This song is on TLC’s second single off of their 1999 album entitled Fanmail. This song topped the Billboard Hot 100 at #1 for 3 weeks.

The song focuses on how many women feel they are not beautiful because of men wanting them to wear makeup, hair extensions, have plastic surgery, etc. TLC was saying women should look inside themselves and gain confidence they are pretty without the extras.

The song was originally a poem of the same name by T-Boz that was adapted into a song. This poem can be found in her book, Thoughts, a compilation of various poems she wrote on life, love, and our society today.

This particular poem was written when T-Boz felt at her lowest- when she was in the hospital for her sickle-cell anemia. She has said that during that time, her boyfriend at the moment, Dalvin of Jodeci, didn’t come to visit her often and she felt ugly because of her sickness. She wanted to make him feel how low and unpretty she felt.