I’ll start off with these lyrics…
Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a woman of wealth and taste. I’ve been around for a long, long years. Stole million man’s soul and faith
If you know the source of this, then honestly, you and I will get along just fine!
Since November, I have not written regularly, and I think it’s essential to reintroduce myself to you, my reader, for two reasons. First, it keeps me honest about what I am doing, and you get to know the person behind the writing.
My name is….
Angeli and not Anjali or Anjeli.
Pronounced Ann-gel-ee. I blame my parents for this butchery of my name.
Which part of India is home to me?
My ancestors are from Bihar, and I’m an NRI. Currently, I’m living in my 5th country, having lived in India, Switzerland, UAE, UK, and Zambia.
…but where would I want to live?
Hands down, like any good desi, the city of my dreams is not Calcutta but New York – Manhattan, to be precise.
Why did I start my blog?
Mainly three reasons:
Reason 1: I’m a wheatish complexioned Indian who is getting old. I find that the global cosmetic skin care market has never been super-interested in me.
I believe this was true 20 years ago when a Lancome salesperson sold me an age spot removal product for acne scarring and is accurate now.
No one is just thinking of products for me. The assumption is that Indians and NRI women do not have money to spend on skincare…Boy, are they in for a rude surprise…
Related to this is the sheer quantity of products that actually exist in the market: many are just copies of what I would find in the USA or UK ten years ago.
Are they all good for you?
No.
Repeat after me: No.
Reason 2: A Caucasian white woman who talks about skincare on YouTube or any other social media outlet has so little in common that I feel obligated to press DELETE every time they tell me what to do.
Do they even know what insulin resistance is and how it can cause pigmentation that takes forever to remove on a dark person but is gone in weeks on a fair-complexioned person?!?
And FYI, you get no prizes for looking fabulous in your 20s or 30s. That’s just normal.
If you look that way in your 40s, I am hanging on to your every word.
Reason 3: My background is in financial services, and I might have the most degrees of any skincare blogger you know. This image is my business card.
When I open my mouth, my education and professional experience tells me that.
(i) I better have done the homework, which means as much independent research as possible
(ii) know what I am talking about and not make sh*T up because it will sell products.
I sometimes find it hard to distinguish between used car salesmen and some Generation Z telling me to buy snail mucus because it’s good for me.
Reason 4: I am not into BS and I am a feminist
I need you to understand that wanting to look beautiful, fair and appealing to myself does not make anti-feminist or a chauvinist.
I own my desire to look more beautiful than I did yesterday because we come from a culture where “soundarya” was in use, when the rest of the world were living in caves. Period
Call elitist about being Indian but that’s all you have on me.
I am sick to death of everyone pointing fingers at women’s aspirations to look more beautiful as being part of some anti-feminist agenda. Its not.
The reality is 250 million individuals in my country live under the poverty line and most of them are women and children. If we are going to talk about feminism, let’s start with the important issues:
- Say no to dowry
- Don’t kill your child by reason of it being female
- Respect women and try not rape or butcher them merely by reason that they take a bus or were a skirt.
I love this photo…
A product that forms part of me…
Fragrance. Hands down, I cannot live without smelling good.
That’s enough of me for now….
Please feel free to leave a comment below.
Find me on https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelisinha/
Follow me on Instagram (happy_skindays)
Drop me a line at email@happyskindays.com