“The Girl Next Door” Laura

In August, just when social networks literally went crazy and overflowed with selfies and retouched bikini pictures, I started a personal project dedicated to portraiture.

More than 1 million selfies a day, , 58,425.492 photos with the #selfie tag on Instagram: these numbers speak for themselves. Every day, social networks put our image in front of us and force us to question ourselves about our perception of beauty.
Through self-portraits it is easy to accept oneself: with an average of 25 photos before being really satisfied, the choice of the right filter and some tweaks to the brightness, you’re done.

Social media have accentuated the social tendency of human beings to please others and feel accepted. And let’s face it, we all feel, some more, some less, personally concerned.

Beauty in the days of Instagram requires perfection, precision, expertise, scenography. A beauty that is so different and far from you that almost intimidates and makes you feel embarrassed.

Beauty in the days of Instagram leads to the belief that you want to change yourself. Yet beauty or self-care should not be tied to any standard, but rather provide each of us with the right tools to be ourselves at our best, without necessarily having to transform into a clone of anyone to feel comfortable while sharing a photo of us with the hashtag #makeup or #beauty.

Something that, when he wakes up next to you in the morning, he doesn’t think he accidentally ended up in Cinderella’s half-sister’s bedroom, with whom he danced all night. Something that does not change our characteristics, that does not make the face appear thinner, the eyes more elongated or the nose smaller. That’s not us. That’s a fake wannabe copy of someone we’ve seen on the Internet, which often doesn’t succeed, making us look almost ridiculous. A mask.

Be yourself, don’t be ashamed of your freckles, a chubby face, sunken eyes or a pimple in the wrong area of your face. That’s you.

And you must love, respect and celebrate yourself.

A bright foundation is welcome, as well as an eyeshadow that highlights the golden specks of your eyes, or a red lipstick that immediately lights up your face as a spotlight on you. But do not try to change yourself, or to look like someone different from what you see in the mirror when you stop to observe an image that is already perfect as it is, but you are too busy criticizing to notice it.

Be splendidly, exceptionally, proudly you, and make yourself messengers of the extraordinary power – and essence – of #beautydefect, a project born from the desire of the Vlogger Giulia Carucci, to create a network of truly aware people. Aware of their physicality, their strengths and weaknesses. Aware of their physicality, their strengths and weaknesses.

#beautydefect wants to be a way to raise awareness of health, to take care of your body in a healthy way. It does not condemn aesthetic retouching and does not condemn the use of social apps to erase a dark circle or a pimple, but condemns those who, through these tools, distort their characteristics, making the person in the photos almost unrecognizable.

This hashtag is an invitation to become aware of reality and not to hide yourself behind a mask that in real life we would never be able to wear.
Let’s take care of ourselves but don’t give up on our personality, which makes us perfect because we are different.

On this social scenario comes to life “THE GIRL NEXT DOOR”, the mirror of ourselves, the real one.

It is with great pleasure that today I introduce Laura to you, an extremely feminine girl who, however, often hid behind preconceptions and foolish criticisms. In the constant struggle with a fit body shape – maybe too fit? – – not to mention the unruly hair always up and pulled back.
A bright and sunny gaze that screamed its war inside!