I was five years old when I first became aware of my otherness. I’m black Irish – my mum was born in Trinidad to Irish parents and my dad was born in Ireland to Nigerian parents who had moved there in the 1940s. Although I was born in Ireland, we lived in the US until I was five, and it was only on moving back to Dublin that I was made profoundly aware of how different I looked to everyone else around me.
In the early 1980s, Dublin was an extremely homogenous and socially conservative city. Now I feel a little more normal walking down the street there, but back then I was acutely aware of how my features differed from everyone else’s. I felt like an alien. Adults would reach out and touch my hair as I walked down the street, and they’d comment on it – and me – like I wasn’t even there. I learned strong ideas about what “beautiful” looked like – and I existed firmly outside its boundaries. For a time, I longed for those very Irish Atlantic blue eyes.
As a teenager, my feeling of difference only got stronger. I was very self-conscious, not helped by the fact that I would walk into a shop in the centre of Dublin and people would stop and stare at me. As I reached my teens, I learned that attention from boys could be complicated by race and certain stereotypes they might have about me. It was a lot to process and it coincided with my discovery of makeup – no wonder I quickly appreciated the shield of protection that it offered me.
At the time, my mum sold vintage clothes and I loved the glamour of the 1940s/50s look. I began wearing a full face of makeup from the age of 14 – foundation, winged eyeliner, a vibrant lipstick. I came to live in terror of anyone seeing me without it, even at my all-girls school. Looking back now, I can see that this daily transformation was my attempt to hide: my wish for anonymity in a place where not only did I not resemble anyone, but where blackness and its features were stigmatised. When I look back at the shade of what I was putting on my face, my reaction is something between humour and horror – there were no foundations to suit my skin tone and I would have looked so much better without it. But there I was, caked in the closest match I could find.
After moving to London at 18 to study, I continued to experiment with my look. At first, I was very into that late 90s R&B honey look, then I moved back to a more retro vibe – still full voltage on glamour. The thought of leaving the house without a full face of immaculately applied makeup terrified me still, which is such a contrast to how I feel now.
Today, I’ve settled on a look that I’m confident will stick around. I still love and use makeup but I probably only wear it a few times a week – it’s no longer a necessity I feel beholden to. The shift happened gradually, and it was intentional. I began to think more deeply about the dominant beliefs in our society, and the reasons women feel so compelled to live up to unrealistic or unattainable beauty standards. I wanted to reject the patriarchal norms that had been imposed on me, like questioning why I should shave my body.
About seven years ago, I decided to cut off all my hair and let my natural Afro textured hair grow – before then, I’d always straightened my hair and worn weaves instead. I began to embrace my body shape – I have a bottom and thighs, courtesy of my Nigerian heritage – rather than try and starve those features away (apparently my shape is on trend now, anyway). At the same time as I was reassessing my relationship with food and body image, I stopped relying so heavily on makeup.
When I started teaching and lecturing, I had a period where I swapped my trademark glamour for low maintenance frump. I thought that too much glam would mean I wouldn’t be taken seriously. There are so many patriarchal norms that mean people still struggle with the idea of intellectual women, especially if they look young and favour red lipstick! So I’d turn up barefaced, in glasses and shapeless clothes. Eventually I realised that this too was ridiculous; I’m a naturally glamorous person and I shouldn’t have to suppress that or diminish that part of myself in order to be taken seriously. We shouldn’t underestimate the transformative power of glamour – nothing lifts my mood like a black winged eyeliner and a dramatic red lip.
So here I am today – happy to be seen by my friends and neighbours without a shred of makeup but probably also happier when I’ve had time to fill in my eyebrows (blame the mid-90s’ penchant for over-plucking), and put on a light foundation, eyeliner, mascara and a nude lipstick. This version of me that I present to the world is a woman who’s no longer beholden to conventional beauty norms and is gloriously happy with her melanin, her brown skin, brown hair and brown eyes.
Photography: Brian Daly and Louisa Parry
