9 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.