I was not into make-up in the way that I am now until 2016. It was that year that I got diagnosed with severe compulsive anxiety (OCD without the excessive physical habits, but obsession with powerful negative mental spirals) and I sought out professional help after ignoring the dire need for it for at least 2 years of friends and family advising the benefits of it.
Like many teenagers, I first wore make-up at 14 years old and only wore bottom eyeliner because it was the most make-up my mother would allow me to have on a semi-regular basis to high-school. I guess you could call that my first eye-look where I had a very “Hot Topic” millennial vibe always dressed in all black complete with anarchy Converse shoes. What were eyebrows back then? I did not know you could fill in eyebrows until 2 years ago and I’m now 31 years old.
Between 2012 to 2015, I started to explore eyeshadows at the drugstores and I remember my go-to was H.I.P by Loreal. H.I.P is a small eyeshadow paired package with 2 colors. I suppose I always sort of knew what a “smokey eye” was because I was drawn to the specific color story of gold and a brown-black. Before I understood that make-up was anything like oil and acrylic paints where you paint a canvas with brushes, I used my poor little fingers to swipe on color super fast and “smoke” out the black shadow by dapping the outer corners of my eyes. I probably just described every MUA’s nightmare where they will be haunted for life after they’ve read this paragraph. I deeply apologize for your face plant or double face palm. Make sure you’re not dragging your face down though because no moisturizer or facial serum is going to fix those fine lines and wrinkles you created!
By 2016, I worked with an amazing sales team at Oracle in the bay area at Oracle’s headquarters in Redwood City, CA. Two girls on my team were extremely into make-up and always talked about Sephora, brands, and how to do certain looks. These girls would give me constructive criticism that my eyeshadow was not blended out well at all and I looked kind of odd some days. Well, I suppose that is also what happens when you do your make-up every morning in the car stuck in traffic on 101 trying to get to Silicon Valley from the Peninsula. I do not recommend this because obviously 1) dangerous 2) Dangerous 3) DANGERous 4) DANGEROUS, and 5) you will probably not have a good look for work at the end of it all once you have safely-ish put your car into a spot of the office lot.
In any case, these girls introduced me to what Sephora was and at first, I was still reluctant. In the marketing world, I considered myself as the laggard because I refused to change over from drugstore and did not see the value in paying more than $10 for eyeliners, foundation, eyeshadows, mascara, etc. However, I finally caved after about a year working at Oracle because one of the girls asked if I’d like to order something through her Sephora account and everyone recommended this brand called something like “Urban Decay?” Imagine my eyebrows lifting because what is urban about make-up and why is it decaying? I saw the price of $50 and nearly fell to the floor in my $20 heels from Target. “Trust me, it’s really good. You will love it,” the girls said. As I handed over my credit card and held myself in fetal position due to my mediocre salary as a sales rep at Oracle with rent costing me $1,500/month just to survive the bay area, I prayed to whatever superior being there is out there and told it should promise me that this “NAKED PALETTE 2” by decaying urban make-up whatever will be worth every penny I just swiped.
When the palette arrived, I recall my eyes widening as I stared at all the glorious colors and shimmer shadows that lay on my desk. Mind you, I still had 0% clue how to work with eyeshadows. For the last leg of my time at Oracle, I still did my make-up in the car on 101 for the 1 hour commute and showed up at the office probably looking like I had rolled through some mud, but just with my eyes somehow. I could have resembled a trash panda. Maybe it depended on the whole “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” because my boyfriend stuck it out with me trash panda or not and we are still here today 5 years in.
As late 2016 rolled in and I started a new job at a small tech company in San Francisco, I was walking distance to 2 different Sephoras near Spear Street. One was the one at Union Square and the second one opened up sometime late 2016 at Embarcadero Center. From sheer boredom, I would meander Sephora during lunch or after work before taking the janky bart back home because it was a good time to avoid the homeless smells and turret screaming. Before the end of the year, I was dragging my best friend, Sara with me to Sephora beauty classes, so we could get the make-up 101. Sara and I met an amazing MUA at the Sephora Union Square as she invested time in us during and after classes to go into detail about blending out the smokey eye, how to angle brushes, know what brushes to use, understand color stories based off of what kind of look you are trying to achieve, how to follow your natural arch of your eyebrows with an angle brush, and how to properly use mascara.
