i've been meaning to post about this for a while, and watching "bunny" berry's day 46/100 video on vanity was the prompt i needed to get it written.
when i was about half way through my juicefeast i stopped wearing perfume. i've always worn perfume and quite a lot of it at that. i wear very good quality perfume, and i'm fussy about it. but then my sense of smell became so acute that i found it too much of an assault to my poor nose. i couldn't face perfume first thing in the morning. even the fragrance from my make-up was too much for me. so, i went out and bought some relatively gentle solid perfume from lush that i can keep in my bag so that if at some point during the day i fancy a waft of scent then i am armed and ready.
since then i've worked out - and there are no surprises here, really - that i still enjoy smells and scents, i just don't like artificial fragrance or overpowering perfumes. the smell of body deodorant on the train has got to be the worst. i have been using low-scent products myself for a while now, as i've migrated gradually towards more and more natural products around the home and toiletries and cosmetics too. i have stopped using hair styling products, bar the odd special occasion. and, though it's taken me many years, i have finally weaned myself off deodorant. i stopped wearing anti-perspirant first. the fear of damp patches soon left as i realised i don't sweat that much. then for several years i used "natural" deodorants. and recently i've been using a crystal stick and am happy to report that it's perfectly fine. no sweat, no smell and no carcinogenic chemicals either.
as for make up, well, i'm migrating there too. i've packed away my foundation and am using a tinted moisturiser. i'm hoping to move to suki color if i can get some testers (it's way too expensive to buy without testing it first) or another groovy brand. this is all good progress.
although i do still buy clothes i like from whatever shop they're in, i've also recently made several purchases from free-trade supporting companies using organic, unbleached cotton fabrics, too. i'm a big fan of cotton, i have very few synthetic materials in my wardrobe, and the move towards more natural colours, better sources and even less formal clothing all feels like the right path.
all of these things seem part of a natural progression. there are many more things i'd like to try and i know that slowly the psychological barriers will fall and i'll move towards them as if floating on the tide.
so what's this all got to do with getting real?
i think it's all part of the same underlying mechanism. hear me out.
as karen knowler teaches, in a raw food transformation, the least important part is the food. how does that work? i don't know. but time and again it turns out to be true. for some people the massive amount of weight lost is still not the crucial factor (i'm thinking angela stokes, philip mccluskey) but the inner transformation. the peace and harmony discovered (just look at philip's face!) the love for oneself and others (that could be karen's commitment to the rest of the world, dhrumil's push to create community) or the rediscovered joys of childlike play (angela's singing) and many more examples. for others going raw is the first step to a radical life shift. i wrote about this a while ago from an entirely different perspective, one of overcoming the fear that my new-born desires, unearthed through a raw transformation, might pull me away from the life i lead. and that felt scary. but i worked through it over about a year (yep, it took me that long to get my head round it) and decided i was ready to face it. now it seems silly to have ever been scared. it's exciting. it's what i want. i can't wait to see what's coming up next :) and the whole perfume, make up, clothes changes are just a tiny part of that.
i'm embracing my inner hippy.
there, i've said it. in bold.
recently, i've realised that i'm more 'authentic', more me. i don't shy away from expressing an opinion. i stand by what i believe even though others may think i'm mad. this helps fantastically in all relationships: with family, friends, colleagues and strangers. why have i spent the past 40 years of my life trying to be who i think others expect me to be? why should they expect me to be anything anyway? from now on they can have me as i am. if they matter to me and i to them then it'll all be fine. if it doesn't work out then it wasn't meant to be and i probably didn't want to be their friend anyway.
it might have happened at some point anyway, but i do honestly believe that the raw lifestyle brings with it a much greater understanding of who you are, the world around you and your place in that world. preconceptions disappear, ideas shift, priorities are upturned and regrouped. it's quite astonishing. perhaps it's the general vibe that surrounds the raw food movement. perhaps it really is the food. there are certainly plenty of people out there with a theory. all i know is that this quiet internal life is so much more satisfying than the endless chatter of old. calm, pure, natural, authentic. it's all good.
