Making It Up
My Makeup Journey & How It Led Me to Toronto
I won’t lie - I stumbled into a bit of writer’s block this week. When that happens, sometimes what helps me is to go back to the beginning and work from there.
The beginning for this blog came from the idea to document as much as I could while moving back to Canada from the U.S. But I realized there’s an even earlier beginning - the WHY specifically Toronto. Not only is it where it literally all began for me (aka where I was born) but it’s also where the school I wanted to go to is located. Which really is where this article begins.
Why Makeup?
If someone were to look at me as a young kid, you probably wouldn’t suspect I was going to turn into such a makeup enthusiast. I would classify myself as more of a bookworm but also a tomboy.
I was in a BIG family so I was pretty talkative as a kid and while not as much an outdoor enthusiast as my siblings, I was pretty active compared to a lot of kids. Riding bikes, going to my family’s lakehouse or the beach (and being SLATHERED with SPF1000000+), running through fields to go to friends’ homes to watch the GOOD TV… I feel like I had a very 90’s childhood.
My enthusiasm for dressing up has always been a STAPLE in my life - we had a dangerously constructed dress-up box that was frequently used (and nearly took off our fingers) and Halloween was and is my favorite time of year (and no, you can’t convince me otherwise). It’s hard to remember exactly WHEN I started playing with makeup seriously but I would guess it wasn’t really until middle school that it began. My mom probably didn’t love it since I wore it in excess but I was just naturally very drawn to it (I think she saw that because later in life, she suggested I work for Sephora or something since I obviously cared so much about it but we’ll circle back to that). I was a bit of a late bloomer so once I hit puberty in high school, I hit it HARD. I developed fast and it made me WILDLY insecure but I didn’t develop the ability to really express what I was feeling or going through which made me both moody and quiet - stuck in my thoughts until they seemed to erupt out of frustration. And like any other teen, I had to deal with God’s (or whoever’s up there) sickest joke: at the time you are feeling MOST insecure, let’s give you enough acne so that even the blind can read “ANXIOUS” across your forehead.
So while it couldn’t fix EVERYTHING, I started using concealer to cover up my acne. And it was the gateway drug. Sure I had lipsticks and eyeshadows before but with THIS I could TRANSFORM my FACE - from acne EVERYWHERE to acne who?
And it really was something that gave me confidence. I admit, it definitely was HEAVY back in those days. But I also partially blame that on starting to get into theater as well. Theater gave me back a voice - sure they weren’t MY words, but as awkward as I felt speaking up in class was as confident I felt practically yelling to project my voice for hundreds of parents and students forced to attend the plays I was in. It was such a relief to find my crew back then and I remember being invited to get ready for a school dance with the “popular” girls of the theater group and being SO nervous I think I brought just about every piece of makeup I had “just in case”. I was so dedicated to my makeup that when I went white-water rafting with these same girls years later, I asked aloud if they thought waterproof mascara would hold up under class 3 rapids (they did not allow me to test out this question).
By the time I got to college, I was a full-fledged addict. It was my self-care ritual - to put on a full face before going to class every day. Yes, I wasn’t doing my acne any favors because unfortunately my skincare knowledge didn’t grow alongside cosmetics. But every time I found a new makeup product, it was what I imagine Archimedes felt with discovering gold purity.
There was so much to learn and I even tried doing my friend’s makeup at one point with DISASTROUS results that thankfully no pictures exist of. But still passionate and curious, I took a college elective course on theater makeup. It was SO fun but surprisingly difficult - technical knowledge was so much harder than just doing what my friends were doing and what I “knew” worked for my face. I think despite loving it, the challenge of trying to learn to do it professional and my absolute failure to do my friend’s makeup made me believe I wasn’t cut out for it as a job. And besides, it wasn’t a “reliable” career anyways. So naturally I went into television and writing instead.
With this limited experience into a type of professional makeup though, I definitely began upping my makeup game around Halloween. It was around the time I got to Disney out in California that I really began to explore full body paint. I hadn’t learn to SET my body paint however so once attending a party bus Halloween event as Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, I managed to leave blue handprints and marks ALL over. This eventually led to the inside joke about the time I “blue an entire bus”.
I would count down the days to Halloween, even dyeing my hair to complete a Halloween look I was working on and had planned out months in advance. This was my level of dedication - giving up my signature red I had fought so long and hard for (especially against my mother’s wishes) …
Just so I could be the Cheshire cat for two nights. Thankfully, my parents had started to come around to my crazy ideas and while they may not STILL fully understand what I do or why, they have found lots of ways to show their support over the years.
