The Look Of Mormon

Some of the Internet’s most successful beauty personalities have a few things in common: glossy hair. Flawless eyeliner. Bright smiles. Oh, and a  belief that their bodies are sacred temples where they make covenants with God. Alice Gregory investigates the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ growing influence on the beauty world.

 

- Alice Gregory

Any insomniac who has tried to convince herself that “just a few minutes” on Instagram will beckon back sleep has landed, circa 3 A.M., on the feed of a Mormon lifestyle blogger. Although she probably has no idea that’s where she is. The blogger’s faith is never foregrounded. It’s obvious, though—once you know what to look for. She’s white and under 30 and married. Fit and given to flattering dresses that hit the knee and cover the shoulder, she has multiple children and Lady Godiva hair. She knows her way around a braid. She is wholesome but not dowdy; her posts are relentlessly positive but never pious. Until you Google her name and see that she was married at the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), you might not know that she routinely asks herself, while shopping or applying eye shadow, Would I feel comfortable with my appearance if I were in the Lord’s presence? 

Amber Fillerup Clark, aka the Barefoot Blonde, is 26 years old and lives in Hawaii with her husband, their two young children, and a golden retriever. They all appear on her blog, alongside pictures of Fillerup Clark herself, who is breathtakingly pretty. She offers up beauty and fitness tips and bubbly accounts of her balmy days, as well as a line of clip-in hair extensions, which are for sale on her site for roughly $200 and given names that sound like nail polish shades (“Melt My Heart,” “Platinum Status”).