beauty
is feeling confident in yourself
i didn’t think of myself as pretty growing up.
my mom would send me to dance class and i’d feel self-conscious wearing a leotard. my stomach would stick out over my hip and i’d feel fat and ugly... unless i wore a skirt, which at least freed me from my desperately sucked-in stomach. i would look at my face, brush my bushy eyebrows into a shape i wanted, only for it to revert back instantly. i didn’t feel confident at all, and couldn’t look people in the eye when talking to them.
in middle school i’d eat a salad for lunch, then starve myself the rest of the day. then at night, i’d run on the treadmill for an hour before fainting on my bed. eventually, my stubborn body lost its baby fat, but i was still insecure about my face.
in high school, my friend and i evolved our stationary obsession to makeup. she got me everything to start – eyeshadow, liquid lipstick, concealer, eyeliner, blush. with my newly acquired skills, my face became a blank canvas. i’d scavenge my mom’s drawers for products to plaster on my face. my eyebrows looked sharpie-d in and my face tie-dyed with colored powders. i’d go to school with my blotchy makeup, not realizing until years later how bad it looked... but it didn’t matter, i was having fun.
in freshman year of college i had a part-time job on campus labeling data for a research lab that i had found through a bulletin board. i was cheap labor, but it was the first time i had an income. i’d clock in to dutifully bridge the gap between human intelligence and computer intelligence by labeling videos of men on construction sites in different positions and use my newfound wealth to buy bundles of sephora makeup samples on mercari so i could try different brands. they’d come in different plastic packets of different colors which i could apply to my face like watercolors. testing what worked and didn’t work on my skin tone, i’d get full sizes of used makeup on r/makeupexchange.
i followed makeup accounts on instagram that updated the latest available colors. eventually i knew every released product, how well it was doing, and every brand at sephora by heart. i knew what palettes would go out of stock and what colors were in trend. i knew what brands people sought out in other countries where they were not available.
on trips to china, i’d look on xiaohongshu and try new makeup styles. when i was in korea, i stopped at every olive young on the street and test out different colors. my makeup collection bloated out of my cabinets.
the really interesting thing about makeup is once you get better at it, it stops being about beauty and starts being about identity. you start having multiple identities because people don’t recognize you anymore. you can shift identities and be different versions of yourself on demand.
i did a makeup workshop at a camp and to my surprise, more men attended than women. we did everyone’s makeup and showed how to do a daily makeup look. they were so excited to be a different person, and it was so thrilling to see their smiles from seeing their transformation.
in college, one of my favorite books, disguised, talks about a young woman that dresses as an old lady with prosthetics and makeup and goes around the U.S. to expose how badly we treat the elderly, and how much we treat youth as a mark of beauty. some moments were really raw, her friendship with an age-agonistic kid she meets on the beach who asks her to collect seashells with her, an old man she meets at the park for picnics who gives her diabetic friendly candy. yet most of her experiences are unfortunately violent or hateful, and she saw how the elderly were no position to fight back. her personal experience and stories ended up changing accessibility laws in the U.S.
the other side of opting out of beauty is not being human. i used to think furries were crazy, but the more i think about it the more it makes sense. if we all pretend to be animals, then it won’t matter what race or ethnicity we are when we talk to each other.
yesterday, i watched slanted, which talks about a chinese girl who undergoes surgery to change into a white person. parts of the movie were kind of cringe, but some of the scenes were really relatable to my experiences from moving to white america arizona. it wasn’t until i moved here that i realized how much i don’t feel like i belong in the U.S., especially in entertainment. you have to work way harder for opportunities based on how you look. i realized only then that beauty isn’t all about being skinny or knowing how to do makeup, it’s also having confidence from feeling like you’re a part of it all.
a few days ago i was reading about yue-sai kan’s life, how she came to america from china, and made her wealth starting one of the first cosmetics brands in china. she now leads the annual shanghai film festival and beauty pageant. when china first opened up, people didn’t feel confident. she started her makeup brand as a way for women to feel confident and beautiful. it is with this same confidence, she says, that allows us to have the feeling that we can conquer the world.