A moment that changed me: I applied mucous-tinted mascara – and loved the reaction

2026-03-18 - 06:59

I was 12 and it was the first makeup I had ever worn. While people’s responses ranged right up to genuine repulsion, they couldn’t quell my happiness I wore makeup for the first time just after I turned 12: a tube of green mascara from a pound shop in my home town in south Wales. This was not a chic emerald or a flattering forest green. It was a frosted, mucous-tinted green – a colour that looked like the aftermath of a minor chemical incident involving Shrek. There was a reason it cost only a pound. I slicked it on with no real understanding of beauty, but a clear instinct that I loved how it altered my face. The outside world was less enthused. People hated it. Teachers told me to take it off; I’d then reapply it in the toilets. Girls in my year looked at me with genuine repulsion. It wasn’t pretty, or cute – so nobody understood why I would want to look like that. Continue reading...