My Ex Almost Ruined My Relationship With Makeup

I’m sure most women keep an array of neutral eyeshadow palettes and nude lipsticks in their ‘top drawer’. Not me. While I have nudes, I prefer to reach for something bright and colorful. My love for bright colors began last year, during the holiday season. I was gifted Huda Beauty’s Neon Obsessions palette in pink, and soon began wearing it daily. Wearing the palette made me feel like I was conveying the me on the inside to everyone in the outside world. It didn’t take long for me to end up with the other two, and many more colorful palettes.

This experimentation with makeup has become a form of therapy for me. At times, my makeup has felt like a shield of armor, protecting me from a hostile workplace. Other times, it has given me the confidence needed to tackle my day. While I have always loved makeup, I almost grew to depend on it during a rough relationship.

2015 was a much different time in my life. Some would say a darker time, where my now ex-boyfriend controlled most aspects of my life. He had a way of removing people and things from my life. This happened with loved ones, tv shows, even books. Most people would assume he told me not to wear makeup, but instead he told me the opposite. He tried to pass himself off as an ‘artist’, who claimed to see art in everything. This includes my makeup.

At first, I thought I was lucky to have found a boyfriend who didn’t mind going into Ulta or Sephora with me. Sometimes he even bought makeup for me. During one of our Ulta trips, he saw an ad for eyeliner. The woman’s eyes were bold, overlined, and styled similarly to the fox eye trend. He pointed the ad out to me and told me he’d love it if I tried the look. I agreed that the look was cool and told him I would try it out. He brought me an eyeliner that day.

When we got home, he asked if he could try applying my makeup. At the time, he claimed this was because he was an ‘artist’ and he wanted to see how well he could apply makeup. I allowed this, thinking it wouldn’t do any harm, but I was wrong. He attempted to create the liner look about seven times that day. I had to tell him to stop, since my eyes were beginning to get irritated.

He started asking to apply my makeup on a semi-regular basis. Sometimes I allowed it, other times I reminded him of how expensive my makeup was and that I was saving it for our dates. I had a low paying job at the time and no means to replace the makeup he used. He seemed disappointed by this, but I didn’t think anything of it until we got in an argument later that month. He admitted that he was angry with me for ‘letting myself go’ by not wearing makeup as much. I was stunned, since he’d also told me that I didn’t look much different without makeup, and even complimented my bare face.

I started wearing makeup daily, and even asking permission to wash it off at night. I remember him examining my makeup in the kitchen lighting and telling me how much better I looked with it. The magic of watching my face transform in the mirror was gone. In fact, I tried to avoid mirrors when I wasn’t wearing makeup. I know now that he was a jerk, but at the time I was disgusted with myself.

It was a long time before I was able to recapture the magic of makeup. In fact, I didn’t start experimenting with my look again until I had the Huda Beauty Palettes. I know neon colors aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I will be forever grateful for the way they changed my life and rekindled my love of makeup.