3rd Blog Post—- Project outcomes and personal development reflection
The themes we were given by the make-up breakdown project is fashion mistakes and imperfection. The area I particularly interested in is women’s insecurity caused by skin conditions. For my personal experience, I had struggled with the blemish conditions for years throughout my adolescence. As I become mature, the acne has gone, and my skin has settled into a stable state. However, I feel my insecurity has persisted. Same as many of my friends and my sister, we just constantly worried about our skin are not perfect enough. There is so much external pressure of having the “perfect skin”. We compare our skin to the perfect retouched skin on social media and commercials; therefore, we can never be satisfied. because our goals may not even exist. In my project, I will use makeup to express these feelings of insecurity and the desire for relief.
Before my outcome, I did two experiments. In my first experiment, I put a light natural makeup and stick a lot of my hair on the left side of my face with hair spray and gel. Then, I covered up half of my face with a piece of shimmering fabric. This is inspired by my personal experience. When my skin condition was bad, I used to cut hairband to cover up the acne on my forehead. Even now, I prefer to let my hair down by instinct rather than tie them up although I don’t have acne anymore.
The second experiment I did is inspired by some makeup artists who use colorful face paint and sequins not to hide their texture but to enhance those imperfection spots, rather their acnes or freckles. I find that’s a brave and inspiring move. It convinced people to embrace their imperfections. Therefore, I created a look with wild daisy and stick them on my face where I used to have acne.
For my final design, I want to take things to the extreme. The previous experiment I did is both about my experience with my skin and it looks very direct. However, I want my final design to be like a satire—-have a sense of humor but also make people think about it. Therefore, I took the fact that in the ’40s and ’50s women used to put a ridiculous amount of powder on their faces in the process of make-up. It’s almost like they are drowning in the powder and swipe it off with a brush to achieve smoother and whiter skin. I found that process is hilarious, and It reflects how much effort women would make for ideally perfect skin. Although we use more other methods nowadays. the spirit remains the same. Eventually, I created a scene of a cover girl in ’40s in the process of doing her make-up. Her hair is in pin curl which is a hair curling method in the ’40s and covered in a piece of red silk, which contrasts with her face covered in white powder.
27th April 2020 @ 7:04 pm
First of all, I love the area that you focused on. I resonate so much with women being insecure due to skin conditions, because I also grew up with a skin condition my whole life. It was worse in my childhood, but it’s still flares up now and then and the insecurity is still there. I feel like your post describes the better lives theme “Diversity” the best, because you are right. There are so many retouched images in the world and showing skin insecurities would resonate with others that look the same. It’s hard to be secure within yourself when so many magazines and images have models retouched. I think you haven’t fully addressed the other themes, “Social Responsibility” and “Sustainability” but with makeup, I feel like it’s hard to really explain those. You can maybe think about those themes by mentioning if the makeup was cruelty free or not, and if the brands used are socially responsible? Or maybe my talking about the social responsibilities of the companies used.