A Rash On My Face Made Me Reassess My Relationship With Makeup. Here’s What I Learned.
Can you wear makeup and still call yourself a feminist?
I was 14 when I started wearing makeup seriously.
On vacation in Tenerife, my mum noticed me gloomily studying my acne-flecked reflection in the mirror of our hotel room. “I think you’re old enough for a little bit of foundation,” she said, pulling out a little bottle of liquid that was almost (but not quite—for it was the 90s and we worked with the tools we had) the same color as her skin. She pumped a splodge onto the back of her hand, and began the process of smearing it onto my face.
In my teens, spare money from my Saturday job went straight to filling my makeup bag with little compacts and palettes. Pillowcases were ruined by striped eyeshadow and lurid blush—I didn’t yet understand the importance of cleansing after makeovers. One day at school, a teacher angrily handed me facewipes to remove the iridescent green eyeliner-and-purple-mascara look I had gotten up 30 minutes early to apply. Worth it: In the 20 minutes I’d worn it, one of the cool girls said she liked it.
In my 20s, makeup became my war paint as I tackled the early years of my career. I was working for a property trade magazine in the days when everyone needed a “personal brand,” and mine was “going out of my way to look like I don’t belong at this real estate industry event.” My strategy of trying to look like the “fun one”—bleached hair, winged eyeliner and red lips in a sea of men in grey suits—made me stand out to sources. They were curious enough to want to talk to me.
The day after I had my first child, my best friend offered this piece of advice, which I followed to the letter: “When you feel exhausted and you haven’t had a shower and your boobs are leaking, put some red lipstick on before you go out. People will just see the red lips and say ‘wow, you’re doing so well.’” She wasn’t wrong. Also, the bright red lips made me feel less exhausted.
But now, that fun is over. My skin has started to reject makeup.
It started small: a few spots at the corner of my eyes. But before long, it started to spread, scudding across my eyelids like clouds. Nearly three months later, it is a mainstay of my face. On good days, the color fades and it is just a cluster of bumps, which now spill down the side of my face, with a matching set around my nose. On bad days it flares, the red patches circling my eyes, an angry shadow of the smokey eye I would spend hours perfecting in my early 20s.
“Kind of like a funny panda…?” I ventured to my 5-year-old when she first noticed it.
“You don’t look like a funny panda, Mummy,” she replied with a look of deep concern. “You look weird.”
Applying anything to my face makes The Rash (I capitalize it, like the title of a horror movie) angrier. I can’t wear moisturizer, or SPF, or serums. I certainly can’t wear foundation or eyeshadow or powder or blush. I feel exposed. My many imperfections—oily forehead, large-ish pores, acne scars, The Rash itself—are all on display for the world to see. When I meet friends, I feel I need to warn them: “The Rash and I will see you later. It’s angry today.”
