My relationship with makeup
Don’t get it twisted, this will not be a tutorial of any kind.
I very distinctly remember one moment when I was 19. My hair was wet and I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom, staring into a wavy mirror from ikea that I had leaned up against a wall, and I was thinking to myself that I was definitely too ugly to ever not wear makeup. That stupid wavy mirror became my favorite torture device. I would use it to fixate on everything that wasn’t perfect, from every angle and then try my best to hide whatever I found under layers of makeup. For years I slept in my makeup and never even took off my fake eyelashes.
As i got older, my confidence changed, and I started telling my team that maybe I wanted to go make up free for some video and photo shoots, but nahh, they hired professionals to do my makeup and almost every time i’d have a small melt down in the bathroom because I felt like an entirely different person…
When I modeled for SUPRA, I remember looking into the mirror when the artist was done and just seeing all the LAYERS and POWDER and these MASSIVE eyebrows. I wanted to cry but there was a team of 20 people there to capture shots of me in shoes, so I held it in, then exploded in my manager’s car on the way back to my house. I felt embarrassed that Supra had spent so much money to come out to shoot me. Ugly little me.
Makeup had kind of started to feel like a prison. I felt like i was EXPECTED to look like this at all times and in my line of work, how may makeup should be done was a constant topic of discussion. I started to wear PAINT to studio sessions and meetings as a small act of rebellion.
Nowadays the idea of putting makeup on my face just to leave the house sounds completely insane to me and I would never sleep in my lashes. I feel more insecure wearing a ton of makeup as opposed to going without because at least without makeup I look like myself, and honestly I feel like people take me more seriously in the male dominated industries that i work in when i have a completely bare face. Around the end of my record deal, I would take off all my makeup before going to a session, thinking to myself that I was going to show up as myself and they could take it or leave it.
Once a year, I’ll forget all of this and then spend way too much money at Sephora but when I try to actually put the make up on? I’m reminded of a commercial for a medication where it listed one of the possible side effects as “mask like face”. Every month or so I’ll start filling in my eyebrows for a few days in a row and then come to my senses, realizing that i have literally drawn something that isn’t mine on my face, feel weird, and wipe it off with spit and the sleeve of my hoodie.
Why the fuck do i do this? Why the fuck do any of us do this shit? I’m here to find out by comparing photos of myself side by side with and without make up, same hair, same lighting and just SEE the difference.
So this morning, to catch the right vibe, I turned on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, then pulled out all the freaking makeup that I own and poured it all directly onto the floor because I’m garbage. This is a lot of makeup to own for someone who never wears it.
I did the works. Primer, concealer, foundation, brow wax, contour……. I could have honestly stopped here but this just feels, weird… because it’s like… CLEARLY I have a bunch of shit on my face and I’m not sure if i’m supposed to pretend like I don’t. Natural makeup seems fucking stupid to me because honestly skin is fine and allowed to look like skin. If i’m going to put on makeup I have to do the whole show.
So obviously, I went fucking nuts after that. I did the eyeliner, glued on the lashes, put on some eyeshadow and blush and bronzer and highlighter and when i didn’t have anything for my lips i used a weird cream blush that I now regret, in my defense, my lips were covered in foundation and just wiping it off with makeup remover or something didn’t cross my mind until literally THIS SECOND.
AND I HATE IT.
Don’t get me wrong. I will occasionally pull this bitch out. I’ll put on a skirt and throw some extra curls in my hair, because WHY NOT play dress up sometimes? I just never want to feel like i have to play dress up every single day EVER AGAIN.
And when I scroll back up and look at how i looked when i first woke up I can’t help but just love that stupid fucking big headed weirdo… and I mean that in the most endearing way.
When I compare my two faces side by side? THEY’RE NOT EVEN REALLY THAT DIFFERENT, yet they give off two completely different vibes.
To me? The girl on the left seems RAD, and the girl on the right looks beautiful but uncomfortable in her own skin. Maybe I’m just bad at makeup, I don’t know. What do you guys think?
When you compare the girl on the left to the girl on the right, what preconceptions do you have? Leave a comment below and let me know.
-Nova