Making up for being ugly

Iske Conradie does not care. She has not been on a diet in eight years. She has never followed the advice of a Youtube makeup tutorial. She rarely does her nails. Sometime she even air-dries her hair and uses normal soap for her face. Iske decided to spend a day being fanatical about her appearance, just to experience having every care in the world.

Eight years ago I wilfully decided never to let socks or thigh measurements dictate my mind ever again.

I despise worrying about my appearance and I have one reason not to thank for it - the death of my father.

I had just recently returned to school after he had passed away. One day I walked past a few high school girls contemplating how high they should pull up their school sock, to appear cool.

In that moment I could recall how I had also worried about my socks before; I had also believed socks could affect the course of my life. Now that I was familiar with an event that really distorted life, the thought of fretting such trivial things made me nauseous.

Society is delusional

I was disgusted that I had wasted so much worry on diets, beauty tips, fashion, trying to improve myself and envying others. I thought of nearly every girl in school, me included, that had tried throwing up after meals just to lose weight. The destructive anxieties that ruled our minds were petty and so irrelevant to being happy.

Ever since that day I decided to trust that I was perfect regardless of the image society set as cool or attractive; society was clearly delusional.

Eight years have past since then and I've met very few people that feel the same callousness to "must-have" beauty products and "must-do" diets as I do.

I can barely recall the terror of failing a 10-day diet plan and I don't know what I should and shouldn't be wearing to look skinnier.

So today I'm going to immerse myself in the minds of the majority - who don't think like I do. For one day I'm aiming for "hair with volume", unnatural "natural makeup", "glowing skin" and the "I need to lose weight"-mantra.

Morning ugly

I wake-up at 5:00am hideous; I'm lacking all of the above.

Shower-time. I use a face wash. Rinse. Facial scrub. Rinse. Body wash. Rinse. Body scrub. Rinse. Rinse again to get those pesky little body scrub granules off. Shave cream. Shave. Rinse. I wash my hair. Rinse. I condition my hair and wait three minutes before I rinse for the final rinse.

Thirty-five minutes later and I've finished half the town's water supply. At least I'm eight times fresher than my fellow citizens.

I youtube some advice from self-proclaimed hair and make-up experts.

Vlogger, Kirsten Mee, tells me how to Blow-Dry Hair Straight (with Volume!).

I part my hair in three. I part the three parts in two more parts. I clip all these parts to my head. Then I untie them one by one to comb and blow-dry every piece individually with my hair dryer.

I torch each section's roots to frighten them. That'll make them stand up for some "gorgeous volume".

Next step is straightening all these sections with a straightening iron. Twenty-five minutes later and I think I just ironed out my (with Volume!).

RhaeaEstelle's Youtube video illustrates how I should apply my second face. I prep my real face with moisturiser. I dab two fingers in liquid foundation and slap it all over my tarnished skin. In a downward motion I spread the foundation evenly. She makes me paint my nose with a brush.

Youtube-channel MakeupByAlli shows me how to make one eye pretty in eight minutes. It takes sixteen minutes to draw around my eyes.

My diet breakfast is hot water with a spoon of lemon juice (a great way to get your metabolism working), two baked apples and a spoon of muesli.

I can't drink water from the tap, because it washes off my second face.

By the time I put on a cute dress, kitten heels and understated jewellery more than an eighth of my day is spent.

A walking doll

I put my earphones in and tip tap to class in my heels. Along the way I have to stop myself from playing air drums or miming the words to my favourite songs - I'm suppose to care what people think now. I hate this.

The girls I pass, with plastered faces just like me, smile at me charmingly.  The ones who dress like I usually do don't even look at me.

I never looked plastic girls in the eyes either. I always wanted them to notice me not caring what they look like. As a doll-face for the day, I feel affronted. They're so rude. I'm so rude.

When I pass men on the street I can't help avoid looking at them. I don't want to see them judge me for looking like I'm begging for male attention.

My hair sticks to my lip-gloss.

I'm just in time for my class. My feet ache.

Striking a pose

A classmate, Annzra Naidoo, walks up the hall just as I enter my class building. "Your shoes, your ..." gesturing towards my jacket, "I just love your whole outfit, it's so cute!" she exclaims.

I tell myself it's my impeccable taste in retro-looking clothing and not the doll-face that earned the compliment.   

Class starts. It's quite daunting. I feel like the lecturer won't take me seriously - I look like a sixties Barbie-doll.

I merely reapply my lip-gloss to stay in character. I have to stay focussed on my experiment.

Why do people wear lip-gloss? It rubs off every thirty minutes. You can't even kiss with lip-gloss. I guess if your kisser puts up with it, he wants to stick with you. I chuckle. 

I'm funny; I don't need all this makeup.  

I avoid getting up too much; I don't want to narcissistically "strut my stuff" as these heels mechanically make me do. 

For lunch it's four Provitas with cream cheese and tuna. I ate the remaining dry tuna in the tin and choked a bit. Dieting is so stupid.

Getting it right

Everything itches: my stockings, my hair and my face. Most of my foundation is rubbed, lunched and lived off by the end of the day.

After class I reapply makeup for hockey and then during the game I get sloshed with mud in the face. I quite happily announce: "This just proves that all this dress-up and makeup is useless."

Then I realise, the most ugly thing about me is not my excess makeup or my normal lack thereof - it's the way I worry about both, like it's something that could affect the course of my life. It's not.