The new faces of beauty: Meet the 11 inspirational cover stars of GLAMOUR’s self-love issue

A I am showing people that embracing a feature that most people hide is something to be proud of. There is beauty in the unusual and there is power in defining your own standard of beauty. F

rom a young age, most people are taught to get rid of their body hair. People grow up with the mentality that a few extra hairs on our eyebrows are something to be ashamed of. I am so honoured that my #UnibrowMovement has encouraged people of all ages from all over the world, to view eyebrows and body hair differently.

My black unibrow and light blonde hair is not a combination for everyone, but it is definitely for me. It always has been and always will be. I am extremely proud to be who I am in a society where we are constantly pressured to be what everyone else wants.

A Every day we face a new challenge that we never could have anticipated. For me, the biggest challenge I faced pretty early on in my life, at quite a young age, was choosing myself and everything I wanted over other people and what they wanted of me. I was bullied throughout my childhood and adolescence for being the ‘weird kid’ in school.

At first, I struggled to understand why so many people wanted to make my life so terrible, but I eventually stopped caring. If anything, I stopped caring so much I remember wearing clothes and doing things just to frustrate the bullies even more. You don’t like my blue eyeshadow? No problem – I will make sure to come into school with extra-vibrant blue eyeshadow tomorrow, with a blue lip… Actually let’s make it a fully blue outfit for a monochromatic moment to really frustrate the haters.

I think I learned that resilience from my mom. She always told me to be proud of who I am, and whoever I want to be. I carry that strength with me today when people reject me for my eyebrows and the way I look.

A Beauty is not external – beauty is how you feel about yourself. I have a thick jet-black unibrow on my forehead that most people would probably never be caught dead rocking – but for me, it is something that makes me feel so beautiful, because it shows my strength. I am strong enough to love the way I look and that will never change because of how other people treat me.

I would never change my eyebrows for all the compliments in the world. You could be the most ‘perfect’ person in the world, but unless you see it with your own eyes, you will never feel it. Some of the most inspiring women in my life would probably not be considered beautiful by most beauty standards we challenge today, but they were hands down the strongest. My mom taught me everything I know, and she is the most gorgeous person in my eyes for it.

A I hope to change the ideals of beauty. The more visible trans models are, the more normalised they become. And, of course, it is normal – we’re a super-small section of society but that doesn’t mean our rights aren’t valid or necessary. Our experience may seem a lot more ‘otherworldly’ than it actually is, but we get up, we work, we have ambition, we have drive – probably more than most because there’s so much we’re up against.

A Inclusivity within the beauty industry is improving, but there is still a long way to go. I have learned to be mindful of the companies I am involved with.

A At the start of my transition, my idea of beauty was very performative. The more feminine I looked, the more I felt validated in my gender identity. As I’ve grown, navigating my sexuality, I’ve become more comfortable embracing the masculine elements of my identity. I don’t have to wear a dress and makeup all the time, I’m often a tomboy, but it’s taken time for me to be comfortable with myself and how I look.

A I never know how to answer this question, because actually all that I am doing is living my life authentically, truthfully and wholeheartedly as I see fit.

We live in a society that follows and copies – and what I am doing is going against the notion of what the norm is, and being true to myself by accepting who I am and what I look like.

This, for sure, shocks people, because how dare I as a woman accept my differences? How dare I be so super confident as to stamp on any expectations that people have of me as a woman? How dare I create my own rules of what it means to be a woman? And it is this exact ‘take no bullshit’-type attitude and personality that makes me, me. I am fearless!

My beard is a part of me just like an arm or a leg, it does not define me. The message that I preach – of living life as a badass and valuing self acceptance – is what is important. Create your own damn rules. I do embrace my body, beard and all. I am in love with me.

A I face many challenges. I used to get rejected from every job I applied and interviewed for. I found it so difficult to create the life I really wanted. I guess looking back, I needed all their rejections in order to do what I am doing now. I love my job. When this world wasn’t giving me a job, I put my middle finger up to it all and created my own.

Dating and relationships are hard, too – living in a world where people can be so superficial and expect women to be one way, I have definitely found dating difficult. I used to have dreams of being married and having a family, but now I have dreams of being the CEO of my own company, having a lovely modern house and a big fluffy dog.

