blue eyeshadow

That powder blue eyeshadow glided effortlessly onto the my mom's perfect eyelid crease, highlighting her tawny brown eyes with all its 80's charm. Like many young girls, I loved watching my mom put on her makeup in the morning.  What a mystical ritual, so beautiful, so grown up!  Even though I was only five or six years old,  I wanted to paint that pretty blue eyeshadow on my own eyes and be fancy like my mom!  It wasn't the rose-colored cheek blush or the pink lipstick that captivated my attention, though, it was that blue eyeshadow.  I longed to wear it like my mom, but when she put it on me, something just wasn't right.  I looked so clownish...garish...absurd. There's something extremely grotesque about putting blue eyeshadow on a Korean eyelid.  It just looked so ghastly on me that even if I wore it on Halloween, it would still be repugnant.


What I was missing was a double eyelid, that special crease that my Caucasian mom had.  That crease allowed her eyeshadow to sit so nicely--tucked in--until her eyes blinked, and then, that blue eyeshadow peaked out, illuminating her eyes like a magic trick!  Oh, I tried so hard over the years to recreate that crease on my eyelid;  I'd swipe a skinny streak of blue eyeshadow on the top edge of my lid, but no magic!  I had no idea how to apply eyeshadow to my crease-less eyelid!  I couldn't create any sense of color gradation or even fake a sense of curvature to my flat, small eyelid to mimic the round shape of my mom's eyes.  I had to face the fact that I had Korean almond eyes.  My mom eventually admitted to me that she just didn't know how to put makeup on me.  She tried to comfort me by telling me that she could have her Japanese friend come over and try to put makeup on me.  


That makeup session never happened, though.


I pretty much gave up on wearing blue eyeshadow because it just didn't look right on me.  I simply could not figure out how to put it on without looking ridiculous.  It wasn't until high school and college, when I met other Asian girls, that I was able to experiment a little with colors and techniques that complimented my eyes.  I found that neutral earth tones like terracotta or light pink worked best for me, and it looked more natural if I just brushed it on lightly over the entire lid to give a hint of color.  


When I attended UC Berkeley, I met more Asian girls that wore eyeshadow successfully.  I had never been surrounded by so many Asians, and for me, it was a welcome experience.  I learned that some Asians even have surgery to create that ever-so-coveted upper eyelid crease, a procedure called, Asian blepharoplasty.  Now, I wouldn't go to that extreme to get an eyelid crease, but it definitely showed me that I wasn't alone in wanting to change my eyes.  


But, I only wanted that eyelid crease out of childhood naivety, so my eyes could be like my mom's eyes.  After all, she was the standard of beauty, the model of femininity that I grew up admiring and emulating.   




To read more about Asian blepharoplasty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_blepharoplasty