Caitlin Boyle, 25, left the Post-It on a mirror in a restroom where she works here in Orlando as an urban planner. It read: “You are beautiful.” She photographed it, posted the pic on her blog and asked readers to spread their own notes. Eagerly, they did, by the hundreds.
Today Boyle has inspired a small movement that has reached worldwide with a message that she worries is too often forgotten amidst the many pressures facing women today: that no diet, exercise or beauty regime can replace the inner beauty all women exude.
Since Boyle established OperationBeautiful.com in June, her site has garnered up to 11,000 visitors a day, and she has received more than 600 photographs of notes posted in public restrooms, on covers of beauty magazines, on scales at health clubs and on diet food packages in grocery stores. The e-mails come from across the country, from Canada, Japan, Germany and Australia, all with triumphant messages telling Boyle the stories behind the notes. She posts each message and photograph on her site, spawning further inspiration.
“The mission is to post notes in public places for other women to find,” she says. “The most basic message is, ‘You are beautiful,’ and by that I really think the women who are posting these notes mean you are beautiful on the inside. You are enough just the way you are. It’s not about physical beauty at all. It’s about accepting who you are.”
Boyle struggled with her own self-image after gaining weight in college. She lost the weight and now is an avid runner who is preparing for her first marathon. She writes about her healthy lifestyle on a separate blog and has come to believe that healthy living involves eating right and exercising, but also there is a third spiritual component that is equally important. For some that might mean religion; for others, it could come through volunteer work or random acts of kindness. Www.operationbeautiful.com targets that need, she says.
“Since I started doing this it’s really made me a happier, healthy person,” she says. “I think when you are doing these acts for other people, you treat yourself better as well.”
Within two days after posting her first note and sharing it on her healthy living blog, Boyle’s e-mail was flooded with photographs and messages from readers who had done the same. She established www.operationbeautiful as a site dedicated to the cause. She urges readers to leave heartfelt anonymous notes that include the site’s address so those who find them can keep the chain going. The notes can say anything, but if you’re aiming for concise and enduring, nothing beats, “You are beautiful.”
Some take the mission very seriously. In Philadelphia, the site came up during a local radio show after someone left notes on every car in a parking lot. A woman found the notes and called in to ask what was going on. Another listener who was familiar called in to explain. In New Jersey, a bookstore customer opened a book on eating disorders and found a note. She wrote to Boyle that she felt the note was meant for her. Boyle estimates she spends some 10 hours a week on the site. She has invested about $750 of her own money and gains a marginal income from advertisers. She already has a literary agent and eventually hopes to take the idea across media platforms.
Among Boyle’s soldiers is Kristen Moulton, who has been posting notes ever since she saw Boyle’s first one. The 29-year-old research assistant in Ontario, Canada, always is armed with Post-its and pens. She has left notes in a restroom and elevator where she works, in the locker room at her gym and in a fitting room at an American Eagle Outfitters store. Her notes say things like, “Your imperfections are what make you beautiful,” and, “Smile, you’re beautiful even on a Monday.”
“It’s just so easy. It takes three minutes out of your day to write it down and post it,” she says. “It’s such an easy way to make people smile. A lot of us go through the day, and without realizing it we really don’t smile a lot. And it’s so hard to walk up to someone and say something nice to someone because it just kind of makes you both feel awkward. It’s just an easy way to make them smile anonymously.”
