YouTube beauty guru Desi Perkins posted a quote on her Instagram one day and it read, “You don’t have to be pretty like her; you can be pretty like you.” This spoke volumes to me. Being a part of the beauty industry is the most rewarding career, in my eyes. However, you can’t help but notice everyone’s beauty around you and seem to think that your own is absent. Especially, someone like Desi Perkins, for instance. Her inner beauty is just as breathtaking as her outer beauty, and it’s a little hard to not let envy shine like your highlight. So to see someone like her, empowering other women with this quote instilled confidence in me.

Each and every one of you are beautiful in your own unique way. Whether it be a giving heart, selfless character, unique sense of style, talent with a makeup brush, an eye for slicing hair into masterpieces (the list goes on), you are beautiful.

I know it has taken me 27 years, (yes, just this year I can say I am beginning to love myself) to find myself and discover this soul that I love. Contradictory to that, I have come across the most experiences this year that have allowed me to discover how many people may not love me. That problem isn’t mine. And the people who don’t love you, that problem isn’t yours either. I’m not one to sugarcoat, so let me just say we live in a a pretty judgmental, close-minded world. I mean, take a look at the Orlando events. The victims loved themselves and accepted themselves and had confidence in who they were, but the criminals could not have possibly loved themselves in order to hate someone else that much.

So this quote that I stated above is about loving yourself. Loving how pretty you are. Of course you will never be pretty like her, because you are pretty like you.