Growing up with parents who really didn't focus on physical things (like feeding us HEALTHY food and taking us to the dentist and things of that nature), I grew up overweight, with horrible teeth and no knowledge of makeup, hair, or anything that little girls typically grow up learning from their mothers (my mom never wears makeup and has one set hairstyle she's done since around 1985). As I headed into the pre-teen years, I learned the basics of makeup from my older cousin, and then watched Youtube videos as a teenager to learn how to do certain looks. Hair wise, I always had thick, curly, "do-whatever-the-fuck-it-wants" hair that my mom only ever ooh'd and aah'd about but never taught me how to do anything with. Then as a teenager, when my younger sisters began experimenting with box dye, I jumped in too--and it didn't make matters any better.
One of my best friends from high school that I met when my family moved from MA to SC was my saving grace. She taught me how to do my makeup, she showed me a "straightener" and how to "scrunch" my already curly hair into some semblance of "normalcy", and worked out with me. But my smile remained a mess--my parents had no money and no insurance to help in that particular area. I had to wait until I graduated college and got my first "big kid job" with my own insurance to begin fixing that, which I have with whitening strips and some extractions. Braces are possible in my future, but for now, I've fixed several issues that always made me feel unattractive.
I'm still on the overweight side, but consistently get compliments on my hair and my makeup--boys in high school and college gravitated toward me because of my personality, which I realized was improving gradually as I learned the techniques to make myself FEEL prettier than I thought I was. I realized quickly that to act like a million bucks, you have to feel like it--even if it's just through a new lipstick or a haircut or spending some extra time on your skin care or diet.
Seeing as I'm engaged now, I think all those tips helped. I owe my best friend a great deal for her knowledge (particularly her skills with a curling iron that she passed on to me, as the second photo can attest). Being a people person, I'm just grateful that I look like someone who is easily approachable--I've met a lot of friends because of the confidence my physical changes have resulted in, and I wouldn't trade those friendships for even straighter teeth or losing some more weight (although there are days that I'm tempted)
Me as a freshman in high school (I truly apologize for the eyebrows, I have no idea what the hell I was doing):(http://i.imgur.com/zlAXAUR.jpg)
Me now (12 years later): (http://i.imgur.com/waDcgOT.jpg?1)
