"Beauty means play. Makeup gives us so many opportunities to play and experiment and get creative with how we present ourselves to the world. Plus, I think a beautiful person is someone having the time of their life being themselves, as themselves in their body.
As a Black queer non-binary person, beauty and makeup let me safely play as myself before I introduced myself to the world. I drew on a fake mustache with eyeliner once, and I stared at the selfie for a long time. That one moment taught me a ton about how I individually communicate gender.
Growing up being real, I thought beauty and clothing were vain and unimportant. I felt guilty for wanting to play dress up all the time. It didn't feel like I could use it to do anything besides make myself feel better. Now, I know beauty, specifically, can change the world. So many of us struggle with liking who we see in the mirror, beauty and makeup gives us a way to see who we are and who we could be. That's some powerful sh*t." — Arrows, social media personality, model, and producer
