Make Up
The esoteric & the exoteric of it.
A friend of mine who has an Algerian father and a French mother remembers her mother once chiding her for wearing too much make-up. Her father, on the other hand, coming from a culture in which make up is regarded as a protective mask, had quite the opposite view: the more make-up you wear, the more you are shielded from malign spirits and psychic forces. ‘I notice’, my friend observed, ‘that I wear very little make-up when I am with friends I trust.’
Many of us understand this feeling of being protected in some nebulous way after we have taken special care in applying cosmetics. This is particularly true in the world of work, where women often have to display much greater energy and confidence than their male colleagues in order to succeed or, sometimes, even be taken seriously.
Beneath the mask, beneath the veil, our essential being is hidden and inviolate. As a dancer, I know that when I am on stage, especially if I am giving a solo performance, I am vulnerable to the psychic feedback of my audience. The ritual of putting on make-up before going on stage is an important one and I like to take my time over it in a quiet atmosphere which helps me focus my mind on the performance to come.
— “Beauty and the East”, Wendy Bounaventura
Make up has been part of my life ever since I know of myself. There are videos of myself, around one year old, applying lipstick to my lips while wearing huge sunglasses, demanding of people around me to address me as: “Her Ladyship.” I have experimented and played with it ever since: first borrowing my grandmother’s and mother’s make up and eventually buying my own. I still remember the initiation of buying the first high-end, for me a “grown woman” lipstick; a Shiseido Perfect Rouge that I had saved for from my pocket money. I felt like a woman rather than a girl and I always wanted to be a woman: bodied, mature, sovereign, generous, open and unafraid.
I experimented with looks and techniques, finding out what works for me. The journey included coming to my classes in a look that made my peers giggle. Sometimes it was too strong and I was told by my teacher to go wash my face in the bathroom. I would wash the excesses but would still use my lipstick as a blush, cream eyeshadow and tint on the lips. Being naturally blushed, it was barely noticeable to the outsiders. I could keep my shield on. Years of practice and many awkward experiments taught me from experience how to create different looks.
[Another article on a similar topic, but from a different angle, free for everyone to read, can be found here]