I used to struggle with how my own community treated me. They have put me through so much trauma, and trigger many horrid emotions within me. I am a brown woman going against cultural/traditional norms. I have to deal with many death threats and verbal abuse.

A FREEDOM!!!!! Beauty to me means freedom! It is freedom for me to do whatever the hell I want with my glorious body. I live by one rule: ‘My body, my rules!’ It is my body so I shall do with it what I want, whenever I want and how I want – no one can take that away from me.

As women, we are policed from head to toe with how we should look or what we should be doing with our bodies. From our heads: we need to wear a certain type of hair style, we can’t be bald, we need to have long flowing hair – and if you wear any type of head wrap or turban, then we are open to ridicule and racism. Our breasts: we can not feed our kids in public, because of how inappropriate it is. We must remain modest at all times. Our stomach: women can’t be fat at all, we must have a flat stomach and maintain a decent weight at all times.

Our genitalia: we must stay modest and not go around having sex. We are forever slut shamed for being sexually active. Our legs: be sure to not show much leg, as you might entice people with how sexual you look. Our feet: we must always wear sexy heels in order to be taken seriously. Some workplaces expect women to wear heels while they stand for 10 hours.

Oh, and dear ladies, please be sure to be HAIRLESS! We are policed from head to toe. I oppose it all and stick my middle finger to all these narrow rules.

A I challenge the preconception of women’s beauty as being something created by men. I encourage women to embrace their bodies as a part of the journey of self love. My #SaggyBoobsMatter campaign opened up a conversation about the media portrayal of breasts versus reality, and over the past few months, I’ve silently undergone a journey of challenging myself to grow out my bush and let my beauty flourish – and have had lots of positive messages from women who have done the same.

A Resisting the temptation to explain my human complexity to people who barely understand themselves.

A Showing up as your favourite version of yourself – regardless of how others receive it.

A I think that me simply existing in the body I’m in already makes a political statement, without me having to actually go out of my way to do anything. Living within a couple of intersections, such as being a larger plus-sized, darker-skinned black woman with an Afro, means that I’ve had to live with a variety of different tropes and stereotypes being forced upon me by society. And by me defying those stereotypes and ideologies put upon bigger/darker women (such as being ‘lazy’, ‘aggressive’, ‘unattractive’, ‘sexy’, ‘dominant’, ‘dirty’ and ‘ugly’), I see that as me challenging what the traditional concept of beauty should look like.

Fat women can be beautiful. We can be seen as sexy. You [i]can[/I] be super attractive and have stretch marks all over your body. You can be beautiful and have hyperpigmentation. Beauty does not exist in a vacuum, neither is it exclusive to the one ‘kind’ of beauty that we have all grown up being forced to see. Westernised standards of beauty should not exist.

A The biggest challenge for me has been dealing with how others react towards me, especially when it’s to do with my weight. Unsolicited opinions about my health and people telling me that I’m going to die when I’m 40 – purely based on judgements on how I look has been the hardest thing to process, as it seems that when it comes to weight, people do not care about being openly prejudiced due to the belief that ‘they are doing it for our own best interests.’

I think on the dating and relationship side, too, it can sometimes be difficult when the only kinds of people you attract are people who wish to fetishise you, based on how you look. Speaking from my own personal experience, it’s extremely difficult to date or find someone genuine, as you’re always seen as someone’s fetish, trial, or sexual object that they’ve always wanted to conquer. It’s an extremely dehumanising process in a world where the majority of us (especially those who live in unprivileged bodies) wish to be ‘seen’ as human beings worthy of love, respect and affection.

A Beauty to me is all about basking in your individuality and uniqueness. It’s about finding the goodness in the physical things that you see as your flaws, embracing them, and sticking two fingers up at society. It’s about living your best authentic, unapologetic life, and expressing your personality and aura through your individual way of looking at the world. That’s what I think beauty is.

A I believe I am challenging the traditional concepts of beauty by being myself unapologetically. In this society, we’re often told who to be or, in some cases, who we are. I refuse to be defined by anyone’s perception of me. I am who I am and no one can convince me otherwise.

