brown…” That moment, aged five, the frosty playground of my primary school became arctic; it was the day I became acutely aware that the colour of my skin made me different.I was one of a handful of non-white children in my year. Unlike so many ethnic minority children who face a torrid daily existence of namecalling, I was never bullied past an obligatory ‘Paki’ or ‘you’re the colour of poo’ comment. But those cursory derogatory remarks evolved in time, becoming fragments of self-hate that lodged in my subconscious. My deep-set feelings of otherness were compounded when making my first foray into the world of make-up. It should have been a fuzzy warmth of beauty exploration but sadly, that wasn’t to be.Make-up trips to the small town centre in Newport, south Wales put me on edge. While my pale-skinned friends would coo over the shades in Boots, a powder compact filled with a rectangle slab of thick, heavy powder was my sole choice – it was two shades too light, a sort of tan, biscuit shade rather than my deep chocolate. I applied it on the hour, every hour. Yet, the more I patted away, the worse I seemed to look as the powder caked into every imperfection of my face.I longed to look like everyone else, wearing pastel Barbie pinks rather than the maroon and plum shades my mum wore. Those silvery pink glosses never suited my skintone. As a retort, I’d use concealer to block out my darker-toned lips, or I’d slice up different lipsticks and melt them together in the microwave, like some cosmetic alchemist, to make paler versions of those plum shades – all to find the perfect pink lipstick for me. While everyone else looked like the models in Just Seventeen and Shout – all fresh-faced, with barely-there make-up and long, silky, straight hair – I couldn’t foresee a world where I’d ever fit in.
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