Scents for the Girly Girl

My mother grew up in a household that was very conservative, full of rules about how people (mainly women) should and shouldn't adorn themselves. (No earrings, no pants, no short hair, etc. etc.) As she became an adult and left that culture, she tentatively started wearing make-up. But even then, my dad didn't really go for make-up, so not usually anything more than blush or lipstick was worn.

Since my mom didn't grow up in a culture that focused on external beauty, I wasn't taught how to wear make-up, and we bought clothes for functional reasons (i.e. not showing up for the first day of school naked), not because we "just had to have it" or it was this year's style. ("Go for classic styles... they last forever!" she always said.) However, I was brought up with a strong sense of self, with the belief that beauty comes from the inside, from the character of a woman. I believe this is Biblical:

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. - 1 Timothy 2:8-10

In light of this, you can imagine what it was a like for a girl like me to move from Michigan (where it's acceptable for women to wear a different vest for every season... and when I say season, I don't mean white for summer, etc. I mean, at Halloween you wear a vest with pumpkins, at Christmas a vest with snowflakes, etc.), to move to a place where 5 year-olds wear clothes from Gap Kids, high school girls' senior portraits look like model agency photos, and the latest anti-wrinkle dermatological treatment makes the evening news.

At first I rebelled at the superficiality of it all. It went against everything I believed, and I resented feeling homely because I didn't invest money in the latest movie-star sunglasses. But as time went on, I realized there is a happy medium. God made women to be beautiful, to be man's delight, and I think there's something to be said for celebrating that aspect of being a women. I believe it's the corruption of our culture that has led women to believe that being attractive equals being indecent. When I travelled to India last year, it was the first time I had seen a culture where women placed such emphasis on being beautiful, wearing beautiful clothing and jewelry, yet they were covered from head to toe. Their beauty did not come from their sexuality but from their womanliness, (if that makes any sense.)

So, as I lived in Dallas, I allowed myself to get the occasional manicure and pedicure and eyebrow wax, to occasionally pay way too much money for a haircut, or to buy department store eyeshadow rather than Cover Girl. Sometimes its okay to be a girly girl.

In that vein, I went to Bath and Body Works last week and I bought 4 new hand lotions. (I know, it will take me 3 years to use all that lotion.) I love their shimmer lotion. Someone gave me the Japanese Cherry Blossom scent last year and I love it. Last week I bought Honeysuckle, Peach, and Cucumber Melon, as well as the regular Freshwater Cucumber lotion. I just put some on before I wrote this blog, and I kid you not, as I was writing this entry, Ryan came over and said, "You smell good!" So you see, sometimes it's okay to be a girly girl.