throughout the day, because I knew that I was beautiful and that’s all that matters. I get comments daily from people telling me to go and see a dermatologist, to remove dairy/gluten/sugar from my diet, to stop wearing make up when I have acne, but they honestly just feel like words being thrown at me now. The only opinions on me that hold any weight are from my loved ones and professionals. Why would I worry about what somebody who has no context thinks about me? 

I forced myself to go out without make up on, which made me SO uncomfortable, but I knew my relationship with make up was negative. I used it to hide and cover myself up, whereas now, I’m finally at a place where I wear make up because I want to, not because I need to. I see it as a form of self-expression and celebration, which is so positive and a complete 180’ switch up. I focused on all the things that my friends and family love me for. My compassion, the way I make them feel heard and loved, those special parts of us that make us unique and special; we often ignore them while we’re focusing on making sure our bodies are ‘summer ready’...I put that in quotation marks because that term doesn’t exist in my vocabulary anymore. 

FEELING CAREFREE DURING SUMMER 

I’ll tell you what the perfect summer body looks like. It looks like yours. It looks like mine. It looks like my mum in her fifties after five kids. You don’t have to be tanned or skinny or have a perfectly neat bikini line to go to the beach. I’m 29 and I still get back, chest and face acne. Eczema too! And even after all the hard work I’ve done to break myself free from the shackles of society’s beauty standards, I still have to remind myself that I’m worthy of going on that summer holiday. I was this close to cancelling my July trip to Spain because my body skin was breaking out so bad and I was feeling insecure. But I came to the realisation that I’m going to have acne whether I’m here at home feeling sad, or I’m going to have acne while I’m living it up on a boat off the Costa Brava. It’s summer, and I have a body. Regardless of what that body looks like, I deserve to live life free of the pressure to look perfect. I’m making a conscious effort not to let worrying about this incredible body I’ve been gifted get in the way of my life again. Vulnerability and confidence will always be more beautiful than the way we look.