Life
Gillette Venus Claps Back In Defense Of Plus Size Model
The company stands by its use of imagery of all body types— even plus-size ones.
D.G. Sciortino
04.09.19

All women deserve to feel beautiful and sexy. No matter their shape and size.

No matter their actual or perceived status of health.

This is why Gillette Venus makes it a point to represent all different types of women on their social media and other types of promotional imaging.

Gillette Venus
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Gillette Venus

Basically, they want to show real women as they are in real life.

And, for some reason, some people hate the company for this.

This might be because media has traditionally depicted thin white women as the pinnacle of beauty.

Gillette Venus
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Gillette Venus

Even though some of those women arrived at their thin statures through extremely unhealthy means.

We’ve heard the stories about actresses abusing drugs and models eating cotton balls and orange juice because of the pressure from the people who pay them to stay skinny.

So, for years society has seen these unhealthy women as beautiful.

Gillette Venus
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Gillette Venus

But no one ever complained or spoke out about this until women started standing up for themselves.

Now times have changed. Women are creating their own standards of beauty and are breaking all the rules in the process.

But not everyone is on board. Not everyone wants to see realistic looking women in the media.

Gillette Venus
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Gillette Venus

Every time Gillette Venus posts a picture of a pregnant woman or a woman with postpartum stretch marks, with vitiligo, or thick thighs… some people complain.

They cringe and make terrible comments about the women they see and vow never to buy their products.

What’s even more hilarious is the fact that lots of these comments come from men.

Gillette Venus
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Gillette Venus

Men who are following a women’s razor company on social media so they can time out of their day to troll their ads.

How sad is that?! Anyway, these troubled angry souls do exist.

Well, they might be bots but their comments are there nonetheless.

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Gillette Venus
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Gillette Venus

The trolls really came out when Gillette Venus shared a picture from Style Plus Curves page featuring plus-size model Anna O’Brien who runs the blog Glitter + Lazers.

Some accused the company of promoting unhealthy lifestyles and obesity by depicting O’Brien in a bikini looking comfortable and happy in her own skin.

But Gillette Venus is not about to back down. They sell their razors to real-life women and they intend to show real-life women in their ads and on their social media accounts.

Gillette Venus
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Gillette Venus

“Venus is committed to representing women of all shapes, sizes, and skin types because ALL types of beautiful skin deserve to be shown. We love Glitter + Lazers because she lives out loud and loves her skin no matter how the ‘rules’ say she should display it,” the company said in a Facebook comment.

Lots of Gillette Venus’ followers commended the company for representing all types of real women.

gillette-venus-plus-size-ad-obrien

glitterandlazers
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glitterandlazers

As for O’Brien, who has more than 321,000 followers on Instagram and speaks to crowds around the world, she doesn’t hear the haters.

“Don’t wait for anyone else’s permission to live and experience all you can in your body. We don’t remember the number on our jeans of the shape of our hips and stomach on a beach,” the influencer said on Instagram. “We remember the sand between our toes.”

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This is my friend @tattooedyogimama. She wears the smallest size in this outfit and I wear the largest. People want you to focus on how different we are. Nikki’s a soft-spoken tattooed vegan mom from small town America. I’m a loud mouthed city girl, who loves meats and cheese, is perpetually single and is afraid of needles. Nikki finds strength in energy and chakras, while I find it in science. Nikki is a size xs. I am a 3x. It’s easy to see how we are different, but to those who really know us- it’s obvious we have a lot in common. We’re both likely to break out in song. We’re both the first on the dance floor- regardless of how uncool or unfamiliar the song is. We both love to make weird faces and find immense joy in just being silly. We also both know what it’s like to be judged for our bodies. We’ve both had complete strangers stop us and comment on our health. We also both know what it’s like to not have 100% control of how your body reacts to things and how confusing and stressful that can be. However we are both resilient. In today’s world we are trained to reject and separate ourselves from people that are different than us. But true friendship isn’t a result of having the same opinions as some one, looking the same, or acting the same. Friendship comes from two people who open themselves up enough to see just how interconnected they are, regardless of how the world might tell them they’re not. So reach outside your comfort zone and maybe just maybe you’ll find a friend that you never knew how much you needed. [Anna and Nikki are wearing an I ♥️ NY T-shirt paired with navy blue skirt, and red cardigans from @modcloth . They are standing in a studio where they recently filmed a video on friendship. Their hands are touching in a move they jokingly called “the high five of friendship.” This was a candid shot they did not know the photographer was taking. They are laughing and smiling at each other. ] #friends #inspiration #happiness #ootd #plussize #twinning #effyourbeautystandards

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“We remember running into the waves. We remember how cold the water was. We remember how sand got everywhere. We remember how we laughed and forgot for an instant everything we should be. We just were. Joy comes from the experience, not from the size of the body we live it in.”

Thanks to people like O’Brien and companies like Gillette Venus it’s a new day. A day where there is no room for hate… only love. Love of ourselves and each other.

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