Written by Hannah Jones.
Photo taken from Wikipedia Commons.
Tattoos, acne, skin discoloration – Dermablend Professional makeup can cover it all. I first learned about the magical wonders of Dermablend back in 2011 when Rick Genest, also known as “Zombie Boy,” agreed to allow a team of makeup artists to completely cover his tattooed body on camera.
The words “How do you judge a book?” appear as the video opens to a black screen. A thin, bald man in a t-shirt appears next, sitting in front of the camera. Besides the facial piercings and defiant gaze, he’s an average-looking guy.
Then he pulls the t-shirt off.
He reveals his unblemished, tattoo-less skin before he begins to scrub his chest with makeup remover. Black ink peeks through the layers of foundation. He does the same for his face and head, pulling the towel across his skin and uncovering the tattooed face of a skeleton. The rest of the three-minute video shows the process of covering Genest’s body in Dermablend’s special leg and body cover makeup, with makeup artists going even so far as to coat his armpits in the stuff.
On March 7 of this year, Dermablend posted a new video with Genest that kicked off their new “Camo Confession” campaign.
“Many people would say that I’m different just because of my skin, but I don’t feel that way,” Genest said in the video.
The new campaign encourages people to show off their different flaws or whatever it is that makes them physically unique. Initially, I was ecstatic to hear about the campaign’s idea. I’m on board for anything that encourages people to feel confident and proud of who they are and how they look. But is it really doing that?
Dermablend and their spokespeople tell you not to be embarrassed of your flaws, to be proud and love yourself for who you are, but they preach something different when it all boils down. Their company’s bottom line tells you to buy their makeup to cover up your flaws, to buy their makeup and conform to society’s standard of beauty so you can feel better about yourself.
Cheri Lindsay, a 24-year-old woman with vitiligo, a skin disorder that causes a loss of pigmentation across the body, also participated in the campaign so that she could tell her story. Without any makeup on, half of the skin on her face is white and the other half is black.
With the makeup, Lindsay is an average girl. No one would give her skin a second look until she takes a towel to her face and scrubs the makeup away. From the space just above her eyebrows to the area around her chin, her skin is pale white. Meanwhile, the skin on her forehead and jawline is black. Her hands, too, are mostly white, but flecks of brown dot across them. In the video her smile is hesitant, yet all the same this woman is brave and beautiful
Clearly, vitiligo is a difficult condition to live with. It can easily attack your sense of vanity and make you feel ugly, but Lindsay hasn’t let that happen to her. She’s a beautiful woman, inside and out, makeup or no makeup.
“Can I still live with this [condition] and be successful? Hell yes,” she says proudly.
It’s an inspirational message, but I’m appalled that she or anyone else feels the need to cover up that much of their body just so others won’t feel uncomfortable.
“I chose to just find an alternative, something that I could put on my face that could help people to look through the initial shock of ‘Oh, okay, she has you know, half her face is white but she’s a black girl.’”
Why is it that we feel the need to fix ourselves to fit into a certain standard of beauty and make others happy? It’s because companies like Dermablend Professional want to make money off of our craving to look like everyone else.
You can view the videos for the campaign on Dermablend’s YouTube channel and see for yourself the hashtag added under the “About” section: #blendintostandout.
Personally, I’ve never wanted to rock the natural look more than after seeing what Dermablend Professional can do.