Emma Dabiri Instagram – Make up free for ELLEUK feature this month on self love so called #flaws ! I wrote about the #portwinestain birthmark I have on my face
“I was born with a portwine stain that covers half of my lower lip and most of my chin. I was mildly bullied about it in primary school, but the names I was called because of that couldn’t hold a candle to those I received for being Black, so I think I was relatively unbothered by the attention my birthmark attracted.
It has been a point of comment throughout my life, though. Often, when I’m not wearing make-up, someone asks in shock, ‘Oh! What happened to your face?’ And, forgetting about my birthmark, I’ll respond with: ‘Sh*t, I don’t know.’ An ex once joked, after I’d stayed over at his house for the first time: ‘Look at your chin – not so perfect now, are you?’, which I should have seen as a huge red flag but laughed off as evidence of our shared edgy humour.
The thing is, as I’ve grown older and thought more consciously about beauty – especially through writing Disobedient Bodies: Redlaim Your Unruly Beauty, my book exploring how we might liberate beauty culture from some of its more oppressive tendencies – I have really come to reject the notion of ‘flaws’ in the first place.
Flaws presuppose some sort of standard from which the imperfection must be a deviation, but who sets that standard? And where or when did any of us consent to conform to it?
In a world of increasing homogeneity in faces – same face shape, same nose, same uniform, gleaming-white teeth – aren’t our unique features all the more special and beautiful? Who else has a dusky-pink pattern dusted across their chin, just like mine? Probably no one in this whole big beautiful world! It’s not a flaw, it’s just part of me”
Let me know what you think 💭 | Posted on 04/May/2025 18:44:09