Self awareness is how I am challenging the traditional concept of beauty. I have taken years to define what makes me feel beautiful in private, so no one can tell me who I am if I know. I have taken something I was born with and turned it into normality. I’ve fully accepted myself, my skin and my life, and I find ways to love it more on a daily basis. When on set, I try to abstain from make-up – if I wear it, it’s because I feel like it’ll add to my look. You will not catch me apologising for the way I was born. I love the body I was gifted and I try to embody that in everything I do.

A The biggest challenge I face is owning my confidence. We all know that we have days where we feel so beautiful it can’t be denied. On the contrary, we have days where we just can’t pull our outfit together or our hair refuses to be tamed. This makes confidence a slippery slope. Perception is reality, so, I might think I am confident and fearless, but other people might view my confidence as conceit or haughtiness. Consequently, I’ve had to practise owning my truest self and assume everything outside of it is merely white noise that I am not required to acknowledge.

I try to accept myself in every form – the days I feel perfect and the days where I couldn’t disagree more. Confidence is a known character trait around my friends and family, but it isn’t always the case with society. Fortunately, that doesn’t make it any less honest because someone is unable to understand it.

Taking time to promote self love and positivity in simple interactions does so much, personally and with others. As it relates to owning my confidence, I understand that the good will always outweigh the bad, being my truest self will always encourage and help others see the light within themselves, most importantly, allowing myself to have ‘off’ days is essential and a form of self awareness. I don’t have to be a perfect image of confidence 24/7, I just have to continue getting back up when I feel down.

A Beauty to me is courage, it’s bold and fearless. If I could put beauty into words for me, it would be someone owning their truth in any form and pushing past any limitations set for them. Beauty to me is honest, transparent and imperfect.

A I think there is no denying there is a certain ‘standard’ that the industry conforms to in terms of beauty, but I’m thrilled to be working with brands like Pantene to help push the boundaries and challenge the norm. Beauty is so subjective depending on who you ask, so we just need to ensure we’re all working together for full representation.

A I have quite specific skincare and haircare needs so often struggle to find clean, natural products that work with my sensitivity. I do think that consumers are getting more savvy with ingredients and sustainability, and brands are getting better at providing good, high quality products to suit a variety of needs.

A Beauty to me is not what’s on the outside; I find qualities such as confidence, kindness and compassion beautiful. You’re also never going to please everyone – you can be the juiciest peach in the bowl, but you’re always going to find someone who doesn’t like peaches.

A I believe I challenge the traditional concept of beauty by continuing to believe I’m beautiful in the face of a culture that tells me I am the opposite of that. Growing up being mixed race, plus size, having scars across my body and bald patches on the back of my head meant there was also a reason I didn’t fit into the stereotypical beauty ideal. I believe I now challenge them by simply existing and refusing to allow others to define how I was labelled. To be proud of yourself and who you are is an active way to challenge what society has told you about what it means to be beautiful.

A Going through 15 surgeries and surviving a brain tumour, a punctured intestine, obstructed bowels, a cyst in my brain and a condition called hydrocephalus all before the age of 20 was definitely my biggest challenge. Going through that extent of illness is challenging at any age, but especially when you are a child and don’t have the vocabulary to explain to your friends what is going on, it can be a really heavy burden to carry. Working through that trauma is something I have had to continuously face throughout my life, but it has also given me the belief in myself that I know I can handle whatever life throws at me.

A Beauty is quite meaningless to me. I’ve taught myself to not use it as a measure of worth and, as a result, it is not something that holds a lot of significance as I believe your appearance is the least interesting thing about you. You get to choose what is beautiful in this world and to me, beauty is about the way you treat people.

A Throughout history, hair has always played such a large role in our identity as women. Hair has always been our way to express who we are. Hair, in our culture, has always been wrapped up in the word ‘femininity’; long hair = beautiful and womanly, and anything to the contrary is considered ‘masculine’. Feminine is a derivative of the word female and us amazing females come in many different forms. What it means to be a woman has nothing to do with our hair. It has EVERTHING to do with who we are on the inside; how strong, how brave, how kind and how caring we are. So I feel by owning my hair-free life, I am challenging those constructs and ideals of what beauty really looks like.

It hopefully allows people to see that there are all kinds of beauty out there, and so many ways to express who we are; to feel confident and beautiful, hair or no hair. At the end of the day, hair is just ‘matter’ and it doesn’t make you a truly beautiful person, it just allows you to do a very sassy hair flick when necessary.

