The first time someone did my makeup for me, I was in seventh grade. My best friend at the time had started experimenting with makeup, and I thought she looked beautiful. I thought I would too. But when she added her finishing touches to me, and I looked in the mirror, I didn’t love what I saw. The eyeshadow just didn’t flatter my eyes the same as it did hers. Probably because she had sangapeul, or double eyelids in Korean — aka the visible crease between the eyelashes and eyebrows. I don’t.
It was the first time I became aware that my eyes are inherently Asian. I mean, sure, I had memories of kids pulling the corners of their eyes at me to mock my own, but that had never really bothered me.
The second time I felt acutely aware of my eyes was when I was 15. My mom asked me if I wanted to go to Korea to get double eyelid surgery. At the time, it was a new cosmetic procedure that was all the rage in the motherland, and seemingly everyone was signing up to get that coveted eyefold. But I was surprised: My mom was never one to emphasize beauty — as a pastor’s wife, she was always humbly presentable but never flashy. Her values as an immigrant mom were for me to study hard, go to a good school, and get a stable job. For her to ask if I wanted cosmetic surgery caught me off guard.
I told her no. The thing is, I loved, and still love, my monolid eyes. No shade to anyone who has had double eyelid surgery. I think we all deserve to present ourselves the way that we want to. But my monolids are what make me distinctly me — and I’ve always thought that I have my dad’s eyes. I would never want to change that.
That conversation ended up being a core memory for me though, one that has stuck with me for 20 years and pops into the forefront every time I get my makeup professionally done or I read about the latest beauty trends. Because what works for me breaks all the conventional makeup rules.
In the late 2000s, YouTube makeup tutorials set the foundation for today’s mega content creation scene. They featured beautiful girls, who were mostly white, and they largely covered how to do a smokey eye, the trend at the time. But when I tried to follow their step-by-step instructions, I could never produce the same result. Their eyes were just different.
Then one day, I stumbled on From Head To Toe, Korean American vlogger Jen Chae’s YouTube channel which had an “Everyday Monolid Makeup Tutorial.” I was floored. I had never seen a monolid beauty tutorial before — in fact, it was the first time I learned there was even a term for my eyes! I learned that gel eyeliner could give me the crisp lines that pencil just couldn’t provide. But most importantly, it’s from this video that I found what worked for me: a heavy, thick, deep-black winged eyeliner that was visible above the eyefold.
Throughout the 2010s, I paid little attention to the Beauty Blender and Kim K-esque contouring eras and put all my energy into perfecting my eyeliner technique. Over the years, the line would get thicker and thicker, and the wing sharper and sharper. It would be at its thickest for nights at the club or an even later night at a rave. There was the work-appropriate eyeliner, which was in line with the parent-friendly one. My thick eyeliner made me feel like me. When I had a good eyeliner day, I felt powerful, sexy, and like the baddie bitch I knew I was. Giving me a compliment on my eyeliner was the best thing you could say to me.
During my 20s, I stayed true to my signature routine. No matter where I went, as long as I had my Too Faced’s Shadow Insurance Eyeshadow Primer (please go back to the squeeze bottle!), MAC’s Pro Longwear Fluidline Eyeliner in Black Track (when it was out of stock during the pandemic, I nearly died), and a small, sharp, pointy brush (I use a Morphe brush I picked up in London over a decade ago), I would always be makeup-ready.
But in my 30s, I began wondering whether it was time to let my beloved graphic eyeliner go. Was it “appropriate” for a 30-something-year-old to have such thick eyeliner? My skin also started to change, and I realized I actually wanted face coverage so I had to learn how to shade match and how to use a Beauty Blender. Like others who stepped away from heavy makeup post-pandemic, I doubted I could pull off the natural “no makeup” makeup look. Maybe eyelash extensions that had come into vogue could give me the same effect as my winged eyeliner, but I shied away from them. Anytime I’ve worn falsies, my monolids would double, and I’d get the crease above my eyes. Since I never learned how to do makeup with sangapeul, I would be at a loss.
So I’m not sure where my beauty evolution goes from here. I’m still figuring out the happy medium of enhancing the beauty in my monolids — and still feeling like myself — with the changes in trends and products.
But what has also come with this new decade is a sense of self-assurance, security, and knowledge that I’ll be okay. And besides, if I skip the no-makeup makeup trend, so be it. I’ve never been a trendy person anyway.
While writing this, I asked my mom if she remembered offering to have me get double eyelid surgery when I was a teen. It took her a second to recall — the conversation, of course, didn’t have the same lasting impact on her as it did me. I asked why she had suggested the procedure, and my mom shrugged. “It was the new thing in Korea that was so popular,” she told me. “But I’m glad you didn’t.”
Me too.
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