The Colour Red Was Meant For You
Until recently, I was never the girl you’d find wearing red lipstick. Or red eyeshadow. Or anything bright for that matter. It was a policy — one imposed on me by the world but which I nonetheless accepted. I had convinced myself that when it came to make up, I was only suited to dark colours. The reasoning was simple — full lips and dark skin. Add red lipstick to the mix and it was a broken formula. I could never feel good about myself, the bright coloured lipstick felt like the equivalent of a spotlight. I already felt my lips were full enough, and now to magnify them even more — simply impossible.
I can recognise that now as a fragile sense of self. This insecurity about my appearance was deeply rooted. It clung to any outside stimulus that could validate it and make me retreat further into myself. It sounds deep and dark when I describe it, but is this not what young women and men go through on a daily basis? Especially with the decline of social media — not a decline of use but rather a decline in our ability to control it and the way that it impacts us. At this rate, you belong to your Instagram feed, not the other way around.
This fragile sense of self, before I digress any further, has one likely origin. In middle school, I attended an international school where I was one of two black girls. Furthermore, the other black girl had been adopted and raised by Dutch parents. This is not to say she had no black identity, but merely the fact that we never had common ground to stand on and so we were never friends. I had my friends, and I had my family but there was always a sense of being an outsider. As a young girl, especially as an eight-year-old, it is easy to reject everything about you that makes you an outsider so that you could fit in. I did that, I have been doing that and it is only recently in my twenties that I can recognize and rectify.
If only it was that easy.
You overcome the internal cues, only to have to deal with society’s own cues about why you should hate yourself. If you think about it, society has gone about creating a subtle narrative about dark skin + full lips + the colour red.
Blackface has three components: the darkening of the face, the enlargement of the lips and finally the shade red. Historically, it has been used as a tool to ridicule black features. As a young woman, it is easy to combine that ridicule with the current beauty standards in order to feel inadequate. Yes, you can objectively look at the tradition and call it racist, argue that it is illogical, an exaggeration, is inherently flawed by virtue of its hateful premise. However, the damage is already done. Can you really take away the sting of looking at someone else’s image of hate only to see your very features?
I have always been an avid reader. When I was younger, one of my favourite authors was Jacqueline Wilson. In one of her books (I can’t quite remember which one), there was a young girl whose father was dating a younger woman. Her parents were no longer together and understandably the young girl felt some feelings of resentment towards her new “stepmother”. The feature the main character fixates on is the full lips of the young woman — full lips that always wore red lipstick. I remember reading that book and hating my lips, and I know it had a lasting impact because I still feel it. Naturally Jacqueline Wilson’s intention was not to ostracize little girls with full lips, but seeing as the characters all had Caucasian features, she certainly neglected to consider the impact those words could have on any other type of audience.
Before it was trendy to have full lips, I went through my life listening to comments from all manner of people. It was always my contemporaries. Kids can be mean. However, they are merely a reflection of their households, the beauty standards they have been taught to accept and those they have been taught to reject. Children regurgitate the environment around them, so it seems almost pointless to hold any ill will towards all those that made whatever comments they made, and instead we should direct our criticism at the family unit.
Family is powerful. My mother was brought up in a different time and in a different culture. When I was growing up, she hardly ever wore lipstick, and if she did they were always nude colours. If I wore bright colours, it would be met with a muted response. Not outward disapproval, but certainly not celebration. Red, according to another family member “doesn’t suit [me]” and wouldn’t I prefer “darker colours”. In my subconscious, this translated to don’t stand out, don’t be seen, blend in. In a way, it harmonized with my inner child’s ‘fit in’ — reject these features and simply try to make good with everyone around you.
Blending in is therefore what I did for the longest time. Try but not too hard. Dark colours. Nude makeup. Fenty Beauty’s Stunna Lip Paint in the shade Uncensored is the first red lipstick I have ever owned, and I hope it is the first of many. I was reluctant to buy it, in fact I changed my mind ten times on my way to the till, I was ready to switch it out for something even as the cashier was ready to make the purchase. Then in that moment, perhaps a bit harshly, I thought “get over yourself”.
It is a harsh mentality, and not one that I would advice. Growth is about taking time to understand yourself, sympthazing with the situations that you have found yourself in and making an effort to ensure healing and peace of mind for yourself. Don’t rip off the bandaid. When you do, either it works and works really well, or it doesn’t and you set yourself back even further. Fortunately for me, (very fortunately because I historically have terrible luck!), it worked. It emphasized my lips, as I feared it would. Then I stood there at the mirror and waited.
The truth is that fear is adrenaline. Fear and anxiety are your mind reacting to something that has not happened as if it has. I learned that from Richard Templar’s “The Rules of Thinking”. I picked it up, very much by chance, at an airport and it is now one of my golden rules. I still get scared every time I put it on, but I understand now that fear is irrational and has a far shorter shelf life than rationality.
If you have been hiding from the colour red — and pink, and yellow, orange, all the colours that this world has to offer — my advice is to look in the mirror and outlast your fear. The colour red was made for you.
