I bought my first bottle of foundation relatively earlier than most of my classmates at the middle school in Shanghai, at 12. Though I have to admit that it was somehow driven by social appearance anxiety, my motivation evolved into something more eccentric after I saw how makeup is able to change my appearance: I want to look less like a “worldly human”, transcend the “humanly” concerns of money and other burdens by transforming my appearances. I wish to look like Wang-ye more, a Taoist monk who is detached from worldly business, thus embodying somewhat Taoist philosophy; I wanted to share characteristics with the fox, which embodies pure intelligence.
But the initial attempts at the creative makeup didn’t work, simply because I didn’t know how to put Wangye’s downturned eyes onto my face and the fox eyeliner looked nasty — my hands weren’t steady enough. I thus shifted my focus from these creative makeups to more everyday ones, simply enhancing my natural facial features.
After I enrolled in high school, at dinners with family friends when I’m back in Shanghai during the breaks, I am always cornered by predictable and “invasive” questions — if there’s a peer at my age around, both my parents and the family friends always ask if I have a boyfriend or what type of boys I like, which is laughable and sad at the same time. Of course, I’m not eager to come out at every gathering, for it’s exhausting to constantly explain myself or change their perception at queerness, or risk my parents being judged because of me. At the same time, I don’t want to pretend to be straight nor be perceived as straight, because that feels like dishonesty, and a betrayal of other LGBTQ people and myself. I have hated questions like these, for that’s my privacy anyway.
Being frustrated every time, I then started to wear really “gay-looking” styled makeup for such occasions — heavy contours under eyebrows, straight lines over curves, eyelashes skipped, and brown lipstick instead of rouge. I wished that this style could be a signal for my peers, who should also be using Instagram, Pinterest, and Xiaohongshu, who might be hinted that I possess minimal interest in boys.
On social media and when hanging out with friends, if I wear the same makeup, I’d receive comments like addressing me as “husband”, while my more “straight” makeup garners compliments. How makeup is used as a tool to assume, infer, or stereotype gender roles frustrated me, as I also caught myself doing that. Wearing makeup, for me, is a way to be free from fixations, but what I was doing clearly places me in confinement again. I’ve also been asked by elders to “wear lighter makeup, don’t do smokey eyes”, while if I do so, especially when social media pressures us to pick pink tones to appear younger and more “elfin”, I am also perpetuating the trend of juvenilizing women. These gender and sexuality stereotypes, which I catered to, are deeply oppressive and signs of power dynamics. I do not want to be entangled in this, for it’s far too sophisticated, and I do not want to cater to any beauty standards — that’s not “Wu Xia”. Makeup for me is a means of “transcendence” — of transcending my physical appearance to better align with the spirit I wish to embody, defying what’s given, and liberating myself from a single identity. How lacking in agency is it then, if I use this artistic freedom to conform to limiting standards? Plus, I don’t need to look gay to affirm my sexuality, nor do I wish to appear “masculine” to attract any girls. Thus, I wanted to explore genderless and neutral makeup.
Yet, most makeup tutorials online cater to conventional beauty standards or are stereotyped unsurprisingly. Actualizing my idea was challenging, as I didn’t know how to adjust my eyebrows, eyes, and lips to look less gendered — I didn’t know what facial features would appear genderless. Thus, I had to start with the knowledge about the human face — for example, a longer nose will make one look more masculine, while higher, arched eyebrows can give a person a colder look. Then, I experimented and practiced extensively with techniques to adjust my facial features, such as using contouring to make my naturally long nose appear shorter, yet not so short as to seem traditionally feminine. It was initially hard, because I had always viewed makeup from an abstract angle, never thought of it as a technical skill. Through a cycle of application, removal, and “fine-tuning”, I was finally able to actualize my conceptual ideas on my face through practical skills.
I could finally actualize the initial wishes that inspired me to do makeup. I’ve learned to adjust my facial features and learn what kinds of impressions would be given by different facial features. Not only that I’d adjust my facial features to look less gendered in everyday makeups, I was now enabled to be a cosplayer for the characters I loved in Xianxia and Wuxia novels. Using eyeliners and eyeshadows, I create the appearances of upturned eyes, imparting a “detached” quality — reminiscent of Taoist characters who are aloof from worldly struggles. Moreover, mastering these techniques allows me to directly invoke various emotions and embody different concepts through my appearance, and I no longer need cosplaying a character as the intermediary. At anime conventions, I connected with people who share a similar journey, who all turned from cosplayers to what I call “original character designers” — we just “design” our appearance like crafting original characters.
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