When we decide to focus on developing our femininity and to grow into our potential as women, it’s helpful to look for role models to inspire and motivate us. One of the wonders of the internet is that it opens up nearly the whole world to us. We can learn from people we would otherwise never have encountered and discover perspectives outside our local neighbourhood. However, the internet means that anyone can give themselves a platform, regardless of how well or poorly qualified they may be to speak on a subject. This means it’s necessary for us to discern who we choose to listen to and whether we should wholeheartedly accept everything they say as truth.
Discerning YouTube Influencers
Over the past year and a half, I’ve become aware of many people speaking about femininity on YouTube. Some of these I’ve personally disagreed with and so chosen to avoid their influence and interpretations. Others I’ve embraced and been grateful to have their encouragement speaking into my life. However, it’s important to not just accept someone’s surface façade. Helpful truth can be mixed up with unhelpful lies. If we open the door to one, the other may slip in too if we’re not on our guard. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t listen to perspectives we disagree with. It just means we need to stay conscious of questioning the underlying narratives. I believe a key part of mature femininity is wisdom. To be truly feminine we must avoid naivety, be aware of potential manipulation, and remember to think critically.
Critique With Kindness
I don’t agree with gossip or needlessly damaging people’s reputations. However, I do think it is important to practice critical thinking and to logically evaluate the worldviews and opinions being promoted. It’s important not to spread hatred or harass figures who are speaking online and already receive abuse from internet trolls. Even if we disagree with or dislike someone’s ideology or parts of their ideology, we should still be loving towards the person behind them. There is a way to critique respectfully if we feel the need to publicly address certain issues. Love should challenge injustice and deception in order to bring about change, but it should also be kind so that we contribute towards making a better world instead of contributing towards the already all too plentiful hate.
Growing on Our Journey
We don’t know YouTubers or other such influencers personally, so our knowledge is limited. From the information available to us, we should look at the evidence and assess it for ourselves with critical thinking, with love, and with wisdom. We can come to a fair evaluation but should acknowledge that we may not necessarily be correct. Sometimes there can be a fine line between critically addressing what someone is teaching and cruelly trashing their reputation. We must be careful not to get drawn across that line. At certain points in our journey we may find it’s time to relinquish certain teachers or influencers who we found helpful earlier on in our journey but have now outgrown. It is fine to do so. Sometimes people are just there to teach us something at a certain stage of our life. Our goal is not to become like those role models but rather to become who we were made to be. We can appreciate the past but look forwards at the same time.
Feminine Finishing School
With this said, it’s right to turn the attention to this blog – Feminine Finishing School. I am not infallible. I have good intentions and try to be self-aware, but I want to remind you to never take my word or interpretations as gospel. I’m still learning and I’m only human after all. This blog is a place I can explore topics such as femininity, etiquette, and Bible study as I learn more about them myself. We’re all flawed and limited in our perspectives, although we can strive to educate ourselves on issues where we lack experience. Remember to think critically for yourself, no matter who you are listening to or what you’re reading. Be guided by your own moral compass and, if you’re Christian, through praying to God.
In a way I view my blog as a scrapbook and a place to gather interesting information, thoughts, links, and resources. I hope it can act as a library for those of you also seeking to grow as feminine women. Below I’ve shared several videos by different women who I think have wisdom to share on a range of topics. Clearly there are too many videos to listen to in one sitting, but if femininity is a topic that interests you, then this list is worth coming back to when you have time. There is much to be learnt from listening to the ideas and experiences of other women, and I wanted to share some voices you may not otherwise come across. I hope you can learn something of interest from them.
I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite feminine YouTube channels. Some of them directly talk about femininity, etiquette, or growing towards becoming a better person. Others simply demonstrate values or characteristics that I personally associate with different aspects of femininity.
