A Personal History with Makeup

I've been doing makeup since I was in high school. Back then, it was just powder, eyeliner, eyelash curler, and a tinted lip balm. I spent my entire elementary to high school education in a Catholic school. Once a teacher or a faculty notice you were wearing makeup, your parents will be called immediately. Through experience and sheer rebelliousness, I learned to keep my makeup unnoticeable, as if I’m the only one who should know it exists.

I carried that perspective with me into adulthood. My products now consists of concealer, brow pencil, the classic eyeliner which I can't live without, mascara, and red lipstick. I would use unnoticeable amount blush, which also works as contour on my cheekbone. Sometimes a shimmer on the inner corner in my eyes and a brown liner if I have the time to spare and if I’m not traveling.

I never used a foundation, nor a tinted skin serum. I had foundation applied to me before on formal occasions where a makeup artist was involved. Otherwise, I just spot conceal my dark under eyes and acne scars.

Realization mid-makeup

When I joined the workforce, I learned to do my makeup at the office. I would go barefaced during commute in order skip the traffic and get to the office early. Co-workers who caught me doing my makeup would ask what's my foundation.

I'd say I don't have one.

They'd ask why I use a concealer without anything underneath.

I told them that I feel like a concealer was enough.

And as I continue to work on my makeup, I began asking myself why is it so.

I realized that spot concealing is about choosing which part of your face you wanted to be less noticeable while letting go those that you cannot conceal at all. If you want to conceal all, then it's better to use a foundation underneath. But I didn’t.

I think it's about the freedom of choice. It’s about the acceptance of one’s flaws, about rebelling against what was expected of me and doing what I feel what was pulling me instead.

A makeup philosophy

The practice was highly stylized, highly curated, personal to one's own philosophy and opinion about beauty. Mine was about showing you what I want you to see. It was about showing the nuances—not flaws, on my face.

A woman was taught early on that her face is her everything. It will be the thing the world will notice first on her, no matter how everything else she is. And if I can't do anything about that truth, then I'm going against the strongest of my many virtues.

You will notice uneven skin tone, enlarged pores, veins, and moles on my face. You would have to look closer to see that my dark eyes is the cause of many people mistaking me as mixed race, that I still have acne scars that are the proof of my best years as a young girl. I have wrinkles – the mark that I'm getting old when so many can't, that I survived my 20s of back-to-back tragedies. This extends to my hair, allowing only the gray hairs to concentrate at my hair line, and pulling the rest growing elsewhere.

It's about the acceptance of what I can control and letting go of those that I can't.

I grew up during the rise of social media. I became interested in the makeup of old Hollywood, of the 1940s and 50s. From then on, I decided that my look will forever be red lips— which is a perfect remedy for my paleness and persistent anemia, lined eyes, and voluminous lashes (which would often get confused as having treated with extensions). It had became my style until this very day.

I never became interested with other trends because I believed that this is my signature look, a perfect balance of function, ease, and personal style. This is the forever me.

I pity the younger generations of today, for they never underwent the metamorphosis, the establishment of values, of understanding the nuances, and the search for identity through personal experience us from the older generation were lucky enough to go through. Their personality are dictated by microtrends popularized by the algorithm of the infinite scroll with superficial understanding of its history and seeing your person align with it because these aesthetic don't have the experiences nor the research to make the integration into oneself authentic, and therefore, lasting.

The classic, timeless look is dead. Our skins were rubbed raw from every other thing we were told to desire by the rectangular screen. I was told that it could lead to inflammation and weak skin barrier. The solution: leave alone and rest. And apply a gentle moisturizer.

This essay is about makeup.

4/21/2025