When I was a child, I liked to think that I was a tomboy. Dresses weren’t my style, I would refuse to wear even a smudge of makeup on Halloween, and my idea of a good time was swinging around baseball bats and light sabers with the two boys that lived a house away from me. Makeup was never on my mind; I didn’t have a favorable opinion of it nor did I seem to care much. Time went on, and once I reached middle school, I still couldn’t bear the feeling of a thin coat of mascara on my lashes. Many girls around me had adopted the traditions of women before them. Thick black lines covered their eyelids, which were already plastered with shades of glitter.Their lips were candy coated and glittered in the fluorescent light of the school, and as unglamorous as that sounds, everyone seemed to envy them anyway. I was never one to give into peer pressure, and unfortunately for me, middle school was my awkward phase. It took a lot for me to cave and wear a light powder to cover up my reddening skin, and while I had no desire to look like the idealized preteen, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. What was it about makeup that made these girls so much more popular? Was it the rebelliousness of it all? It took me until high school to figure out why.

Around my freshman year of high school, I began to explore the world of YouTube more than I had before. This was before the new generation of YouTubers had acquired their fame; I was a child of CommunityChannel, CTFxC, and, most importantly, beauty gurus such as Michelle Phan and Jessica Harlow. Beauty gurus were YouTubers whose main goal was to educate their audience on everything cosmetic, including hair, makeup and fashion. Despite having no real makeup or experience to speak of, I watched their videos anyway. Michelle Phan, who wasn’t always worth millions of dollars, showed her viewers everything from facial techniques, everyday makeup tutorials, and special Halloween looks. What made her so relaxing was her demeanor and natural ability to teach. Even though I didn’t know the difference between gel and liquid eyeliner, I felt like I could still attempt to follow along with her and have the same end results. This, of course, didn’t always go as planned. One year for Halloween, I decided to follow her tutorial for a Sailor Moon makeup look. While I was hardly able to mimic her anime eye technique, I still felt amazing afterwards.That rebelliousness and blind appeal that I had associated with makeup before had disappeared as I tried my hardest to draw with my mother’s liquid eyeliner. Makeup, contrary to popular belief, did seem to have magical powers. It could change me into a different person, and with experience, I could be whoever I wanted to be.

I’m happy to say that I’ve changed since I was younger. I have beauty gurus to thank for that, and no matter how much time I’ve wasted while watching makeup tutorials, I don’t regret it one bit. While I can still feel confident about myself without makeup, there’s something fierce about being able to change your appearance without the feeling of permanence. I have friends that ask me how I’m able to wear dark lipstick or wonder how I’ve progressed to where I am now with makeup. Many of them don’t even wear makeup on a regular basis, and I salute them for that. I wear what I wear because it makes me feel like I’m bending reality just a little bit, and when I’m done playing for that day, all I have to do is wash my face. Makeup isn’t permanent, but the magical feeling that it gives me is. I could be anything from Barbie to a zombie, and at the end of the day, I can crawl into bed still being myself.

Often times I see campaigns beautifying a lack of makeup, and I support them 100 percent. I've also seen the seemingly instantaneous rise of the hashtags "#nomakeupselfie" and "#wokeuplikethis". If you are an avid user of the internet, you’ve probably seen many people bashing makeup and claiming that it’s fake and does nothing but deceive men. In my opinion, everyone can be beautiful without anything on their face, yet I also think makeup can either enhance natural beauty or completely boost one’s confidence. It isn’t something to look down upon; in fact, I would go as far to say that makeup can be the greatest form of self love that I’ve found to date. The combination of the skill it takes to apply it and the beauty of the end product makes me happy, and while this isn’t the case for everyone, I think there’s something to be said about the art form that is makeup. The transformation might be big or small, but for me, there’s a reason to defend anyone who chooses to experiment with beauty products. Makeup makes people smile or feel better about themselves, and if that’s the case, I think we should all support it.