What the HECK am I DOING in the Beauty Industry?!?!

It's a real struggle some days to be a part of the “Beauty Industry.” I am horribly embarrassed by the way other companies market and the products they peddle: tricking customers into believing their product is natural, fooling people about what ingredients are capable of doing, charging insane amounts of money for things that are mostly WATER, hiring celebrities to act like their products are what they use at home, using ingredients that come from plants on the endangered species list so they can charge more for it... The list of how I feel ashamed to be associated with this industry is remarkable.

I didn’t think I would grow up to do this. And especially ask feminist-me about skin care 15 years ago.

I would have told you to get old and love it. To shut up and stop whining. That you have to stop internalizing ageism and love your wrinkles.

Now, here I am supporting the idea that your face is not perfect? 

It could be construed that way, and there are days that I fear I teeter on the edge of a gray area I never wanted to get near. I spent 3.5 years doing a radio show centered around natural living, women, feminism, fat phobia, veganism, ageism, and a lot of random poetry about life.

I am now making and selling skin products. Why?

I didn’t decide to do it. I accidentally fell into it and realized that I was doing something revolutionary. I accidentally made up a facewash over the course of years. It started out with just sea salt on my face. That's it. Nothing else. I just wanted to stop breaking out and not have the giant pores and pitted skin that run in my family. I added more things to it, and more things, using my many years of herbal training to cure my own skin of acne.

I hit 30 and started buying eye cream, serums, and expensive toners (almost everything exclusively from Whole Foods because I thought the products must be better). Lots of stuff I purchased in secret as my skin aged and I realized I was just as horrified as any other non-feminist woman.

Our worth is not in our youth, believe me.

 I see myself and who I am and what the world is completely differently at 43 than I did at 33 … and I love it. I am better in bed and better at life. My ass is a little lower and my face is changing shape and my beautiful gray hairs are taking over regions. I am not trying to hide any of this. But I also recognize that even the strongest among us are afraid of it all.

I don’t feel like Brazen Bee is about succumbing to that fear of age. While we all have to recognize that society does treat women differently as we get older, that's not a skincare issue. That's a problem we've got to tackle out in the field, 

not in the bathroom. 

You're going to age. 

Some of you are going to have acne and we aren't ever going to totally figure it out. We all get blemishes sometimes and there isn't one product out there that can promise you you won't ever have a blackhead or a pimple or a dark spot or even a touch of eczema from time to time. NOTHING IS MIRACULOUS. 

But, then, why do my clients call my products miraculous all the time? How am i performing miracles if I don't even believe in them?

The reasons I have been able to turn around pervasive issues is that I am focused on ancient and real nutrition for your epidermis. I take extreme care in formulating for the largest organ of your body. If you were buying either a natural or pharmaceutical product, you would want that person to be concerned with EVERY aspect of that organ. That's all I do. Which is huge, obviously. 

No matter what your condition or age, I am thinking of how to IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF YOUR SKIN AS A WHOLE.  I want it to function at it's best and aging is just a slow-down in function. So let's get you the best of the best. That's how I formulate everything. 

It's really a simple idea, but I am ashamed that not everyone is working like this.

Love your age,

And take care of yourself

Courtney Henslee