Photography by Isabella Behravan

Writen by Rose Dommu

OUT MAGAZINE

Noto Botanics is centering wellness — and queerness — in beauty.

Like most cool queer people, Gloria Noto was a goth in high school. “I would paint masks on my face and make myself look sick or like I had done a bunch of drugs,” she explains, laughing. “I would just look messed up.”

Makeup was the perfect conduit for Noto’s obsession with punk art and music, as well as a revolt against the heightened glamour of the Sicilian women in her family. The beauty she was drawn to didn’t fall in line with the way she was taught women were supposed to look. She learned that being a woman was “always having to edit yourself, to make yourself look more presentable.”

All photographs by Isabella Behravan.

Emotional Attachments: The Nostalgic Objects That Remind Us Of Our Mothers

Ordinary objects imbued with memories and feels, that’ve become extraordinar

We’ve all had the experience where ordinary objects become talismans or mementos that induce nostalgia. A ’90s song comes on the radio and you’re suddenly slowdancing with your middle-school boyfriend. You pass a restaurant and you’re swooshed back in time to a raucous birthday dinner with friends. You sit on a park bench and remember the conversation you once had with your mother in that very spot.

Just as ordinary places and songs become imbued with personal meaning, ordinary objects assume double lives when we love them. To the uninitated, these objects might just look like a rosary. A pair of running shoes. A bag of cheetos. A nightgown. A trophy. But to us, they look like our mothers and mother figures. These objects serve as everyday reminders of their constant care and the lessons they’ve taught us.

In honor of Mother’s Day, five Girlboss staff members share the enchanted objects that remind them of their mothers and why.