All Bodies, Always: Love Your Skin With Confidence

With temperatures hitting an all time high, we’re seeing more skin slip, slap, slopping out into the sunshine. Beach, garden, or local lido - no matter who you are or where you are, everyone deserves to feel sunshine ready. That’s all bodies, even if we don’t feel like it sometimes. To kickstart some summer skin loving, our brave and beautiful team stripped off to share their stories with us.

About their journeys, about their bodies. What they hate, love, and everything in between. But mostly, about the parts that make them unique. The parts we’re connected by: curves, scars, bruises, marks, textures, nooks, stretch marks, bumps - all that makes you, you. All that makes you the perfect beach body, this summer and every summer.

Natalia

I’ve always been confident with my body and - instead of focusing on the parts I didn’t like as much - I highlighted the parts I did. Pregnancy has taught me to see my body beyond just a still, unchangeable image, but instead something that adapts and changes to our needs and choices in life. For this shoot, I chose the Linea Nigra on my belly, as this was one of the many changes my body went through during pregnancy. Having it there so visible was uncomfortable for me at first, but also means there is something wonderful to come. Sometimes, it feels like no matter the challenge I’ve put it through, my body always gives me its best!

Adam

Like many men, I suffer from Body Dysmorphia and Muscle Dysmorphia, so my relationship with my body has been very negative since I was a teenager. I use fitness to process stress, which means I'm somewhat stuck in a cycle. It's something I continue to work on but I'm often unsure if I'll ever get to a good place with how I look. For this shoot, I think I wanted to choose areas I didn't feel comfortable with to challenge my own perceptions of my body and shine some light on my insecurities, to open up the conversation and help everyone love their skin a little more.

Lucia

I chose the birthmark on my arm, not because I'm self-conscious of it at all, but because people always ask me what it is. It’s strange: now I see it in the photos, it's really nothing…I forget it's there until someone asks. Weirdly, nobody has ever come up and asked me about the parts I'm incredibly self-conscious of, the bits that actually bother me which I totally avoid getting out. It doesn't help that I constantly see horrible comments online about celebrities with cellulite and wobbly bits. When you see the same on yourself, it's pretty crushing to know these are people's opinions!

Sarah

Taking part in the shoot was important to me to add to the idea that all types of bodies are normal and that there is no perfect size, shape, or skin. As a product of the ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ Kate Moss/supermodel generation, my own body image is a constant journey and I have to work on speaking to myself as I speak to my loved ones. After all, when I see stretchmarks, ‘wobbly bits’, and scars etc on my friends, I think they are beautiful and I will be taking inspiration from all the amazing real people in the shoot to try and be kinder to myself for all the same features!

Maria

I chose to share a very personal scar: my C-section scar. I felt it could help me overcome a bit of what ended up being the happiest and scariest day of my life. I had a home birth planned for my first child but instead ended up with an emergency c-section in the peak of Covid. Looking at my scar every day is a reminder of this traumatic day, but as some women say, "my scar is smiling at me, so I can try and smile back at it". Most days, I'm impressed, grateful and proud that my body made a little human, and some other days I just don't feel comfortable in my "new" body.

Tassia

Although it has been a journey to get to this point, I love how my body moves for me and have learnt to champion how lucky I feel for this movement over purely aesthetic trains of thought. I love the unusual parts of my body - like the moles on my belly and my stretch marks - that have been on this complicated journey with me. They now represent my uniqueness and what it means to be me.

If you’d like to be part of the conversation, head over to @feelunique to share your stories.