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Thursday, May 24, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Morning Alarm 

My 
people 
are 
famous.
You see them every 
day 
on 
the 
news- 
whether they are being 
evacuated, 
bombed, 
chemically 
attacked, 
or drowned.
If 
you 
have 
not 
guessed yet, I am Syr-
ian.
On the day of the 
Trump attack on Syria, 
we call my uncle to 
make sure that every-
thing is all right. As he 
tells us everything is 
fine, we can hear the 
sounds of the missiles 
in 
the 
background. 
When 
we 
mention 
this to my uncle, he 
says, “It’s fine, Trump 
woke us up for fajr 
(the morning prayer).” 

Knowing how unreli-
gious my uncle is, it is 
at least good to know 
that his sarcasm is 
intact.
Fast forward a few 
days later, and we hear 
about another attack 
that was close to where 
my family lives. Up 
until now, we are not 
even sure who admin-
istered the attack. I 
start anxiously mak-
ing some calls to my 
family, checking that 
everyone is all right. 
After a few nerve-
wracking 
minutes 
waiting for the phone 
to connect, I finally 
get ahold of them and 
ask if they are okay. At 
the end of our conver-
sation, my cousin says 
it was nice to know it 
takes a bombing for 
them to hear my voice.

Later that night as 
our family WhatsApp 
group chat goes back 
to its usual light atmo-
sphere, 
my 
cousin 
sends a casual picture 
of 
an 
undetonated 
bomb. Confused, my 
sister asks what that 
is. And so, my extend-
ed family kicked off a 
thorough explanation 
of the different kinds 
of weapons used, the 
effect of each and how 
to 
recognize 
them 
based on the sounds 
they make.
That is one of the 
true talents of a Syrian, 
they proudly explain. 
No matter how tough 
the situation has ever 
gotten 
back 
home, 
they have never failed 
to laugh about it and to 
figure out a way to add 
a touch of sarcasm.

I love makeup. I 
think it’s safe to say 
that makeup is one 
of the things people 
spend the most money 
on without realizing 
it. I can go to Sephora 
or even Walmart with 
just the intention of 
gazing at the makeup 
section, and end up 
leaving with $30 less in 
my wallet and between 
one and five different 
makeup products.
I wasn’t always into 
makeup. In middle 
school, 
I 
remem-
ber how many of my 
friends and classmates 
would coat their face 
with makeup every 
day just to hide their 
insecurities and give 
themselves a confi-
dence boost. In my 
mind, makeup was 
expensive, 
unneces-
sary, difficult to use 
and a coping mecha-
nism for not hav-
ing high self-worth. 
Because of these things 
I was never interested 
in makeup. I decided 
that only after I truly 
embraced who I was 
as a person and loved 
how I looked, with 
or without enhance-
ments, would I regu-
larly wear makeup.
My first real intro-
duction 
to 
makeup 
was when I started 
getting into theatre in 
middle school. I was 

one of the leads in our 
school musical, “Camp 
Rock,” and I had to 
wear makeup so that 
my face would stand 
out on stage. My moth-
er would always do 
my makeup before the 
rehearsals and shows 
because I didn’t own 
any or know how to put 
it on. I continued to do 
theatre in high school. 
I was soon at the age 
where I couldn’t just 
have my mom do my 
makeup for my shows 
anymore. Everyone in 
our theatre knew how 
to apply makeup them-
selves, 
using 
either 
their 
own 
makeup 
or the stage makeup 
owned by the school.
This is when prob-
lems started to arise for 
me as 1. I could not put 
on makeup myself 2. I 
did not own any make-
up 3. I couldn’t use any 
of the school’s makeup 
because it didn’t fit 
my skin tone and 4. 
Everyone in my the-
atre department was 
white and didn’t know 
how to apply makeup 
on me. Due to all of 
these limitations, I was 
forced to teach myself 
how to put on make-
up. I would sit in the 
corner of our makeup 
room at school, watch-
ing YouTube videos on 
how to apply eyeliner, 
what foundation was 
for, and what the dif-
ferent types of make-

