I have always been fascinated with makeup. As a child I remember standing in front of my mirror for hours trying on my mother’s clothes and shoes, twisting my hair into different shapes, and sticking my grubby mitts into all of her Mary Kay makeup. I didn’t have a clue about how to apply the stuff, but looking ridiculous didn’t matter to me at the time. I simply enjoyed the art of transformation, the art of changing myself into whoever I felt like being that day.
This obsession bled into all aspects of my life. As I awkwardly stumbled through my teenage years, I found myself changing tastes every day, adopting new clothes every week, wanting to dye my hair a different colour on the first of every month. I kept trying to expand my limited knowledge of the world, trying to figure out new ways in which I could further change some part of myself, because I didn’t like who I was at my core. I carried this strong distaste for myself all through high school, all the while trying to be more like the girls I thought were better than me, trying to mold myself to fit a specific standard in my head. In my teenage brain, trying to be somebody else made sense. I thought I’d find my sense of self that way. It wasn’t until I started seriously getting into makeup around the age of 18 that I finally began feeling comfortable in my own skin.
Over the last two years, I’ve acquired quite a variety of makeup products, and a trove of knowledge about technique to go with it. At first, it was kind of a disaster. I thought I had awoken the sleeping beast inside me, the young girl who used to smear blue glittery eyeshadow from her eyelids to her eyebrows. I was scared of looking like I was trying too hard. Most of all, I was just really afraid of being let down, of not finding the confidence that I had always yearned for. But as it turns out, staring at your face in the mirror for half an hour every day has managed to do for me what I could never do for myself: give me that little bit of confidence that I always missed out on. After a couple months of trial and error, I knew every inch of my weird face and what looked good on it. I knew what made my eyes pop, I knew what shade of lipstick I liked best and, most importantly, I knew how to make myself feel good. It always struck me that what started out as an attempt to cover up my flaws and try to change myself had blossomed into a beautiful hobby that allowed me to embrace all of these flaws instead, giving me the liberty to do whatever I liked with them. My face was a canvas, and I set myself free by giving myself the permission to wear makeup, the permission to try to love myself.
(Art by: Ben Codrington)
So why is something that makes me feel so good looked down upon?
I remember being ridiculed by some of my family members when I began wearing makeup, and even some of my friends. All of them said the same things: I was being deceitful by wearing makeup. It was a time sink. It was a waste of money. The discouraging remarks went on. I just kept thinking to myself, “This is nobody’s business but my own.” Nobody was allowed to tell me not to do something that made me feel good about myself. I never gave unwanted criticism to my friends about how they spent their money, yet here they were criticizing me for a bit of eyeliner and some lipstick. More than that, I couldn’t help but be mystified by the fact that these people were essentially telling me to stop wearing makeup, to stop doing something that boosted my confidence. But I had to be okay with them telling me I looked deathly sick every time I forgot to put my under eye concealer on.
We are in the midst of a beauty revolution, where makeup is now all about the subtlety of it, of getting it to look like it’s not even there. Natural beauty is sought after, but not all of us look like Beyoncé when we wake up, and it’s unfair to give somebody the impression that they aren’t naturally beautiful because of that. It’s even more unfair to judge them when they try and aim for that #IWokeUpLikeThis look using makeup, the look that the media has recently made us think is the standard. Makeup is really not that big of a deal. It’s something different for everyone, but to me it’s a hobby, and it was the only thing that successfully managed to break me out of my little shell of insecurity, turning it into a bubble of contentment. I am happy with my face, makeup or no makeup, and I am allowed to feel comfortable in my own skin. You are allowed to feel comfortable in your own skin by whatever means you see fit, and nobody can take that away from you unless you give them the power to.