However, I’m guilty of saying “I could never wear that” but I ALWAYS follow it with why, like it wouldn’t look good with my skin tone, body shape, or etc. I have honestly felt/told women that I wouldn’t wear something because I’m not brave enough, and I never mean it as an insult, I just don’t tend to feel comfortable making bold statements with my clothing.

I am petite, a size 4 and dress like Europeans (can’t help it.. that’s what you get from decades of colonialism). I wear understated makeup instead of loud colors, but I wear my hair natural. That one detail gets me so many comments and unwanted hand-in-hair situations.

This is especially frequent when you wear your hair natural as an African.
My hair shrinks, then stretches. some days I have tight curls, other days it’s a fuzzy mess that I conceal in a bun. Yet, males coworkers still didn’t understand that I do not cut my hair every 2 weeks.

I learned as a teenager that everyone is very aware of the negatives to their particular body/hair/skin and pretty much oblivious to the negative aspects of other body/hair/skin types. I was so, so jealous of my best friend’s hair. She is of mixed race and has the thickest, fullest, most amazing dark brown hair. I have limp, quick-to-look-greasy, dirty blonde hair that can’t hold a curl and gets stringy if I grow it long. And then she told me one day while playing with my hair how much she liked it. She said it’s easy to braid, easy to comb, doesn’t get frizzy, can be short without looking like a puffball, and doesn’t weigh a ton. And right then I realized we all assume that others have it better or easier, but they don’t necessarily.

So someone with really oily skin, who is constantly battling breakouts might look at your skin and feel jealous even though you are just glad the air in your office isn’t so dry that your cheeks feel tight. And I can tell you without ever having seen it that I would feel a little pang of jealousy about your hair as I wear mine in some variation of a chin- to shoulder-length bob for the 14th or 15th year in a row.

I feel like aside from a few mean girls, most of the time the “looks great on you/I could never pull off that look” comments are genuine compliments stemming from recognition that the same things don’t look good on everybody, but they do look good on somebody. There are a lot of styles I like that don’t look good on me. But if I see someone who does look good in them, I’ll tell her. Because I can still appreciate how it looks even if I know it wouldn’t look good on me.

I said that to someone who was overweight. She was wearing canary yellow and it looked good on her. I look best in jewel tones but would like to wear fun colors once in awhile. I meant it as a compliment even though I really didn’t like her.