My name is Stephanae McCoy

Hi my name is Stephanae (Steph) McCoy, I’m a retired mom, gushing first time grandma (or Gigi as I like to be called), advocate, speaker, and animal lover. I’m also a smart, resourceful, introspective, somewhat artistic, computer savvy, perfectionist (code for obsessive compulsive tendencies) who happens to be legally blind.

My vision loss began nine years ago when I removed one of my contact lenses, looked in the mirror, and saw half of my face was missing. The diagnosis was a macular hole and luckily for me all the statistics pointed to a favorable prognosis; 1 - I was considered very young to have this diagnosis, 2 - odds were it would not occur in my other eye, and 3 - I had a 95% to 99% probability my vision being completely restored in my affected eye. Unfortunately, my eyes refused to fall in line with the statistics and here I am today unable to see the big “E” on the eye chart.

While I do not consider myself to be a fashion guru, I must admit I have a serious weakness for shoes, clothes, jewelry, hair and makeup which led me to create a blog dedicated to these topics for blind and vision impaired women. The idea of the blog came to me as I was preparing for a presentation for thePennsylvania Council of the Blind’s Annual Convention. In researching makeup for blind and vision impaired women I found very little on the subject.

Since the cosmetics and fashion industries are not geared to those of us with vision impairments I felt Ineeded to do something and this is how Bold Blind Beauty was born. I write and post descriptive pictures and video tutorials to help our demographic become more comfortable in the world of fashion.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said that “when you look good you feel good” but I’d like to submit “when you feel good, you look good.” I believe that confidence goes a long way in telling the world that you feel good about yourself and how you look. This is especially true when you are blind or vision impaired because you do not have the visual cues necessary to achieve a certain look and this is where I can help.

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~Wayne Dyer

My blog www.boldblindbeauty.com.