up brushes were for. 
I also reached out to 
my friends who wore 
makeup for advice.
After 
putting 
on 
makeup in theatre, I 
started to enjoy doing 
makeup in general. 
As a creative person, I 
always loved looking 
for different ways to 
express myself, wheth-
er that was through 
writing, music, acting, 
dance, etc. I saw make-
up as a completely new 
way to express myself, 
so much more person-
al than any of the of the 
other forms. When you 
apply makeup, your 
face is the canvas and 
you have so many dif-
ferent options, choices 
and stylistic decisions 
you can make to deco-
rate it yourself. And 
even cooler is the fact 
that since everyone’s 
face is unique, every-
one has a different can-
vas to start out with 
that you need to learn 
to work with.
But my face, or can-
vas, soon started to 
make it harder for me 
find ways to express 
myself 
the 
way 
I 
wanted to. Originally, 
I would spend time 
watching 
Youtube 
videos to understand 
how to apply makeup 
and get ideas for dif-
ferent makeup looks. 
Most of the people that 
I watched in videos 
were white, but I didn’t 

By EFE OSAGIE

MiC EDITOR 

By RANIA DABOUL

MiC Contributor 

PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

Beating your face as a Black Woman 

see that as something that 
mattered that much. That 
was until I tried to fol-
low the videos. Anytime I 
tried to do what I saw in 
the videos, I had trouble 
finding products to help 
me. I was never able to 
find 
foundations 
and 
concealers to perfectly fit 
my skin tone at my local 
drug stores. Whenever I 
applied eyeshadow, the 
colors wouldn’t appear 
on my eyelids because my 
skin was too dark. The 
bright lipsticks I would 
see women wear looked 
unnatural and unflat-
tering on my dark skin. I 
became increasingly frus-
trated with the amount of 
trial and error I had with 
all the makeup products 
I bought and how much 
time I’d have to spend 
looking for makeup that 
worked for me. It made 
me start to realize how 
many makeup products 
weren’t made for me or 
other Black women, and 
I became frustrated that 
I had to work twice as 
hard to find products that 
were extremely simple 
for other lighter skinned 
individuals to find.

I soon started watch-
ing 
makeup 
tutorials 
from other Black YouTu-
bers to help find makeup 
products that were more 
tailored to my skin tone. 
Though it did help, watch-
ing those videos could 
only do so much for me 
as it was so hard to find 
Black YouTubers who 
had the exact skin tone as 
me. So I still wasn’t able 
to see how different prod-
ucts would look on my 
skin tone without buying 
them first.
Though it was still 
frustrating, it was better 
than nothing and I con-
tinued to watch Black 
YouTubers’ 
makeup 
tutorial videos to learn 
which products to buy 
and how to apply makeup 
to my skin. Even though 
I couldn’t always use the 
videos to determine what 
to buy, and what not to 
buy, I was able to learn 
multiple tricks for women 
of darker skin to get 
makeup to look better on 
our complexion, such as 
using concealer on your 
eyelids to get eyeshadow 
to appear brighter and 
using lip liner to tone 

down too-bright lipsticks. 
I also took to following 
more Black makeup art-
ists on Instagram, like 
@somuchsimone, 
@
vurrsacee and @khloe-
dosh. This gave me more 
inspiration to be bolder 
and more creative with 
my makeup, showing me 
how to use my dark skin 
tone to my advantage 
instead of something to 
work around.
I now feel more confi-
dent in wearing makeup 
as a Black woman and 
know more tricks and 
skills to make makeup 
produced for a white 
audience work for me. 
I’ve even taken to doing 
makeup for my friends 
of different skin tones 
to explore how applying 
makeup differs with dif-
ferent shades and types of 
skin, that I like to show-
case on my Instagram, @
looksbyefe. I used to feel 
discouraged as a Black 
makeup artist, but I now 
embrace being a Black 
makeup user and choose 
to see the hardships it 
poses as just challenges 
for me to overcome in my 
artistic journey.

