Rhetorical analysis on “Why So Many of Your Favorite Beauty Personalities Are Mormon” from

the October 2017 edition of Allure Magazine. Written by Alice Gregory.

Link to Article:

https://www.allure.com/story/why-so-many-beauty-bloggers-are-mormon

In “Why So Many of Your Favorite Beauty Personalities Are Mormon” written by Alice

Gregory and published in the October 2017 edition of Allure Magazine. Allure is a popular

magazine and website that focuses on celebrities and beauty influencers. In this article, the

author tells how many of people’s favorite beauty bloggers and personalities are Members of The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also known as Mormons. She’s narrating how you

could end up on a beauty personalities page, and not even know that she’s a member of the

Mormon faith. Gregory is showing her target audience to know the ways of the LDS church and

how they present themselves. They have specific standards that they strive to follow, not only

when it comes to modesty and clothing, but in their life as a whole. There is more to them than

just religion. There is hard work, determination, fitness, plastic surgery, pressure, business and

marketing skills, and lots of comradery.

Gregory starts out by explaining how most of these Mormon beauty influencers look like

your average everyday people. She uses pathos to describe Mormon beauty Instagram influencer

Amber Fillerup. “She’s not wearing gunny sack dresses and praying beneath a high desert sun.

She’s eating shaved ice with her kids and prancing around in a bikini… and she continuously

promotes an idealized vision of domestic Mormon life.” By describing Fillerup’s life, she’s

showing that Mormons don’t look different from any average person, in fact she’s making

Mormonism look and sound enviable.

 Gregory then continues by using ethos to show that Mormons have been groomed their

whole life to look presentable. These teachings come from a pamphlet, written by the leaders of

their faith, called “For the Strength of Youth” (FTSOY for short). FTSOY gives the Mormon

faith direction on how to dress, date, what music to listen to, sexual purity, and many other

topics. It reads, “Your dress and grooming influence the way you and others act.” Gregory then

quotes Jen Atkin, a celebrity hairstylist who grew up in the Mormon faith. “The Mormon look is

pretty, relatable beauty, with nothing too out of reach...though they really know how to put on a

face of makeup!”

Gregory once again appeals to ethos by sharing with us that the Mormon community has

unwavering faith in fitness classes and groups. Only after coming to Utah and seeing all of the

fitness studios and slim looking mothers, did Gregory realize that two of her fitness instructors,

from her small pilates studio in Brooklyn, New York grew up as members of the church in Utah.

When speaking about the owner of the Pink Peonies Blog, Rachel Parcell, Gregory tells us that

Parcell had just gotten home from a Zumba inspired class. She tells us about Parcell by saying

“With her lanky limbs and glossy brown hair, Parcell, 26, could pass for an aspiring model in

New York or L.A., but in Utah, she looks like an ordinary mom.” She goes on to say that you

can't be fooled by the Zumba classes, and the Work-from-home status. These Mormon moms are

ambitious in what they do, even though they stay home with the kids while their husbands go to

work. There are many multi-level marketing businesses in Utah that cater to the mothers. To

name a few: Young Living, NuSkin, Jamberry, and Younique. “These businesses allow Mormon

women to make money and be ambitious, all while not working outside of the home, which in

lots of ways is still frowned upon,” said Megan Sanborn Jones, a professor at BYU.
 Gregory uses logos by giving us the statistic that although it’s among the most religious

states in the US, Utah has more plastic surgeons per capita than Los Angeles. She tells us that

whilst driving down Interstate 15, which runs north to south all the way through Utah, she saw

billboards for body modification: teeth whitening, CoolSculpting, liposuction, and breast

augmentation. “They sprout up as often as — and often right next to — signage for the Church

of Latter-day Saints.” Gregory tells us a few more statistics about the state of Utah saying “88

percent white, 57 percent Mormon, the highest marriage rate in the country, some of the fastest-

growing income rates.'' This is a statistic that helps prove her point by painting a picture of

exactly who is most likely to get plastic surgery: a white woman with disposable income and a

few pregnancies behind her, living among people that look and live like herself. She finishes by

saying “What do I know, but everyone seemed happy. Not vain or insecure, and certainly not

mentally calculating the cost of a boob job.”

Gregory’s use of ethos, logos, and pathos paints the picture of the Mormon culture, life,

and beauty standards. The tone of the article helps the reader understand that Mormonism isn’t

just a religion, that it’s a community. From their perfect attendance in their workout classes to

their ambition in selling products, it just goes to show how ambitious these Mormom women can

really be.

Total word count: 1,035

 Works cited:

Gregory, Alice. “Why Mormon Beauty Bloggers Are Taking Over Your Instagram Feed.”

Allure, www.allure.com/story/why-so-many-beauty-bloggers-are-mormon.