Makeup and Willful Curls
Growing in the Caribbean was a challenge combined with being born to a family of proud women. Taught from early age that simplicity was the best formula in life. Makeup was just a way to hide ugliness, since there was nothing to hide, there was no need to wear any. Of course that never applied to lipstick or light face powder to control or hide oily skin. To this day, I am grateful of their teaching. I only own about four colors of lipstick and a compact, perfect for airline traveling and speedy morning rituals. Faultless skin and wrinkle free. Society expects women to hide their true beauty and waste money in products to make them attractive. The reality is that we are as beautiful and attractive as we feel. Makeup is just a mask used to guard our real feelings or partake in war; after all, often we are trained to get a man to be someone. Mistaken philosophy, we are, that is what makes us attractive.
In my Caribbean island, curly hair was view as an insult. Anyone with curls knows the pain and humiliation of daily grooming with the expectation of perfect straight hair in the humid weather of the Caribbean. No one permed their hair, but they relaxed, tamed it using giant tubes or curls, and did the famous dubi-dubi just to appear in public with the perfect straight hair.
Women in my family were perplexed to see any child with unruly curls, especially mine. I was the only child with unruly curls for many years. Shades of brown and blond…mixture of perfect colors and curls. My mother had the mission of taming it one way or another. I was forced to keep my hair braided to avoid the usual comments asking what happened or who else had unruly curls in the family. Endless hours were dedicated to comb and tame curls that refused to obey any command. Lotions, creams, relaxers that seem to work only seconds. Tears and the prospect of endless hours in beauty salons, driers, and blow driers to please an unforgiving society. To this day, I clinch at the idea of going to a beauty salon. Today I imagine my mother turning in her grave. Styles have evolved! Unruly, willful curls are cherish and emulated. My hair has reclaim its freedom! It does as it pleases always embracing the attention it gets.