Any time a mother looks down at her post-partum body and thinks to herself, “I wish I looked like I used to,” or when we see a celebrity flaunting their slender stature shortly after giving birth, our standards of “beauty” rise, and our self-esteem plummets.
There was a time when life was simpler; when selfies were taken with a two-megapixel camera on a flip phone, and you couldn’t tell whether you had a blemish on your face.
Then came Instagram and the first filters; with only a few swipes and taps, we could instantly make our photos look like they were taken by a pro.
But a simple filter wasn’t enough, and now that face and body tuning apps have arrived, the phrase “you, but better” has taken on a whole new meaning. Slimmer, fitter, blonder, bigger lips, and the ideal jawline can all be accomplished before the first cup of coffee.
Is it, however, really you in those photos?
For years, brands and advertisements have tried to persuade us that being ‘beautiful’ entails having the same set of characteristics: lithe, long-haired, flawless eyes, perfect teeth, and the perfect tan.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to look and feel our best, but when we change the color of a sunset or our appearance to better fit a generic definition of perfection, we’re changing what happened at the moment while also losing a piece of ourselves.
Our true beauty lies in our diversity, which ranges from body types to hair colors and beyond.
Women should be open to addressing how topics like cycles, urinary leakage, discharge, and sweat affect us on a daily basis, in addition to being comfortable with how we look.
Let’s get down to it. It’s very popular. The majority of women have or will have their period so they can use period underwear; it’s in our DNA, and one of every three mothers will have bladder leaks.
I wanted to empower women to accept their bodies and have complete trust in themselves when I established Zonas, Australia’s leading leak-proof underwear. When I was a full-time mother of a two-year-old and a five-month-old, and living in Seattle, USA, surrounded by tech start-ups, the idea came to me.
I was out jogging, in reality, I was preparing for a marathon, and I had been having light bladder leakage on occasion, which was humiliating.
Disposable hygiene was the only option, which was unsightly, inconvenient, unpleasant, and hazardous to our environment. I just thought we deserved a little more.
I realized right away that I’d have to develop an entirely new product category for women. I’m very proud of how I took that concept and turned it into a product and now an apparel line that helps women handle the menstrual flow, incontinence, discharge, breast milk leakage, and sweat in a more easy, comfortable, and reliable way, while also reducing the amount of single-use items that end up in landfills and damage our environment.
I had a patentable product after two years of production that involved countless talks with textile engineers, scientists, and industry experts, as well as a sourcing and performing over 1,000 experimental tests.
I then sought feedback on how I could market this line of life-altering underwear. I was told over and over that we’d need supermodels to make supposedly taboo subjects (menstruation and incontinence) acceptable to Australian women and the media.
I refused to accept that this was the only way we could have a presence in the industry, so we’ve enlisted the support of consumers and regular women from all walks of life to model and promote our goods from the beginning. Customers are calling us on a regular basis six years later to participate in our photoshoots that celebrate women of all sizes, ethnicities, and ages. You’ll see every kind of woman, from mothers to athletes, nannies to our business world’s movers and shakers, and they’re all photoshop-free.