It was from these classes at Sephora that I began to look at make-up as an incorporated way to deal with my anxiety. I was already a client with http://www.betterhelp.com with a designated counselor, but because I refused to pick up the meds that my psychologist prescribed me for, I thought make-up could be a part of the cognitive re-wiring for my mind. As Sara said a few times to me, “You took those classes and just ran with it!” I certainly did. I practiced smokey eye and wore it almost everyday to work.
Many of the time, you hear people say to people, “You don’t need make-up to be beautiful.” It makes me cringe if someone says that to me because people jump to conclusions that you only wear make-up to impress the world. Would you tell a football player he does not need to play football to look cool and be popular? Would you tell an engineer he should not code, so he doesn’t need to look smart?
I personally see everything in the world is art. Make-up is art like water color, oil paints, acrylic paints, shading, and sketching. Football is art because there is an art and skill to jumping and hurdling over other equally huge and muscular people while holding a ball in the shape of an egg and trying to make sure you get it to the right side of the white line of the field. Engineering is art because it is like many small puzzle pieces put together by grand meticulous minds that have the extreme patience to stare at a black and white screen with tiny lines of text that magically create things like this website. Everything in the world is art as it is always full of expression.
With expression in mind, my obsession with Sephora began Q4’16 and I was buying every palette that caught my eye from TooFaced, Tarte, and Urban Decay. I learned what contouring was from one of the Sephora classes and now I can’t go a make-up day without bronzing or contouring my cheekbones. Whenever I return back to acrylic paints and the canvas, I find myself “contouring” the animals I blend out as I bring out their faces, their legs, and the angles I put them in. If you ever find time to look at make-up brushes and then the paint brushes you would find at Michael’s, there are many that will look very similar to each other. From fan brushes, angled brushes, fine tip brushes, blending brushes, and sponges, you will see how much the two types of hobbies have in common in the use of its respectful art purpose. GenX MUA YouTube guru, James Charles actually posted a few videos in late 2018 showcasing these exact similarities and painted his forehead following a Bob Ross video with “happy little trees” and another using only art supplies from the art store.
At the beginning of 2018, I finally began to explore learning more advanced techniques with eye looks such as practicing the gorgeous cut crease. This is when I discovered Manny MUA on YouTube because he has a really good half cut crease tutorial. Manny really breaks it down for you on each step using thee holy grail palette, “Modern Renaissance” by Anastasia Beverly Hills. I coincidentally already had this palette (big shocker), so it was really good to be able to follow each shade he used every step of the way. From Manny’s tutorial and practicing a dozen times for about a month, I finally nailed the half cut crease and was able to apply the methods branching out to other palettes like the Tarte Pro Palette or TooFaced peach palette.
As of today, I still wear make-up nearly every day as a part of my morning routine. I want to further emphasize it’s not 100% to impress people because there are also weekend days the boyfriend and I are just pancaked on the bed Netflixing or cleaning house. Sometimes I even multi-task and do make-up during my morning work meetings if I don’t have to be on webcam or present any reports or powerpoint decks. It’s a secret though, so don’t tell my boss!
Make-up sets my days. Make-up sets my mood based on which color story I’ve decided to run with for the day. If I feel extra happy, I use brighter colors and mix pinks, purples, blues, greens, and glitter. If I feel sophisticated or want to feel more serious, I will do a “natural glam” look with the grounding browns, but with a pop of glitter to feel some bounce. Lastly, if I am just bored and want to avoid reading a book for my UC Berkeley Extension courses or yoga teacher training, I will play with more unique colors to my current experience and just see what happens.
In a SF art class in 2015, my teacher emphasized that there is no wrong in art. Our class focused on how you should get out of your head and just paint what you feel. Are you angry? Go to the back of the room and slap black and red everywhere on a huge piece of white paper until the dark ball of energy has left your body. If you feel anything else, just paint that without a second thought and see what happens at the end. No classmate was to verbalize any thoughts or opinions on their own painting or anyone else’s. You yourself as the creator of your work was not to judge anything that ran across the canvas. Nothing.
In yoga teacher training, you learn “be your authentic self” and “you are enough.” I personally see a huge where “life is art.” Always feel free to express yourself and don’t be afraid of what will come. You are the only you that is you and you are amazing. Make-up helps me feel authentic and amazing every day even when hot power flow yoga melts it down into a piece of work that could maybe be comparable to Picasso. Still, even with a Picasso-face, it is still art. At that time is when I am expressing I am relaxed and ready for bed. Good night.
everything blended 