Your skin is confusing as what
Asian women are known for their magical ageless skin which means you’re going to keep being IDed until you’re into your late 40s like some sort of time bending sorceress. Unfortunately this lifetime of youthful complexion comes with a downside – Asian skin is more prone to sensitivity, scarring, dryness, oiliness and basically everything bad that they talk about in those skin care ads.
As with any forms of sensitivity or allergy the best advice is keep it natural, avoid harsh chemicals. Personally, I scar really easily, so use a lot of tea tree oil and cocoa butter on my skin, but everybody’s different, so getting to know your skin and playing with products on the market are the best bet.
READ MORE: Nine Truths Every 20-Something Needs To Know About Beauty
**You are going to look orange occasionally
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High street make up choices can be limiting some, but for those with anything outside a typical caucasian complexion it is a choice between shades of TOWIE or malnutrition. BB and CC creams usually come in a grand total of two to three shades and while foundations offer a greater range, you still pretty much have to resign yourself to either ‘sandy’ or some form of tanned white skin.
At the moment you’re going to have to dig deep if you want a variety of shades; MAC cosmetics are hugely favoured for the range of shades available, whilst YSL and Bobbi Brown have produced ranges aimed at darker skin tones. It’s an improvement from a few years ago, but sadly the high street hasn't exactly followed suit.
No one tells you about different make-up techniques
I spent a good three years putting eyeliner on my lower lids and pink blusher on my cheeks and wondering why I looked like a clown with a severe allergic reaction. Whilst I read make-up tutorials in magazines, no one told me that, for example, oriental eyelashes can be shaped differently to caucasian ones and therefore require different techniques as illustrated by this amazing tutorial. Or that the lack of crease in my eye lid means I couldn’t slap on black eyeshadow like the little goth I so desperately wanted to be.
We now have beauty of the internet, where you can google handy tips like these, and no longer look like a suicidal circus performer. I’ve worked out that less is most definitely more and can embrace smoky eye trends with a lighter touch.
You’re hairy and they don’t know it
Asian hair can be a lot thicker than that of white women. When I used to complain about this my aunts would tell me it’s a sign of our thick skin, and I continued to believe this into my teen years when attempts to wax my legs or curl my hair would inevitably end in flat failure.
Thankfully since my teen years I’ve realised that there’s little appeal in having hair that looks like the love child of Shirley Temple and Medusa and have come to settle for the occasional blow dry when in need of hair based volume. In terms of hair removal, if you’re not a fan of shaving and thicker hair has rendered high street waxing products obsolete, an Egyptian friend recently recommended a traditional sugar paste method, which is not only natural, but apparently leaves her smoother than Matthew Mcconaughey’s voice.
Peeps are going to pigeonhole you like hell
There’s a killer Tumblr post which shows the representation of East Asian women’s hair in popular culture - basically it’s always dark with some sort of colourful streak. As a mixed race woman I’ve been asked if I bleach my skin, because you know, all Indian gals are so down with that. Right…
The best tip to change people’s minds is to embrace the individuality of your ethnicity and beauty; remember that your dark hair doesn’t leave you looking washed out, that you never need to fake tan or top up before dreaded bikini season. Failing this just straight up glare down at whoever feels it’s appropriate to challenge someone based on their roots.
There are no role models
Asian women are horrendously underrepresented in the beauty industry. I struggle to remember the last time I saw a woman of Asian descent in a beauty advert, and squint even harder when attempting to recall an Asian woman as a spokesperson for a popular brand. There is Aishwarya Rai for L’Oreal, but Rai’s light skin and eye colour is hardly typical of Indian women. In magazines, women featured in ‘get the looks’ are frustratingly always white and more than often editors will prefer to dress caucasian models in a culturally insensitive way (see Miranda Kerr’s November 2014 Japanese Vogue cover) than select an Asian woman.
The acceptance of women of varying ethnicities in the beauty and fashion industries has been a slow process, 7% of models walking at New York Fashion week 2014 were Asian. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t awesome women out there who are totally representing the heck out of Asian genes; check out Fei Fei Sun, Mona Matsuoka, and Shanina Shaik for inspiration.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.