There are a lot of YouTube channels out there that discuss femininity. Many of these do have good advice, including channels that haven’t made this list. However, femininity has become a popular theme online over the past year and some YouTubers seem to have simply jumped on the trend. Some channels are more focused on superficial elements associated with femininity, such as external appearance or romantic relationships. Those topics can be fun, but in my opinion true femininity comes from the inside. It’s important we are discerning about which messages we choose to accept. We should choose to surround ourselves with the values and traits we wish to embody.
In no particular order, here are my top 30 favourite YouTube channels about femininity, etiquette, beauty, style, cooking, nature, art, culture, community, relationships, faith, Christianity, and inspiration for generally becoming a better version of myself. I hope you enjoy them too.
1 Mrs Midwest
Caitlin, otherwise known as Mrs Midwest, is a homemaker and a young wife living in the mid-west of America. She makes videos discussing femininity, homemaking, beauty, relationships, traditional lifestyle, her faith, and baking.
2 Karine Alourde
Karine discusses and analyses what makes certain women feminine, how they could improve their femininity, and what we can learn from them. These range from fictional characters to real people and a brilliant series about femininity around the world in different cultures.
Felicia is a former actress and beauty pageant queen who has expanded her love of all things feminine to talk about it as a YouTuber and blogger. Her videos discuss femininity, elegance, beauty, style, relationships, self-improvement, advice, and women’s issues.
Cynthia is a millennial housewife and a former Miss Earth Canada beauty pageant model. She draws on this experience in many of her videos to talk about femininity, etiquette, beauty, body language, personality refinement, and homemaking.
5 That Feminine Housewife
Ina is a housewife from Norway who likes to take a more scientific approach in some of her beauty tips, examining exactly what it is that makes a woman appear more feminine. She makes videos about style, beauty, make-up, homemaking, and her interpretation of femininity.
Anna is a certified image consultant and has attended a Swiss finishing school to gain a diploma in international etiquette and protocol. She uses that knowledge to teach about modern elegance, style, etiquette, personal transformation, and high society lifestyles.
7 Lisa Hart
Lisa is a fashion designer and blogger from France who loves old Hollywood glamour and belly dance, which she draws upon in a number of her videos. In her videos she discusses style, beauty, femininity, elegance, deportment, glamour, and grace.
8 Jonna Jinton
Jonna is an artist, musician, singer, photographer, filmmaker, and jewellery designer who lives close to nature in a small remote village in the north of Sweden. Her videos and vlogs are always works of art sharing the beauty of nature, her latest creative projects, and genuine emotions from her life.
9 Liziqi
Li Ziqi is a highly talented and very hardworking young Chinese woman who lives with her grandmother amongst the mountains of rural China. Her fairytale aesthetic videos demonstrate traditional Chinese cookery, gardening, farming, and various other traditional Chinese crafts.
10 Girl in Calico
Kaetlyn is a young American woman who enjoys cultivating a slower and more meaningful way of life through traditional living and her Christian faith. She creates beautifully aesthetic videos recording her gardening, baking, cooking, preserving, and homemaking through the seasons of the year.
11 Traditional Me
Nadee has been described as the Li Ziqi of Sri Lanka. Her high-quality videos show her gathering then cooking plants from the surrounding garden and farm into traditional Sri Lankan meals, whilst interacting with her grandmother and her teasing younger brother.
12 RayaWasHere
Raya was originally a travel vlogger but more recently she’s been shifting her content towards sustainability, personal growth, conscious living, doing social good, and nurturing the community around her. She encourages inspiration, passion, adventure, kindness, travel, culture, and self love.
13 AlexandrasGirlyTalk
Alexandra’s videos are always very well put together and appear professional in their quality. She gives advice on beauty, fashion, style, make-up, hair, and occasionally other topics she thinks girls should know about such as femininity or dating.
14 The Rachel Review
Rachel offers advice in her videos on various topics related to style, beauty, and lifestyle. These she gives based on her own approach of sophistication, femininity, elegance, and class, whilst also embracing a spirit of adventure.
15 Audrey Coyne
Audrey is a fashion enthusiast and a minimalist who aims to help people discover their unique personal style. In her videos she talks about style advice, fashion, wardrobe planning, and other related topics, as well as tips on having an attractive voice from her training as an opera singer.
