Working In The Retail Beauty Industry Ruined My Relationship With Makeup

I’ve known I was the creative type from the first time I held a crayon. I loved all forms of art, even if I wasn’t good at most of them, so I was destined to love the art of makeup. Playing with the products was almost like therapy for me, and I enjoyed trying new products and trends.

I got the chance to explore my love of makeup during the pandemic when I got a job working at my local Ulta. I was able to try new products for free, and I also felt free to express myself with makeup (and hair). I loved coming to work with a different look every day. Watching my face transform in the mirror as I applied makeup was almost like a form of therapy for me.

I also loved learning more about cosmetics. I enjoyed sharing what I learned with the guests and educating them on makeup, brushes, skincare, and hair tools. I was finally working somewhere that I could share my passion with others, and it was making me consider a career in cosmetics.  

I thought about becoming a makeup artist or learning monster makeup. I even briefly considered reviewing makeup online since I’d accumulated so much of it. I still consider these career paths every so often, but I’m not sure where I would start.

I enjoyed working at Ulta, but the pay left a lot to be desired and the hours were lacking. I couldn’t pay my bills, so I had to move on. I ended up getting a job working at Target in the beauty department. I thought it would be like working at Ulta, but it wasn’t. My role at Target was to stock the shelves. I also wasn’t allowed to spend more than fifteen minutes helping a guest, which contrasted with Ulta’s ‘build the basket’ method of helping a guest.

Target showcased everything I hated about working in retail and even forced me into a depression. The workload was impossible to keep up with, and I ended up being terminated for working too slowly.

After losing my job, I saw a listing for a salesperson position at a cosmetics counter. I’d heard of and used some of the products in the past, so it seemed like the perfect fit for someone like me. I applied and was hired within a week.

With the new job came new rules, the most important one being that I had to wear the makeup I was selling. I had no issue with this, but I never thought about how the rule would affect me. The cosmetics were all natural tones, which is what most women wear, but I am not most women. The creativity involved in my daily routine was gone, so I didn’t look forward to it anymore.

I slowly began to see applying makeup as an inconvenience and stopped wearing it on my days off. I wasn’t interested in watching beauty videos anymore and didn’t care about new products. Not even the announcement of a Pokémon beauty collab was enough to bring back my excitement.

The job itself began to wear on me when I realized that all the guests that I helped were people who had issues with themselves. Ladies who had freckles wanted high-coverage products to hide them. Ladies who were aging wanted magical products to make them younger. Ladies with slight discoloration wanted serums to fade their sunspots. Ladies who thought they were unattractive wanted me to find a product that magically ‘fixed’ the parts of their faces that bothered them. It was rare that I had women coming in for fun makeup products, like colorful lipsticks, and when they did it was usually because they saw my lipstick and wanted to try something different.

I was no longer helping people who were passionate about makeup. I was helping people who thought they weren’t beautiful.

I told my counter manager that it made me sad that so many women only wanted to wear makeup because they negatively viewed their appearance. She replied by asking me why I wore makeup if it wasn’t to ‘look pretty’. I had to explain to her that I had fallen in love with the art of makeup. I also told her that makeup should be worn to empower and that women have been wearing makeup for that purpose since its invention.

My love for makeup was strained while working at Target, but it only got worse while working at my current job. Applying makeup for work feels like a chore, and I’ve stopped wearing it all together on my off days. While I do enjoy the extra time I have in the mornings, I miss the way I feel when sitting down in front of a mirror to create art.

While I can’t hide the fact that my relationship with makeup has changed, I refuse to let my love of makeup fade without a fight. I am considering starting a TikTok or YouTube channel to rekindle my love of makeup.