Learn to love your stretch marks—with glitter!
Stretch marks are common, but that doesn't make them easier to love. One artist is helping to change that—all with a little glitter.
Photo: @sarashakeel via Instagram
Perfect skin seems to be everywhere: Good for you, models, musicians and movie stars. Thing is, the rest of us can't filter real life—our blemishes, scars and stretch marks are here to stay.
It's super common for moms to get stretch marks during pregnancy as their bodies adapt to the baby growing inside them, but even people who aren't pregnant can find themselves with stripes on their skin anytime their body grows or changes. (Heck, I'm the only guy on Today's Parent's staff, and even I have them.)
So it comes as no surprise that plenty of people are loving these glittery images that celebrate and highlight super-common stretch marks instead of scrubbing them away with a photo editing tool.
Sara Shakeel, the artist behind the collages, calls herself an "Accidental Collage/Video Artist," and her Instagram is filled with awesome surrealist pieces of art. She posted the first stretch mark image last week and has since posted four more images in the series—two of which use photos sent by fans asking to be glitter-fied.
In the caption of one of the "GlitterMark" images, Shakeel wrote that she has "never felt so powerful & liberated and so f*cking proud of [her] stretch marks in [her] entire life." Lots of people have shared comments of support on the images, saying how much they love the idea.
When it comes to stretch marks, once you have them, there's not much you can do. Learning to love your body is a difficult process, but images like these are a step in the right direction.
"Each picture heals a part of me," Shakeel writes in her Instagram bio "& I hope it heals a part of you too."
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