Beauty from a young girl's eyes

The past few weeks have been busy for me on a personal note. My daughter had her first confession and first communion last week. It was an overwhelming feeling pala. Im sure the other moms felt the same way as attested by some of the mom friends I have who shared the same sentiments with me. =)  For some reason yesterday, I happened to end up hearing mass (for immaculate conception) and having confession at my daughter's school. I suppose it wasnt coincidental because I brought home with me a very valuable reminder and lesson. 

The priest during the homily told of his conversation with a young student who approached him and told him that she was sad. Sad because she wasnt "hot". What do you mean she's not "hot" goes the priest. (And I go 'what the heck?? silently in my seat! ) And I'm glad with little more explanation the priest finally understood what she meant.  And she goes with a wishy washy explanation of how she fails in the looks categories and how she doesnt meet up with the current look standards etc etc. Im sure you can imagine how this conversation somehow went.  Im glad the priest had been able to make 'hot' seem uncool.  He was right to emphasize that beauty is truly from within. That what matters at the end of the day is that your heart is clean and beautiful, warm and yes, hot. The priest was right to remind the girls that they dont have to change anything about themselves physically in order to conform- that they are beautiful as they are, that they are perfectly all right, that they can dress simply and still be pretty. The important thing is to be clean and beautiful from within and it will surely emanate and radiate to others.

It was an eye opener for me, especially from the perspective of my profession,  because day in day out, we simply forget. We neglect to realize that so many of today's commercialism is aimed at remolding people's standards of beauty and goodness and it affects people of all ages, races and faces.  So much so that even young kids, bless their tender hearts, start to measure themselves and account themselves as failures in the looks department. So much so that they have to look a certain way, dress a certain way to be acceptable or to feel accepted. There is our direct and indirect contribution to these so called measures and standards that hover over all of us.

In this line where we encounter people who silently or openly bank on your capability to magically transform them, sometimes, you cant help but question whether it requires purely a skill to make it happen. Because at the end of every encounter with a client, it becomes equally intrinsic to possess confidence to radiate it out. A confidence that can only come with the right set of beauty standards  and mindset to begin with.

I suppose as a makeup artist, what I realize to be more important for me now more than ever is that people end up feeling beautiful from within, beyond borders, definitions and standards. That my skill and my make up becomes an enhancer rather than a mask, or worse, a step to meeting up with worldly standards and expectations.  At the end of the day, if I can make someone feel beautiful despite of and without the makeup frills, I would've made my little difference.

And that little difference could perhaps one day make up for the right definition of beauty from a young girl's eyes.