A I think in life we face little challenges every single day – and it’s how we push through them, get over them and grow from them that makes us better, stronger humans. My challenge in life is to always make sure that I am being true to myself, to check in and make sure I’m being my most authentic self, as that is when I feel most self-growth can happen.

I remember walking down the street for the first time without my wig on. It was the scariest thing in the world, and I was so petrified of what people thought. I hated the staring and attention it brought with it, and I felt so vulnerable and uncomfortable. That to date, has been the most challenging moment for me; allowing myself to let go of what others think and just focus on how I truly feel about myself.

At the end of the day all that really matters is what the people you love feel about you and how you view and see yourself.

A To me, beauty is kindness. There is nothing more beautiful than a kind and loving human. It shines so bright, it’s truly magnetic and contagious.

A My existence as a plus-sized, Muslim, Bangladeshi-American woman is a form of rebellion in itself. But the fact that I also have this powerful and enduring platform online strengthens that rebellion. Because as we all know, the internet – while it can be a force for good – can often intensify people’s biases and forms of chosen bigotry under the protection of anonymity.

So, whether it’s embracing my rolls and warrior marks or wearing whatever I want, however I want, I have tossed aside the unrealistic expectations and beauty standards that have attempted to defeat me in the past, in order to live a confident life where I decide what beauty means.

I didn’t grow up seeing a Bangladeshi girl on my television screen or in magazines, let alone on the cover. I didn’t grow up seeing many plus-sized girls being the heroes of their own story. I didn’t see many Muslim stories celebrated around me. This affected my self-esteem and my understanding of my own beauty. To be able to help change that for future generations by carving new paths and making history for the communities I belong in feels surreal, but long overdue.

A few years ago, I filmed a viral video where I wrote the words people have called me on my face and literally blended them out with make-up and replaced them with words that truly defined me, which ended up serving as the inspiration behind GLAMOUR UK’s #BlendOutBullying campaign.

I starred in my own show combatting body shaming and bullying with AT&T Hello Lab. I launched my own self-love centered movement and lifestyle brand called Zeba, with over 81k community members and a size range of XS-4X and introduced a new sizing standard along with it.

I took my voice to the United Nations to talk about my platform and how I use it to provoke social change.

With each post and every project, I have challenged the dated standards of beauty, just by being myself and refusing to apologise for it.

A When you challenge age-old systems of oppression, you are likely to be met with fierce opposition. I am challenging a system that is designed to keep people feeling insecure, inferior and inadequate.

I am telling people every single day that who they are at this very moment is enough and deserves to be celebrated. With that comes intense scrutiny and mischaracterisation of my agenda. My only agenda is to liberate people from insecurity and equip them with confidence.

I have received death threats. People tell me to kill myself every day. People tell me that if they looked like me, they would kill themselves. People tell me I’m promoting obesity. It has not been – and I don’t think ever will be – an easy journey to make instrumental change in the world and I’m okay with that: I’m not looking for ease, I’m looking for a revolution.

A Beauty is not determined by our size, a measurement or a number on a scale. We are way more than any label that society tries to impose on us.

We should not and cannot reserve our confidence for a later date or a later weight. Your body is beautiful NOW. You are more than enough NOW. Your body is worth celebrating NOW.

Beauty is a celebration. Beauty is kindness. Beauty is integrity. Beauty is reflected in what we do and how we make others feel.

Most importantly, beauty is something we should all feel empowered to define for ourselves.

You don’t have to shift who you are to fit society’s narrow standards of beauty. It’s time to transform beauty standards to include you.

A When I first began blogging, there weren’t really many people online that I could identify with. A lot of the content I had seen from my favourite fashion and beauty brands usually featured one standard of beauty (lighter features, straight hair and slim). Because of this when I began blogging I felt that I was challenging the traditional concept of beauty, as I was adamant that I wanted to show that beauty comes in all shapes, colours and sizes.

A Trying to fit into an industry that hadn’t fully created spaces for others like me. Being a black Muslim woman means that I already faced three forms of prejudice, so I always felt I had to try even harder to prove myself.

A For me beauty means character. That is so much deeper than physical appearance. If you aren’t able to show kindness, appreciate others and do as much as you can to uplift and support others around you, there is only so much good looks can do for you.