“HOMEWARD BOUND” by Catrin Welz-Stein
 

What’s the meaning behind the application of makeup? To make something homely beautiful? But what of the already beautiful, who become merely different? And how can one define beauty, which is as subjective as wealth and happiness and a good cup of brew? How can one take a face whose pores are hidden and clogged, whose eyelids have been shadowed like death and whose lips have been sponged as if with blood, and call it an image of angelic beauty? How can putting layers and layers of chemicals on your cheeks, chin, and nose make you anything less than a masked woman, a clown, an actress, a stowaway behind and painted countenance? And like anything else artificial—from diet drinks and sugars to the virtual realities of games and worlds—must this be so addictive?

And yet we are then—and often only then—hailed as “beautiful.”

Sure, a little bit of anything seldom killed anybody; even some poisons are consumable in tiny and gradual doses. And a little bit of something might “enhance” or add the “finishing touch”—but what when the little bit gets out of hand, and becomes a big bit, and bites the hand?

Is it a mask, a shield against the world, a colorful veil to hide behind? Is it a victimization in the lifestyle of commodity, commercialization, materialism, artificiality? Is it a struggle to fill an emotional or mental or even physical abyss (and if so, why do you throw clumps of clouds instead of clumps of soil)? Every day most of us are consuming artificial ingredients in foods, drinks; every day most of us are lathered in artificial ingredients in medicines and creams and lotions and soaps, but it’s not enough—we must also plaster our faces with artificiality, falling in love with the fake—fake faces, fake assets, fake symmetry, fake “beauty”—falling in love with illusions and fairy tales that are better left only envisaged, if that.

Strip the colors, strip the mask, strip the mirage, strip the lies. You won’t melt at the raw touch of sun or wind or fingertip, believe me.

Or have you already forgotten what it feels like upon your naked skin?

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