Before my first trip to France, I was concerned about fitting in during my brief stay, so I quizzed a friend who had lived and gone to school in France for a year. My main concern?

How to dress because Paris is, after all, one of the fashion capitals of the world.

My friend informed me that it seem like the styles that were popular in France arrived in my Midwestern town about two years later. So, while the top I was wearing might look like what she’d seen in France, they were probably already two years worth of trends ahead of it.

I was destined to be a fashion misfit. My whole class was.

Once in France, I ended up being late to meet my group for sightseeing in Nice. My host mom drove me to the general area where they were supposed to be, and we found the group easily. No one had cell phones or an easy way to contact the teacher, but even in the colorful city of Nice, our group of American students stood out in their flashy athletic sneakers and bright jackets.

Thankfully, those two weeks in France didn’t end up being long enough for my clothes to make much of a difference in my ability to make friends or fit in. Among the other American students, my clothes were normal, and among the French students I met, I was little more than a curiosity.

However, the visit was long enough for me to notice that French style and French ways of life were different from what I’d grown up with in the US.

In today’s Beauty Rewrites post, Christina Hubbard explores some of these differences. She goes way deeper than the colors we choose to wear and tackles some of the differences between French and American mindsets about how to be beautiful, healthy, and fulfilled.

She writes, “We Americans are known for our overwork ethic and tendency toward consumerism and heart disease. Most of us are trying to do so much, cramming our lives full of successes and things, always bigger and better. Trying to be so many things leaves us strung out, depressed, and totally wanting.”

To find out how the French can help us with this and to read Christina’s list of unAmerican beauty confessions, the first of which is, “I hate treadmills and anything called Insanity,” click here.

PS- This post is part of the 12-week series Beauty Rewrites featuring Christina Hubbard of Creative and Free, Ludavia Harvey of Nifty Betty, and myself. Join us on Tuesdays to get on good terms with the real you. For all the Beauty Rewrites posts, click here!