16 Emily Wilson
Emily is a Roman Catholic wife and mother from California. She believes that girls and young women need to hear the truth in love, so she answers viewers’ questions, provides pep talks, and gives encouraging practical advice to help with faith, relationships, confidence, and friendships.
17 Tiffany Dawn
Tiffany is a Christian author, speaker, and YouTuber who loves to share the life advice that women don’t hear in church. In her videos she discusses boys, singleness, healthy romantic relationships, beauty, body image, eating disorders, God, faith, Bible study, and general life tips.
18 Dating Beyond Borders
Marina organises actors and actresses to demonstrate traits of different countries through cross-cultural relationships from all around the world. These videos give entertaining short stories and use romantic relationships to share a bit about the different cultures.
19 The Daily Connoisseur
Jennifer is a New York Times bestselling author of Lessons From Madame Chic and other books, as well as being a wife and a mother of four. In her videos she talks about capsule wardrobes, thoughts on style, homemaking, classy living, elegance, parenting, and etiquette.
20 The Modern Lady
Devereaux is an author and YouTuber who teaches ladies how to live with class, confidence, charisma, and elegance. She discusses social graces, classic style, and sophisticated living, as well as having a series where she interviews a variety of classy ladies.
21 IntoAMilli Lady
Karina is an entrepreneur running an online business and she also makes videos discussing women, money, and power. On her channel she talks about internal growth, elegance, beauty, wealth, business, etiquette, romantic relationships, and what she considers the ills of society.
22 Linda Sandrine
Linda now lives in America but was originally from Cameroon, meaning she has a lovely Cameroonian accent. In her videos she talks about elegance, femininity, being ladylike, beauty, health, fashion, dating, and relationships.
Isabel lives close to nature on a farm in the mountains of America. She shares stories from her life of learning how to farm for herself, building her own tiny house, creating vegan meals, doing yoga in the mountains, swimming in the rivers, laughing with family, and exploring a simpler lifestyle.
24 Daughter of Old
Annie is a freelance artist, a videographer, and an aspiring herbalist. She shares the everyday rhythms of her life as she works in tune with the seasons and alongside nature to find the beautiful magic in traditional crafts such as cooking, baking, and herbalism.
25 The Elliott Homestead
Shaye and her husband Stuart run a small farm in Washington State of America, where they grow their own food and home-school their four children. In their videos they share the love, purpose, and beauty they find in their life of gardening, farming, cooking, preserving, and homemaking.
26 The Darling Academy with Alena Kate Pettitt
Alena is a British author and housewife from the Cotswolds of England. She creates videos about simple, wholesome, vintage-inspired homemaking as well as etiquette, femininity, marriage, and the misunderstandings she’s been subject to as a woman desiring a traditional lifestyle.
27 The Chateau Diaries
Stephanie is the chatelaine of the 16th-century French Chateau de LaLande, which she is restoring to its former glory with family, friends, and volunteers from all over the world. Her videos share life filled with laughter, decorating, renovation, cooking, gardening, and many wonderful characters.
28 This Esme
Esme is a young equestrian who shares the adventures and fun she has learning more about horses. Her videos include vlogs with her ponies, her riding lessons, interviews with top riders, visits to equestrian events, horse care routines, equestrian travel, and exploring the equestrian community.
29 FarAwayDistance
Becca is an evangelical Christian and a school teacher from Illinois in America. She makes videos to talk about her faith as a Christian, to teach the Bible with an emphasis on being both truthful and loving, and to challenge people to grow deeper in faith and love.
30 BibleProject
Tim and Jon from BibleProject can’t be classified as a feminine YouTube channel, but they’ve helped me learn more about God and the Bible so this list would be incomplete without it. They create artistically stunning short animated videos about how to read the Bible and exploring profound themes that run throughout the Bible. Their videos are really good and I would highly recommend them, whether you consider yourself Christian or not.
Feminine Finishing School 