Picture this: you walk into a bookstore to buy a book for school. As you head toward the rows and rows of books, you pass the magazines. On the covers of these magazines, you see stick-thin models and headlines like �How to Lose 10 Pounds in 10 Days.� Even as you browse the books, you see titles like The Best Diets and How to Look Like [insert name of stick-thin celebrity here].

Does this sound familiar? Everywhere a girl goes�bookstores, drugstores, and even doctors� offices�she is bombarded with media images that tell her how she is supposed to look and supposed to dress.

Recently, however, I picked up a book called The Looks Book: A Whole New Approach to Beauty, Body Image, and Style. Since it was written by the creators of gURL.com, one of my favorite Web sites, I decided to flip through it. At first, just by looking at the title, I thought, Oh great, this is going to be just like any other beauty book. But, in fact, it was just the opposite. It is a book about beauty and appearance with an extremely positive message for all teenage girls.

That positive message is just like the one found on gURL.com. And to find out more about its creators� message for girls, I interviewed Esther Drill, the editor-in-chief of gURL.com and an author of The Looks Book. Drill started the site with her friends Rebecca Odes and Heather McDonald.

�Rebecca and I grew up together. When we were in high school, we spent a lot of time talking about the media that existed for teen girls and what we felt was wrong with it. We often discussed what we�d do if we could make a magazine for teen girls. We ended up in graduate school together, met Heather, and decided to create this magazine we�d talked about for years, and to do it on the Web,� she says.

The site was an immediate success. And, in 1999, the three friends published Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl. This colorful, fun, and informative book has all sorts of health and sexuality information for girls. They followed that up with The Looks Book. With this one, says Drill, they wanted take the media�s negative pressure on girls about their looks and �turn it around, so girls can enjoy the power of beauty and style.�

Seeing Beauty

The Looks Book has three parts. Part 1, �A Look at Looks,� includes historical images of beauty from many different cultures around the world. It includes pictures of famous works of art to demonstrate how images of beauty have changed over the years. It explains why what�s considered �beautiful� changes all the time, and examines different influences on standards of beauty.

�It�s useful for girls to understand why our culture reinforces certain beauty ideals, and to understand that beauty is a business that�s powered by creating insecurities among girls, so they�ll buy products advertised to make them �beautiful,�� explains Drill. �It�s also useful for girls to see the vast variety of beauty images that have existed�and still exist�that go way beyond the current narrow beauty ideal.�

Our Bods, Ourselves

Part 2 is called �The Body.� This section is pretty straightforward. It explains the ins and outs of various body parts; for example, differences in hair texture and eye color. It also includes useful information on how a girl can take care of her body, and information about food and various eating disorders.

This section also gives the history behind certain beauty rituals, such as why eye makeup was originally used or how tattoos originated. And it includes quotes from girls about their bodies. These quotes show how every girl is different, and how having a certain hair color or body type isn�t that important.

Getting Busy with Style

Part 3, �Creating a Look,� is the most fun part of the book. It really captures what Drill thinks girls should do about beauty: take control of it!

�Get beyond the oppressive messages of the media and advertising, and define beauty and style for yourself,� she says. �Own your own looks! Style is a fabulous form of self-expression�experiment with it and have fun.�

To teach girls how to have fun with beauty, this section highlights 23 different �looks��from bombshell to faerie princess, and vamp/goth to girl next door. Each look has a few pages devoted to it, which include an illustration of the look, celebrity examples of it (both past and present), and its history, including how it got introduced into our culture.

This section emphasizes that there are many different versions of beauty�not just one standard. The end of the section explains how important it is for a girl to create her own look and play around with combinations of looks to find something unique, individual, and, most of all, comfortable.

Looks Book authors (l to r): Heather McDonald,
Esther Drill, and Rebecca Odes (Photo by Kate Milford)

Staying Healthy about Beauty

So, what does Drill want girls to ultimately learn from The Looks Book? She wants them to move beyond stereotypes about beauty to question why certain beauty ideals exist in the first place.

�I want girls to gain insight and perspective into why we care so much about our looks and how our culture reinforces ideals that are, by their very nature, unrealistic. And I want the book to communicate a more fun and positive approach to style as a form of self-expression,� she says.

I think she succeeds. The Looks Book is, above all, both fun and positive. Everything in it demonstrates to girls that they�re fine just the way they are. Beauty is subjective, and no one should tell a girl how she should look. There are many beauty books out there, but this is, by far, the best I�ve seen. I recommend it to any girl who doubts that she�s perfect, just the way she is.

Editors� Note: For more info about The Looks Book, check out the official site! You can also check out gURL.com, too. Got an opinion about beauty and the pressures on girls? Talk to us!

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Spring 2003