I began working various types of prosthetics into my looks - fangs, foam applications and contacts. It finally got to a point that one year, I won a Halloween contest at Disney and while it’s not as impressive knowing I wasn’t competing against other makeup artists but just my own department, it still was one of my biggest highlights of my career.
Now I won’t go into all the details (you can listen to a bit of the story on my podcast) but unfortunately I survived a horrible assault that sent everything tumbling in my life. My job, my health, my confidence, my sense of self. Trauma is so complicated because once physically I was better, mentally I still wasn’t. And that’s so hard for people to understand. As someone who was often told I was “too sensitive” or “emotional”, this was a whole other level. It took me a LONG time to come back to myself and truth be told, I am still working on it.
As silly as it sounds, makeup is a tool that’s been helping me get there. The moments when I put on my “face”, I can breathe a sigh of relief - THERE I am. Not this broken thing or the ugliness that happened to me. Just ME. The weird thing is makeup actually reminds me I don’t NEED it - it’s only enhancing what was already there but it gives me enough distance to see myself objectively and really SEE myself.
The ritual of doing makeup has become therapeutic. While I didn’t wear it as often day to day (this has changed recently), it became an expression of my mood, my war paint in a way. While some people don’t love a bold red lip, I wore it as a giant middle finger across my lips when needed. Others don’t love the types of lashes I had discovered during the pandemic so I would blink obscenities at them with a smile. When I felt giggly and light, my makeup was airy and shimmery. When I was feeling low, a dark, dramatic look was my style. I had started working with a personal trainer as well to find my way back to my body in a healthy way and I really started to like how I was looking and feeling.
I wanted to capture this and realize a long time idea of recreating an old photo of my grandmother on my father’s side. She was honestly the epitome of elegance in my eyes (I thought she looked like Dame Joan Plowright) and while my look became more of a hybrid between her and the old Hollywood style I also admired, I literally cried when I saw my first vintage image.
This sparked yet another era for me - exploring pinup and vintage style. I felt myself being awkward again because here was a new world I knew nothing about. So slowly I started building my confidence in that realm and when I got the confidence to do my own makeup looks for my shoots, I really felt something awaken in me. I wanted to keep doing makeup like this. I wanted to learn even more there was to offer. And I wanted to share that with other people. I had failed my friend in college but I wanted to fix that (doing it for others; there was no saving that look, holy hell it was bad).
Around this time, I hit another roadblock and I found myself out of work after an unexpected layoff from my copywriting job. While I could always fall back on my freelance copywriting, I had time to think about what else I wanted next, what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. I started researching makeup schools. I won’t lie - it seemed CRAZY to do. Schools in the US are so expensive and as someone with student loan debt, I wasn’t sure if it was possible. The idea came to me unexpectedly but the thought started like a whisper: “Why does it HAVE to be the US?” It felt kismet - I almost immediately found the College of Makeup Art & Design (aka CMU). I found other programs as well just in case but I felt very drawn to this one. And after the call with Admissions (what was supposed to be maybe 15 minutes and we ended up chatting for about 90), I was in.
It must have felt like a lot for my parents - I came out of the pinup closet (I was worried they would think it was too risqué), told them I wanted to go to makeup school (I hadn’t told them I had already applied and been accepted), was going to have to move to Canada to pursue it and also was going to work at Sephora until I left. While it was a lot, I can’t help but feel like my mom wasn’t actually surprised.
The job at Sephora actually felt really affirming for my decisions. Though anyone who works retail knows how much it can SUCK at times, helping people with makeup actually was eye opening. It felt like being a therapist - people came to me with so much more than a product question but also stories of their struggles, excitement, worries, celebrations, and concerns. Let’s be real - makeup won’t fix all your problems but I think it helps us feel more confident to face them. I felt so excited to be able to eventually help people actually create full looks one day and it let me really embrace learning and wearing all kinds of skincare and makeup. And yes, I won yet another Halloween makeup contest while there as well.
I am only two weeks into my time at CMU so far and I feel SO much gratitude. Granted, it’s not easy - we haven’t even TOUCHED the makeup yet and hair (what we are starting with) is NOT my friend. But I am genuinely looking forward to each day because I know I have so much still to learn. This is going to be tough and I am going to get frustrated and want to give up. But I also know I have done tough things before, that I have gotten knocked down and somehow still keep getting up and doing something even better each time. So I’m doing the damn thing and can’t wait to see where it takes me.
I think it’s going to be beautiful.