Odacité Kind of Girl: Dayle Haddon

Dayle is the incarnation of a beautiful soul in a beautiful body and a true inspiration. Canadian born, former model for L'Oréal and Revlon, cover girl of Vogue and Elle, and best selling author, Dayle began redefining what true beauty is. She then went on to work with UNICEF and in 2008 founded WomenOne, a non-profit with a powerful mission : "Educate a girl, change the world".  I recently found out she is a fan of Odacité and follower of our Instagram :-)  
I feel many of you will resonate with her story and her mission; connecting women and girls in need around the world to other women who had the energy and resources to support them: women supporting women.

Tell Odacité beauty lovers a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to go from supermodel to the CEO and Founder of WomenOne.

I’ve been in the beauty and fashion world for many years. I’ve been lucky enough to have had four major cosmetic contracts; with L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Revlon and Max Factor and have worked with some of the most amazing photographers from Snowden and Horst to Avedon, Bourdin, Beaton and Newton. In my thirties, I was told by the industry that I was ‘over the hill’ and wouldn’t work anymore. I felt I was just at the beginning of my life, most certainly not at the end or even near it, and I realized I could change the perception of aging in the industry from the inside out! I started a multi media company for women, wrote 2 bestselling books on inner and outer beauty and toured with the books across the US, Europe and China speaking to women about how true beauty is something that should stay with us always. It is not defined by age, size or race, that every age has truths to tell us. We just have to be open to hearing what each age brings us instead of holding on to where we have been and what we already know.

I felt I wanted to give back and started working with UNICEF as an Ambassador traveling all over Africa, and South America for them. I learned so much on these trips, some of them were very challenging both with what I witnessed and the physical difficulties. On one of the trips to rural Angola we were visiting a clinic where women had walked all night with babies strapped to their backs to get medical attention. One of the doctors asked me to help them obtain two microscopes to do their work better. I discovered that the request was too small for the larger organization and at that moment I realized there was room to create a non profit that was small and nimble enough to turn problems like these around quickly and yet could work with the larger organizations who were already doing such great things…and the idea of WomenOne was born!

All of us here at Odacité are truly moved by WomenOne and feel very strongly about its mission. Could you share its mission and approach to helping thousands of girls worldwide?

There are more than 65 million girls out of school globally. We want to change those numbers. WomenOne envisions a world where every woman and girl has access to a quality education. We partner with organizations to provide girls living on the margins access to life-changing education.

WomenOne has built schools in Haiti, Senegal, the Maasai Mara in Kenya, implemented a social impact fund in The Gambia with Let Girls Learn and the Peace Corps. We’ve worked with the Syrian refugees in Jordan and Turkey creating an innovation program for media and leadership skills. We support our Center of Worth in Kenya where we are taking girls who are living a working on the streets and putting them into school and they are excelling. We believe that when you educate a girl you truly do change the world.

There are so many difficulties in starting anything, let alone a non profit; the first being to get the status of a non profit so that any donations given would be tax deductible. My first step was to work with a non profit lawyer with that goal in mind. The second challenge was to decide what I wanted to focus on, (was it clean water, food, non violence) and build a website that reflected my vision. I chose education because I felt it was a game changer. So many areas are improved when a girl gets an education; violence goes down, occurrences of HIV-Aids is diminished, the community improves. If a mother can just read, she has 50% chance her child will more likely live beyond the age of five! I felt that secondary education was most important because it was the age where we often lost a girl. At age 12 or 13, she might be married off or sold or brought back into the family to work at home and be sentenced to a lifetime of poverty and probably many children she couldn’t care for properly. For every year we can keep a girl in school she is guaranteed to be more healthy, have a much higher income and be able to care for her family and her own children who will most probably be educated as well.

Did you experience any difficulty in starting your first nonprofit? How did you overcome it?

We have challenges getting people to know what we are doing so they can help…getting the word out through social media and raising the funds to get the girls into school! It's a constant creative battle to find ways to accomplish this but it is amazingly rewarding and often very exciting when we get it done!

Is there a message you can share with our fellow women readers based on what you learned over the course of your inspiring journey of personal development.

 I’ve had a long while to think about the question I’m asked a lot; What is true beauty? I feel it  can be many things but beauty, real beauty, can never be without the idea of generosity. Being generous is such an essential part of being beautiful! That can mean many things..being generous with your time, your energy, your thoughtfulness and kindness.

I also feel that curiosity can feed your passion and make you feel alive…read books, go to art shows, see the theatre, listen to music. All of it is digested in a certain way and is then delivered in a sort of unique personal wisdom that is yours and yours alone…this too is beauty!

I’m a big believer in being grateful…no matter what happens or has happened, to list for yourself what you are grateful for. I believe being grateful truly enhances your own experience and brings you serenity and peace.

All things that bring you back to your inner self are helpful. With that in mind, I deeply recommend, yoga and meditation and spending time in nature and with loved ones …and also doing one or two crazy things that bring you joy…right now mine is Zumba classes!! Even though I may be one of the least adept in the class, I may have the most fun! And, laugh, laugh whenever you can, especially at yourself!

Finally, could you tell our readers what your all-time favorite Odacité product(s) is and how you use them in your skincare regime.

GENTLE REJUVENATING CLEANSER : I love creamy cleansers! This one removes everything!!...without making your skin feel tight. Comes with facial sponges for a thorough wash.

WINTER IN PARIS : Love the name! This is great for the super dry winter months when my skin feels it! You can use it purely as a serum or I like to mix a couple of drops in my regular cream for a surge of hydration with powerful antioxidants!

SYNERGIE[4] IMMEDIATE SKIN PERFECTING MASQUE : I’m not really a mask person but this masque is an ultimate multi-tasker! It helps skin to DETOX, PEEL, BRIGHTEN & FIRM. I understand it removes all the pollutants we pick up, especially in the city…while offering a serious de-aging action! That’s for me!