Try this on for an assignment: Write down how many times you look in the mirror each day. Whether you’re brushing your teeth, touching up your makeup or catching a glance in a window as you walk by, jot it down. It could change your life. It did for Autumn Whitefield-Madrano.
A journalist who previously worked at female glossies, including Ms., CosmoGIRL! and Glamour, Autumn went on not one, but two month-long breakups with her mirror, allowing herself only the tiniest of views to make sure her makeup was properly applied. The experiment was so popular and fascinating that Autumn suddenly found herself not the byline on a story, but the topic of it, with buzz hitting The New York Times, The Today Show and the Guardian, among others.
But Autumn is no one-hit wonder. Beauty, and all the topics surrounding it, is a subject she finds endlessly fascinating. She writes about how society views the topic (as well as her own views on it) daily on her website, The Beheld. Autumn is also a frequent writer on all things beauty for a variety of publications. Her essays have appeared in Marie Claire, Whole Living, The Huffington Post and Salon. Her book, “Hot or Not: What Science, Language and Sex Can Teach Us About Beauty” will be released during spring 2015.