Narrative Essay on Makeup

I’m not an easy person to satisfy. Tending to be oddly critical of my life experiences and always analyzing both the black and white of every situation. However, makeup from luxury celebrity brands...that I love! Sure, maybe being fond of makeup is a universal liking shared by all teenage girls such as myself. The pure excitement brought upon me at this creation should be illegal. Concealers are described as a “creamy, medium-to-full-coverage formula that'll cover any blemish you wish didn't exist” and “Lip Luminizer and Plumper” Lip Gloss create a consumer pitch that appeals to mine and other’s need to conform to beauty standards. That should be a crime, and my wallet agrees.

Created in September 2017, Rhianna's Fenty Beauty aims to include women everywhere and focuses on producing a wide variety of formulas and universal shades that work for all skin types. The brand is widely loved by fans for its inclusivity and for being dedicated to developing solutions that are suitable for all skin types. Rihanna used to love to play with cosmetics when she was a little child growing up in Barbados before she was known as Badgalriri. Rihanna found herself particularly fascinated with her mother's lipstick. “Makeup is there so you can have some fun with it. It should never feel suffocating. It should never feel like you're wearing the same thing every day. Feel free to take chances, take risks, and try something new or different,” says Rihanna's Fenty Beauty. Whether it’s defining features with foundation or concealer or improving skin from within by using serums and moisturizers, the brand has it all. There are 40 shades of foundation that last all day and provide a photo-perfect finish (Yes, I can confirm it’s perfection). Products like the Pro Filt’r Instant Retouch primer fuses unwanted shine. The well-known Pro Filter Soft Matte Longwear Foundation is next to complete the “Fenty Face.” The Fenty Beauty Fat Water Pore-Refining Toner Serum cleanses your face from dirt and pollutants accumulated along the way and targets pores and dark spots. Then, of course, the Match Stix Matte Skinsticks for concealing, correcting, and contouring. Fenty largely earns its profits through a membership program that charges customers $50 per month to achieve discounts on products from its site. Makeup became a personal thing for her after that, it was a tool for self-expression as well as a means of expressing her mood. Rhianna shares this line with her fans constructed to bring out their “inner goddess”, little does she know her products have become less of a form of self-expression but more of a suppressant of insecurity. 

Once during my 7th-grade summer, my good friend, Claire, called me up to go to the mall. Claire was refreshing to me, so accepting, such a sweetheart. I would agree to any request of my dear 7th grade best friend. So, obviously, I agreed. Actually, who could turn down a trip to the mall? We scurried through the automatic doors of Woodfield mall, and the overwhelming distribution of possible purchases greeted us. Discovering my sense of beauty and fashion, my 7th-grade self, of course, wanted to buy some new makeup without parental supervision. Therefore once we arrived, we rushed into our favorite store, Sephora (don’t ask why... it’s painfully overpriced for its content).

  The smell of expensive perfume, the expensive products of brands such as “Anastasia Beverly Hills' ' and “Chanel Beauty' ' overwhelmed me, curious as a cat of the possibilities of the products staring at me. The Sephora workers with their astonishing freshly applied faces of makeup with elaborate eyeshadow and insane eyelashes caught me as their prey. “What are you looking for?” I, of course, having no clue what I was doing, accepted the help. When I was led to the Fenty Beauty aisle, I was in awe of the products. With products I couldn't even comprehend like a “Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer,” I became determined to buy the best product of this line. After carefully scanning the wide variety of options, I remember buying the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt'r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation. I know what a promising name. Nevertheless, I couldn’t wait to smear it across my imperfections. I giggled at Claire“I’m going to look as good as Rhianna! At such a young age, joking since I had no desire to conform to society's standards, to impress anyone whatsoever. 

After buying a lot of other overpriced items from the mall, when I got home, I stumbled up the stairs almost flying up to try my new $36 product. As I smeared it across my freckled skin, excitement filled my soul, amazed to learn this lightweight substance covered my imperfections. Smearing the matte texture with my pudgy hands was almost magical. My innocence perished as did my pores, an epiphany of desire filled my soul. Santa would be giving me lots of makeup this year. 

Such an innocent act, a young girl’s discovery of makeup. The suppression of the self-destructive path that is to be discovered. At such a young age, how could you begin to care about being what society deemed beautiful? My maturity must not have been up to par, how could I not predict the path of self-discovery, insecurity, and comparison that I was driving into? I was no longer at the beginning of middle school experience with its shiny newness of more freedom and friendship possibilities. Observing my classmates began to wear “trendy” clothes, blue sweatshirts labeled with the word “PINK” that began to classify our grade, fitting in became difficult. A necessity formulated to find my style and how I pronounced to present my looks. Clueless, little did I know this decision would be detrimental to my future. Perfectionism became my mission. Perfect grades, friends, outfits, you name it. This would be the solution to my newly forming insecurity. As my self-image slowly molded into doubt and insecurity, I questioned how I’d ever been able to live up to the standards I put in my head to conform to. Though looking back these standards weren’t created by me, but by the bridge of comparison, I treaded through. 

Moveover, in society, achieving these unrealistic beauty standards of “clear glowy skin” and “full lips” are concepts conspired upon women from an early age to achieve. Look at the celebrities in magazines and TV Shows, their undeniable beauty is surely from their exceptional features and nothing else right? No one takes into account that these women have professional makeup artists, top-of-the-line acne and skin treatments, wardrobe, lip fillers. Dare I say even plastic surgery for some. Of course, don’t forget the professional lighting and cameras that capture their best moments. Regardless, it's possible to look like these celebrities. Thankfully, my 13-year-old self was so glad to know I could look just like Rhianna with her Pro Filt’r foundation. 

The striving individuals to look like the best version of themselves have an overabundant quantity of items to choose from. When a celebrity endorses a product, individuals identify with that person and feel the product is quality and will accomplish the impossible beauty standards that are so-called achieved by A-list celebrities such as Rhianna. Greedily, celebrities prey on these aspirations. According to Allure’s informative article, “Inside the Mysterious World of Celebrity Beauty Brands'', “These stars are not just licensing their good names, some are putting their money where their lipsticks are and taking actual ownership stakes in full beauty lines, possibly to the tune of millions of dollars (Wischhover). If I look like Rhianna, I’ll have friends that cherish me, a boyfriend that adores me, even a successful career just like her, right? But this self-fulfilling proficiency is unforgivable. Hoping happiness is one product away is what causes the most misery. The pursuit of perfection is like wandering on an aimless journey. One's true satisfaction isn’t met by altering an appearance, nope not even by getting that dream job. How can one achieve happiness, satisfaction, contentment when they are infinite pursuits? So I guess Fenty lied to my 7th-grade aspiration it preyed on. Nonetheless though offputting, for the mission of creating comfortability with makeup, I give Fenty Beauty four stars.