Getting Into Goth Makeup in 2003
How goth makeup helped me recognize myself as a former fundie kid
Makeup can be a difficult and deeply nuanced subject when it intersects with feminism. The discussions often center around whether or not wearing makeup is disempowering, as it is a social expectation that, even in 2024, largely only applies to women. Some advocates are quick to counter that makeup feels empowering to them. Of course, just because something might make a given woman feel powerful, that doesn’t make it empowering to women. If it doesn’t facilitate women taking their rightful political and collective power, it’s not empowering.
For that matter, empowerment changes constantly, because power structures shift constantly. Women taking control of their own sexual presentation was empowering in the 1960s because it shifted a type of power—control over women’s sexuality in media and society—that had previously been held by patriarchal structures. But that doesn’t mean that wearing a miniskirt on American TV in the 2020s is fighting against women’s disenfranchisement.
I start with all of this simply to say that I’m not making the argument that women wearing makeup is empowering, or even necessarily positive on the whole. I also don’t pretend to have any particular academic knowledge about the psychology of makeup. And the history of makeup and the way it’s entwined with patriarchal power structures is a discipline all on its own—one that I am not educated in.
This is not an essay, argumentative or otherwise. It’s a personal story, an anecdote about the way I found an aspect of my identity in goth makeup. By sharing this, I’m doing what I always do here on the Lazy Goth Substack: talking about my experiences growing up in a world that has strict but often conflicting unwritten rules about gender presentation, sexuality, spirituality, and personal identity.
The taboo of makeup, goth or otherwise
I understand that plenty of people, AFAB (assigned female at birth) people especially, feel social or professional pressure to wear makeup. Plenty more feel embarrassed to be seen without it. However, this was hard for me to grasp initially because I didn’t really grow up in secular society. I didn’t start wearing makeup until I was about seventeen, and I did it with no one’s blessing. So I don’t come to this issue in the most traditional way.
Instead of being encouraged (or even forced) to wear makeup as a teen, my mother made fun of me whenever I tried. She’d tell me I looked like a prostitute, or ridiculous. And with the exception of Rose, none of my Good Christian Girl friends wore makeup.
So far from something that was expected, makeup was exotic and taboo. Maybe in that way, my approach was more similar to what a boy or trans girl might experience. I don’t know.
In my mother’s defense, when I first started applying eye shadow and lipstick, I’m sure I did look ridiculous. The only time I was allowed to wear any kind of cosmetics was on stage, so garish stage makeup was all I’d ever been taught. And the only makeup books I felt comfortable checking out of the library were, consequently, about stage makeup. This was before YouTube was even a gleam in anyone’s eye, so online makeup tutorials—though they existed here and there—weren’t a viable resource.
My goth makeup origin story
One day, probably when I was about fifteen, I walked to the dollar store and nervously purchased an eyebrow pencil. My large, dark brown brows (very unstylish for the late 90s and early aughts) looked gray to me, with so much of my light skin showing through the sparse hair.
I had previously tried to trim my brows using scissors, which didn’t go well. Having no idea how to pluck, and having a vague idea that I’d be reprimanded for vanity even if I could work it out, I’d given up on making my eyebrows into fashionable thin lines. Instead, I tried to fill them in with pigment, so they would at least look solid.
I doubt I did a good job, but I felt a little less self-conscious. I felt like I had achieved a very slight amount of control over my appearance, which had felt especially beyond my control since puberty.
Just a year or two later, I started learning about the goths. Their makeup was also often harsh and a little garish, which I liked. I appreciated the openness of it, in contrast to the almost deceitful subtlety of ‘natural’ makeup. Or maybe I just liked that it looked like you could never overdo it, as I was prone to do in my attempts to wear my bright, cakey theatrical makeup in social settings.
So I walked to the dollar store again and loaded up my shopping basket with dark purple-red lipstick, porcelain powder foundation, purple eye shadow, and liquid eyeliner. And, at home in my bedroom, I started experimenting.
It felt wonderful. Though this might sound dramatic, I felt a sense of freedom, control, and self-expression when I wore makeup. Due to a lack of money and an abundance of sensory issues, I could rarely dress in ways that fit my sense of style. So it was with makeup that I felt like I could present myself to the world in the way I wanted to be perceived.
Standing in front of my closet mirror, dark purple eye shadow covering everything from my lids to my brows, was the first time I saw my reflection and thought, “This is who I am.”
That girl, with the dramatic black rimming her eyes and the deep, matte color on her lips, looked like me. That was what my personality looked like, the personality I couldn’t accurately present through my speech or mannerisms. The one I had only just begun to recognize through my various online personas.
Wearing goth makeup beyond the 2000s
At this point, my mother no longer objected to me wearing makeup. She may have decided I was old enough, or the change may have been due to the fact that she had declined to renew her membership to the conservative Christian church that would remain a major force in my life for another couple of years.
My dad, who taught himself about computer engineering and had access to a supply of used parts, built me a desktop computer of my very own. In the early 2000s, most people still had a family computer in a central location that everyone shared. Even most of my homeschool friends from well-off families didn’t have the luxury of computers in their bedrooms.
I used this uncommon privacy to look up websites about applying goth makeup. Again, there were no step-by-step tutorials, but there were tips, such as “never wear black lipstick,” and “use a light shade of powder, but not white, for your skin.” I followed those guidelines, grateful to have some knowledge that would prevent me from accidentally making a fool of myself.
Throughout the decades that followed, presenting myself as goth became less vital to my sense of identity. As I moved away from the restrictive religion that had been the dominant force in my life during my late childhood and adolescence, I felt more comfortable having a personality of my own. As a result, I felt less compelled to seek validation of that personality from other people’s perceptions of me.
Still, I love goth makeup to this day. Even with the abundance of tutorials on wearing makeup fashionably and more demurely, I delight in framing my eyes in shining liquid eyeliner and brushing dark purple powder up to my brow line. I love emphasizing my pronounced cheekbones and applying the darkest, richest shades of purple-red to my lips. The happiness I feel applying makeup might be similar to what other people feel after putting together a really good outfit.
But makeup never became something I relied on. I never felt ashamed to be seen without it. I genuinely love my face without a drop of makeup on it, and spend most of my days makeup-free. Yet I know I’m fortunate to feel like makeup is a choice and a pleasure, rather than the obligation that it is for many women.
Goth makeup helped me get comfortable in my own personality. It was a tool and a stepping stone away from the persistent prayer that God would burn away every part of me and leave only Him. And now it’s like an art form. One that doesn’t require too much time or cleanup and that I can enjoy all day long.
There’s no hidden message here. Like I said, I’m not making the argument that falling in line with patriarchal beauty standards is somehow good for women. I’m merely telling the story of the good that experimenting with goth makeup in particular did for me as an individual, and why I still love wearing it to this day.