Cindy Crawford's Advice For Days When You Don't Feel Beautiful
Because, yes: Even supermodels have them.
When I was growing up, Cindy Crawford's beauty mark was a regular topic of conversation in our household.
Any time I was feeling bad about the fact that my thick eyebrows, dark frizzy hair, and chubby cheeks set me apart from all the other girls in my class, my mom would whip out a copy of Basic Face and point to the mole above Crawford's chin.
"Cindy Crawford doesn't look like everyone else either, and she's the most successful model in the world," she'd say.
At a young age, that mole helped me realize that being different and beautiful didn't have to be mutually exclusive. In the years since, we've thankfully gotten far more inclusive examples of what this combination can look like, but back in the 90s, a tall, thin, stereotypically-gorgeous woman with one tiny "imperfection" on her face was pretty much all we had.
As I got older, that itty-bitty dot above Crawford's lip was my north star as I learned to love all of the features that make me stand out. So a few years ago, I was shocked to discover that Crawford once hated her beauty mark just as much as I hated my frizzy curls and unruly eyebrows.
"My sisters called it an ‘ugly mark,'" she told Naomi Campbell on an episode of her podcast back in 2020. Her first modeling agency told her she should remove it, and a magazine opted to airbrush it out entirely on one of her early shoots. But then,Vogue put her on the cover with her mark on full display.
“I think that when [people] saw me on the cover of Vogue or in a magazine with a beauty mark, it made them feel more comfortable about their own beauty marks. It made them remember me. It became the thing that set me apart in a weird way," she told Campbell. “So often the thing that we [think] sets us apart and maybe we’re insecure about becomes the very thing that makes us stand out. I think that was a big lesson for me.”
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to see Crawford—and her iconic beauty mark—in real life at an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of her brand, Meaningful Beauty, where she spoke to a group of editors about her approach to beauty. At 57 years old, she's begun to navigate what it means to be an icon while getting older in the public eye, and has had to learn to deal with (I can't believe I'm even writing this about Cindy Crawford) another round of criticism about her appearance.
Below, she shares her advice for feeling beautiful on days that require a little extra self-love.
Cindy Crawford refuses to fade off into the sunset
"I know I don't look the same way I did when I was 25—the trolls on Instagram are all too happy to tell me that all the time," she said during the panel. "Getting older, especially in the public eye, is not always easy. And there have been times when I've thought 'I don't need this,' and have wanted to fade off into the distance."
But as a woman who considers her platform and role model status with the care they deserve, she knows that isn't an option.
"Because what message am I sending to women if I do that? Am I telling them we need to be invisible once they reach a certain age or a certain season of life? I don't want to be a part of that message—we get enough of that from the media," she said. "As a woman in the public eye, I do feel that it's important to say that I'm not going to go hide because I don't look like my 25 or 30-year-old self."
The beauty of getting older
Crawford's refusal to quietly disappear is evident in her active Instagram account (where she has 8.2 million followers), her recent appearance on Apple TV+'s The Super Models, and—at the top of the list—her feature on Vogue's "Greatest of All Time" September 2023 cover alongside Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell.
"The one thing we all had in common before was being models, but now we have this thing where we're all grown women and mothers, and a lot of the bullshit just [fades away]," she said of her fellow OG supers, many of which she stays in regular touch with. "One of the good things about getting older is that you're more comfortable in your own skin—literally, because it's looser, but you also know who you are more and the lens of time gives you better perspective on who you are and what's meaningful to you."
The trolls may take issue with that "looser" skin, but Crawford is grateful for the wisdom that's come along with it.
Advice for days when you don't feel beautiful
It's hard to imagine that a woman who has been on the cover over 1,000 magazines could ever question her beauty, but even Cindy Crawford has moments of self doubt just like the rest of us.
"Even if you are on the cover of Vogue, there are some days when you don't feel beautiful," said Crawford. "[In terms of how to fix that], there's no easy answer I can tie up with a nice little bow, because it's hard—especially for women, because so much of our identity is tied to how we're seen by others."
Her top piece of advice is one you've likely heard before, but is important enough to warrant repeating: Treat yourself the way you would treat your best friend.
"I think we forget to be kind to ourselves, but with our friends, we're kind. We get excited for them when something good happens, sit and watch stupid TV with them when something bad happens, and always tell them their haircut looks great," she said. "Self talk helps, even if you have to fake it—if you were as kind to yourself as you were to your best friend, what would that look like?"
Also important, according to Crawford, is having a strong sense of self that allows you to find confidence in things other than your outward appearance.
"One of the great gifts of my life is that I had a period when I got to just figure out who I was," she said of her stint in New York in her 20s. "And finding your people, figuring out what you want to do, finding what makes you excited to get out of the bed in the morning, and staying in the moment [can make a world of difference.]"
It may have been Crawford's beauty mark that got me through my formative years, but this is the advice I'll be carrying with me for the rest of the journey ahead.