lipstick beards, mustache glitter, and eyeliner wings

happiness with makeup and the many, many ways we look at makeup in bad ways

I'm not very good at makeup and maybe never will be. But, I guess what I need to ask myself, and what we all need to reflect on is, what is being good at makeup?

Obviously, you can be very good technically. You can apply makeup flawlessly and make a living out of its application. Or, you can be so good at teaching people how to apply it that you make a living and grow a following that way as well. You can be so good at makeup that as a trans woman you “pass” as a cis-woman. These are ways people can very clearly be good at makeup.

But I guess for me to be “good at makeup” needs to be reframed a bit. Being good, for me, needs to kind of look like, am I feeling happier with myself when I am done? Did I enjoy the experience of applying my makeup? Do I like the person I see after putting on my makeup? How much did I smile while I was doing this? Do I enjoy talking with other people about makeup and new things I can learn? Am I doing this and putting on more makeup for me or for other people?

If these things are positive, then I have done good with my makeup.

Growing up I played with makeup only a little bit. I used it to cover up acne that I didn't want other people making fun of me for but beyond that, I really just looked at the more brightly colored makeup and wondered what it would look like on me. But I also wondered what people would say about me if I wore it. Constantly the thoughts about what people would think of me (negative ones) won out over the positive feelings about how I would look.

I was, as many people tend to be, scared that people would make fun of me and call me gay if I wore makeup to school. Internalized homophobia prevented me from doing things I wanted. The lack of any awareness at all of what being trans meant prevented me from understanding my identity further. Makeup just didn’t make it into my life for a long time.

But it was actually one of the first things I started taking back as part of my social transition after coming out as non-binary a few years ago. My daughter would help with subtle eyeshadow looks and pick out a lipstick that looked nice. We’d do this together and make videos about each of us doing looks we liked.

Going to work in really basic and simple looks felt like a huge step in becoming Emme even though that name had not yet even come across my mind. I found ways to accentuate my beard with glitter and my mustache with even brighter red lipstick. I found ways to take back the fears of being out in public in makeup and was doing it for myself. By no means was makeup an everyday thing but it started to play the role that I had hoped it could when I was younger.

Now, it is absolutely an everyday thing for me. It is a more mindful experience every day and it is something I ask community about more often. I have other transfeminine people sharing tips on how to hide facial hair shadows (red orange colour correcting!) while I wait for my electrolysis to be completed (in what feels like a thousand years). I don’t care so much that I am not good at lining my lips before lipstick and feel confident enough giving other people tips about makeup not because I am a technical wizard but because they have asked me and because they care.

At this point, what do I do in a day? Well, I probably spend about 10 minutes on makeup each day. Maybe 15 if I’m learning to let the red orange corrector dry a bit more before foundation. My routine pretty much consists of the aforementioned colour correction (Milk brand) into foundation (Sephora), onto eyebrows (Lawless), then mascara (Milk), then blush (NYX), a pink or red lipstick (NYX Lingerie), and finally, my most recent addition, an attempt at an eyeliner wing (sorry, don’t remember!) which I have only JUST started to do manually instead of through a stamp.

Makeup for me is less about looking like a woman, than it is about community building and getting to know myself better. I do not have an elaborate makeup routine even as I start doing it more and I don’t practice looks all that often or even ever maybe. It is a lot about realizing that makeup is now and has always been for me.

Makeup is not gendered even though it is so heavily presented as such. It is advertised as such and we are all mocked when we break binary ideas of it. It is hard to be the kid looking in the mirror at a young age no matter what identity and think makeup is for you. If you haven’t been explicitly told that makeup is for you, you have been explicitly told that it isn’t.

It's important that we shift this. Present different faces in makeup, show different people in ads, promote young boys doing makeup in the morning, present fat bodies in makeup, stop making white people the focus of so many campaigns, not have technical perfection be the goal of learning makeup, not having present as a cis-woman be the prominently presented goal.

Makeup is a form of expression that should be available to everyone who wants it and it is not. It isn’t the makeup that is life-saving, it is the freedom to feel like we can do what we want to express ourselves safely with makeup that is so important. I just want to ask that we all work harder to de-gender our thoughts on makeup and those wearing it, using it and loving it.