Let’s Make-up.

My diamond from Nairobi, she values the fact that she can deftly wield a make-up brush or a wig or shape wear. She has underestimated her skin without make-up and how gorgeous she can transform her melanin touch with a bit of foundation.

“One mistake we make is that we think make-up will make us beautiful.” You don’t need to trivialize the fact that you can’t live without make-up. I tend to believe that the use of cosmetics do not make you beautiful, they just compliment your beauty.

However, to understand the whole make-up debacle, there are factors that pushes most of us to this glamorous life-style. This article was inspired by one of our contributors and we were able to get her story.

Lynn with standards

When I was 15, my dad had a huge breakthrough and our lives changed abruptly. I transferred schools and it was exhilarating because of the prestigious element of the school. Just imagine going to a school where there are no vibokos, at the moment it felt like safe haven.

Three months in, I started feeling out of place. I faintly discerned that I was the odd one out. A brief history about me is that I am always the popular girl or close to the popular girl but this time it was different.

Therefore, my world became cold and I was all alone. At first, I thought I could have dealt with that feeling but loneliness became a vice on my heart, squeezing with just enough pressure to be a constant pain. It killed me every day gradually, taking what was once my inner light and replacing it with darkness that overshadowed each moment.

It fueled my nightmares and it became the reason I struggled.

I knew I was in a new environment, a different one and I had to adapt in view of the fact that it affected nearly every aspect of my life. At 16, my mother introduced me to one of her friends Mariana a make-up artist who just started doing make-up on certain media personalities.

Make-up became my thing through high school even though it took a minute to be good at it. Teen vogue views the attitude of some people towards the unabashed love for cosmetics, and you may hear phrases like “vain” or “self-absorbed”. I received a lot of censure from people, even my friends and sometimes it felt like a connivance towards the society.

Using make-up doesn't hide women's 'real' beauty, it hides the labor that goes into meeting the beauty standards (Lux Alptraum). Therefore, just like the late Daphne Dorman, I do not need anyone to understand, I just need you to believe that I am having a human experience.

And as I invoke my story in an emphatic peroration, I don’t expect using cosmetics to always be my go to. Kenyan actress and Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o was raised up in a house hold that didn’t encourage make-up. She thinks make-up isn’t necessary and with her pair of earrings, she still can kick a**. Beauty should always be about being comfortable in our own skin.

Beauty, Culture and the Coda

Beauty is, obviously, cultural. What one community appreciates may leave one community cold or even rebuffed. What one individual finds compelling inspires a shrug from another. Beauty is personal, for some confidence is driven through the aspect of ‘beauty’. But at the same time it's all inclusive. There are worldwide delights, those individuals who have come to address the norm.

The 7^th student gives an interesting view on the use of cosmetics and wonders if it is necessary to appreciate the power of make-up even though it can make someone totally different. A point of view to explore. Is it worth using all that make-up even though everyone appreciates and adores your skin tone?

So ask yourself, before you put on the mascara or the foundation, what inspires you to apply on that make-up? or do you just want to look good in front of the cameras?