Going to get my hair trimmed is something I always look forward to. It makes me feel new and refreshed and, indirectly, it’s the reason I got the idea behind starting Lady Godiva’s Lavatorium. I’ve always wanted to begin a project where I could talk about beauty since I started watching beauty videos on YouTube when I was ten years old. I took to YouTube for a while and saw some growth when people I didn’t know started subscribing and commenting. While this really excited me, being on camera isn’t what I’m passionate about. Every morning when I wake up, I read Into the Gloss and Man Repeller as soon as I can. Honestly, I’ve been late to class before because Into the Gloss will get me in a rabbit hole of researching products. It’s so much easier to go back and look for something in an article instead of scrubbing through a video. You also don’t have to be completely deaf to the world while reading, like you have to when you have your AirPods in and are listening to video audio. Needless to say, a blog was something I’ve been wanting to start for a long time. It was just a matter of how and when. I’m a third-year English major at NC State University, so partly, this website is a way for me to hone in on my writing and learn more about my style. With this in mind, I still didn’t want to create a website with me as the center focus. I really didn’t want to turn this into micahlambeth.com.
It wasn’t until I got a haircut that all the stars aligned and a light bulb flickered on in my head. My hairdresser (Chris King out of Greensboro, NC) got down on the ground--God bless him--and began to trim the split ends off my butt-length hair. The onlookers in the salon were commenting on the length of my hair when Chris called me “Lady Godiva.” When I got home, I looked up the story of Lady Godiva and became obsessed with the idea that a woman would protest against her own husband so many years ago and stand up for something righteous. If you don’t know the story, there was a noblewoman named Lady Godiva whose husband made unfair tax laws against the poor which Lady Godiva went against by riding through their jurisdiction with nothing but her long hair covering her nakedness. I knew then I wanted to create a beauty blog inspired by the spirit of this feminist queen. I just needed a word that could provide a catchy title and an attention-grabbing graphic. I went with the word “lavatorium” because it describes a washing area and has a religious undertone. Since most beauty practices occur in the bathroom and I’m religious, lavatorium seemed to be the perfect word. Then, came the graphic. One of my really great friends just happens to be an artist. I commissioned her to make a drawing of Lady Godiva sitting in a tub surrounded by products inspired by abstract art. I have a sticker of the drawing on my phone case and get questions about it all the time. Going through this process made me even more excited to start writing because I got to collaborate with my friend and it led to conversations I wouldn’t have had before. Moving along before I get too sentimental…
While I can, of course, see the beauty in people with all lengths of hair, I identify with long hair since it’s been a part of me for so much of my life. Long hair has been known throughout history to signify beauty and vitality in women. I wanted to transform this idea into speaking about beauty in terms of the strength of Lady Godiva. Her honorable acts inspired me to create this space. I hope Lady Godiva’s Lavatorium can be a space where you can learn more about beauty and feel empowered to talk about your own experiences. I hope my audience can be everyone and anyone. As I talked about in my article about Boy de Chanel, I don’t want the idea of beauty to be limited to certain genders, and that expands to age, income, race, etc.
I’m hoping to give new ways of thinking about a subject some people can see as taboo. I remember caring about my appearance in one way or the other since fifth grade. Some time in middle school, we played a classroom history trivia game where we tried to call on our classmate’s bluff and see if they could answer the questions. My classmates called on me multiple times because they saw my interest in the physical as vain and expected me not to know as much as them. To their surprise, I could answer any questions they threw at me. While this happened years ago, it continues to be a theme. Being interested in what you look like is often equated to being uncaring about the greater world around us, and that idea is simply not true. I want to help everyone realize they can be kind, charitable, revolutionary, and intelligent all while wearing red lipstick.
I also want to use this website as a way to archive my progress as a writer and academic goals. While I may only be twenty years old (making my interest in beauty span over half of my life) I realize the future of the beauty industry will soon be passed down to the hands of my generation. I can’t wait for that. I’m hoping to shape the industry into something even more beautiful than it already is and make people from all backgrounds and identities join in with me. Are you in?