Super Beauty comes to the rescue by inspiring confidence
Superhero star of children’s book now available as doll
Growing up in Columbia, S.C., Tiffany Joyce Wider was a loner.
“I thought I was ugly, I thought I was fat. I felt out of the norm,” she said. She felt hopeless and different from her peers. At the age of 12, she attempted suicide for the first and last time in her life.
With the help of guidance counselors and a loving family, Wider grew older and navigated a new, positive life. She wrote and produced original music, graduated college in 2009 and started her own entertainment and marketing businesses. She became an entrepreneur and artist, branding herself as TiffanyJ.
But even as she achieved success, she always knew that there were young girls who were fighting their own battles against depression and low self-esteem, just like she did. So she created a superwoman for them.
“Super Beauty Saves the Day” is a children’s book designed and written by TiffanyJ about a young black supergirl who crusades against bullies at her new school. Dressed in a sky-blue cape, Super Beauty boosts the self-esteem of her classmates by accepting everyone as they are.
And now, she has created the Super Beauty Doll, a doe-eyed plush toy that’s loaded with 21 encouraging phrases that are meant to inspire confidence in young girls. The doll has black skin, brown eyes and a natural hair puff with a pink bow to match a spunky superhero outfit. And though TiffanyJ said its meant to be a self-esteem booster for girls and boys of all races, the doll does serve as a notable alternative to the ultra-fashionable, stick-thin Barbies marketed to young girls. It’s available for $24.95 at iamsuperbeauty.com.
One of Super Beauty’s phrases is “Your skin color is amazing. Your hair is flawless.” The doll, like the book character, is made to help girls, and specifically girls of color, fight against self-doubt. “Sometimes, our little girls get confused because they automatically think black skin is less valuable,” TiffanyJ said. “A lot of time, when little girls have natural hair, they feel like they have to have straight hair, or the pretty pig tails… But it’s OK to rock a natural puff,” she said.
TiffanyJ, 31, has seen how poor representation can affect self-image in young girls. Every year, she hosts a summer camp for local girls ages 6 to 17 that’s meant to improve campers’ self-esteem. She brings in successful women speakers for seminars and does affirmational activities throughout a three-day confidence boot camp. “I like to instill in children that they don’t have to put themselves in a box,” she said. TiffanyJ used the girls from her annual camps as the first “focus group” for Super Beauty.
She wanted to create a character that was like them and for them. And after one camper dubbed TiffanyJ “Super Beauty,” because she has the power to make others feel good, an idea began to form.
Shaun Adams is the executive director of the Columbian chapter of Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, an NAACP mentorship and achievement program. Adams has worked closely with TiffanyJ, an ACT-SO mentor.
“Tiffany wanted a superhero for everyone to look up to, who didn’t subscribe or look like the normal standards of beauty that most dolls look like right now,” he said.
Jordan Maney, the 27-year-old founder of KeepHer, a San Antonio advocacy organization for women of color, remembers what it was like being a young black girl in a toy store. “Growing up, finding the option that looked like me, the dolls that had hair texture like me, was extremely limited,” she said.
Having dolls like Super Beauty, who represent and affirm young black girls’ experiences, can help ease some of the social pressures that they may feel in the future, she said.
“A lot of our girls growing up get their first chemical relaxer way too young, but you want to fit in with everybody else so much,” she said. “So, I think having dolls is really good for black girls to see and celebrate themselves, to feel empowered. But also, good because other children realize its OK. It’s beautiful, too.”
The Super Beauty doll has been funded by sponsors, donations and TiffanyJ’s investment. She raised $2,500 in just one week for the toy’s costly compliance testing after she launched a social-media donation campaign.
When TiffanyJ brings the doll and its life-size mascot to schools, she said that both boys and girls, black and white, want to play with her. “She’s giving high-fives to everybody,” she said. And that’s really the project’s purpose: that young kids may see their differences as beautiful. “The fact that they are embracing her, and she’s different, is kind of cool.”