Makeup, Power, & Chaos
A few keywords：scene, mood, act, and acting.
Chapter 1: The Reflection of Makeup
People who don’t wear makeup are probably not aware of this: the process of altering your own face, even just temporarily, is never not emotional.
I cried while doing makeup; i sang songs, and felt absolutely on top of the world; I covered up my dark circles, feeling all the hatred towards every single inch of my skin; I lined my lips while being reminded of my mother. I was in love with myself; I never want to see myself again ever.
At one point or another, I felt all those moments above.
I’ve been obsessed with makeup since I was a kid. My favorite parts of movies are always the makeover scenes, they are everybody’s favorite perhaps. We hold our breath, watching the unpopular girl finally decide to get rid of her glasses, curl her hair, thrift a whole new outfit. She sits in front of the mirror, studying herself for hours, carefully rendering her face with makeup. Beneath the brush stroke, the developing awareness of her true self and the growing power of using appearance as a tool foreshadows the upcoming revenge.
It is the change, the trigger-pulling that we are obsessed with——the power we potentially hold, at some point in life, that we can possibly be a completely different self, a better self, a self that will catch all the lights and love. We all yearn for a moment on the stage, even if for just only once.
In this sense, makeup is a lot like drinking. They serve as rituals to set the mood, to separate dreams from routines, and to lift us from the ordinary. Or they can be a temperate relief that makes us feel, “Life is not too bad after all, and I can bounce back eventually.” It is something we all need, perhaps on special occasions, or maybe at every single breathing moment.
Just like how kids wonder what their toys are doing when they’re not watching, sometimes I wonder what my makeups are feeling after I’ve left them for the occasion: a party, a date, a meeting, for the strange unknown. They helped me get ready, watched me dancing to my “get ready and feeling hot” playlist, or watched me spending 10 minutes covering up my swollen eyes from a night of tearing. They watched me humming while exchanging texts with friends. They watched me pregame while FaceTiming my mom. They watched me shed my nakedness and put on a mask of a new mood and a new self, holding my vulnerability until the exhausted me reclaims it at the end of the night. My makeup has seen a lot.
It is hard to say if the act of makeup is dehumanizing or elevates the experience above ordinary daily life. It can be extremely empowering, a drag, a statement, or extremely demolishing, skin grows onto the mask.
I thought I was fully aware of the danger of makeup (thanks to my social science degree and plenty of great resources such as Unpublishable）. A list of things that steering my tastes on makeups：I name capitalism, post colonialism, patriarchy, confucianism, human instinct, and my efforts on fighting all the above.
It is not all that easy.
Once a boy I was seeing at that time pull himself closer to me, so close that his eyelashes cast shadows on my face. Examining my features carefully, while I was blushing, he said, “your face need moisture, your makeup is a bit caky”.
I hate him since then.
Makeup is supposed to be a mask and a shield, but it somehow makes us more vulnerable. It empowers us in one moment and takes every bit of power out of us the next. Somehow, I’m weirdly obsessed with the vulnerability it imposes. The top tier romance is not the grand performance on the stage, but the running mascara in the dressing room after the show.
The same duality applies to makeup products. They lose their glamour once you own them. Once designed to attract, now a palette covered with eyeshadows, a tube sticky, fingerprints left on the once-shiny plastic cover. The attraction and glow of the products fade so quickly. The products are just as vulnerable as we are.
May I conclude, makeup is neither empowering or demolishing. It simply breaks the power dynamics. It is a reset, and it is chaos.
Chapter 2: My Makeup Routine
I’ve simplified my makeup routine to 5 minutes, partially because i know my face better, and partially because I’ve gave up the thoughts of editing the daily self with a glam.
I use gentle products to even my skin tone, cover my dark circles, and bring color and dimension back to my face. The main purpose is to somehow still look lively in the corporate context.
I go glam occasionally. When I have a date or somewhere special to go, I spend 30 minutes in the bathroom, smoke my eyes, darken my brows, over-glitter my eyelids, and put an absurd amount of highlight on my cheeks. I don’t use mascara or false eyelashes, and I contour my face for more masculine features. My version of a perfect glam is to look like a teen boy using his mom’s makeup for the first time (or Troye Sivan in “One of Your Girls”).
Chapter 3: Makeup And Aging
The thing is, I can’t discern the trace of my aging features. The changes in my facial features are dominated more by the changes of trends than anything else. From typical Chinese style makeup to ABG makeup, to some edgy experimentation, to where I am now, someone who needs to dress mature for the 9-to-5.
I used to never use blush. The goal is to have skin that is smooth and colorless like a girl generated by AI. Now I add as much blush as I possibly can, hoping to make my skin look more lively, or should we say, youthful.
When we talk about beauty, no matter how hard we try to incorporate “aging gracefully” or “embracing aging” into the conversation, all the good words we think about using to describe a product “smoothing” “brightening” “clearing” “evening”, they are all associated with the feature of youth.
We can’t deny that at some points, we are all scared of aging, and perhaps that’s okay.
Chapter 4: Keywords:
scene, mood, power reset, act, and acting. These should be your takeaway of this essay.
Chapter 5: My Favorite Makeup Artists:
@Violettes_fr is my all time favorite. Her signature look video from 6 years ago haunts me till this day. She is my definition of playing makeup with ease.
@zoekimkenealy. She is a huge inspiration for me. She understand makeup is for the mood more than anything.
@laravioletta_whenever I worry about using too much glitter, I think about her.
@kali.ledger, she is a fairy.
I loooooove reading your comments!