Many of us are used to gliding contour sticks along the hollows of our cheeks and applying lip liner above the natural cupid’s bow. Certain techniques that play with the illusions of light and emphasize facial features have become an everyday staple in makeup routines. Makeup was a female-dominated industry for many of the 20th and 21st centuries. However, the key techniques that keep products flying off the shelves at Sephora can be attributed to the routines of drag queens from years before. As pride month comes to a close, let’s take this time to reflect on those who pushed the envelope, revolutionizing the world of glamour as we know it.
Drag makeup is intended to exaggerate features. The natural lines of one’s face are challenged through illusions of light and dark. The whites of your eyes can be expanded with liner, providing a cartoonish appearance as a drag queen takes the stage. In everyday life, contouring has become a key technique to chisel out cheekbones and give the illusion of stronger facial structures. Inner corner highlight and tight-lining your water line with white eyeliner all derive from the same campy concept of over-exaggerating your features in drag.
Popularized in 2016 amongst Instagram influencers, “baking” your face is a concept that has stuck around longer than many realize. While women would excuse themselves almost one hundred years ago with “powder my nose,” using translucent makeup powder to mattify the skin and blur blemishes has existed since the sixteenth century. However, drag queens began the trend of loading makeup sponges with powder, packing it under your eyes, below the cheekbones, and along the sides of your nose. Baking was a technique that helped drag artists settle their makeup nicely, preventing smearing and creasing during a show. Heavier makeup looks have become increasingly common, and many have adopted this technique to keep their faces picture-perfect throughout the day.
Just like the handy trick of contouring, over-lining the lips was also a method of illusion for drag queens. It is easy to accredit this skill to Kylie Jenner, but queens were the first to adorn the look. Using a darker shade to over-line around your mouth, it is typical to begin drawing the color into the center of the lip and filling the middle with a lighter shade. This creates a fuller, more voluptuous appearance to the face and may even balance out facial harmony.
Drag queens are an important part of our history, but they continue to impact the beauty industry today. Queens like Trixie Mattel and Kim Chi have started extremely lucrative beauty brands that inspire people of all identities to explore the medium of makeup. With shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race highlighting the drag community, the form of self-expression is appreciated by a large community. Drag queens helped revolutionize makeup into an art form rather than a mode of conforming to societal standards. They used their palettes and mascara wands to test the limits of what makeup could do. Now, millions of people find newfound confidence and talents by what they can transform themselves into.
Makeup is for everyone, and it was the queens who came before who set this standard. They showed us that a little lipstick won’t kill anybody and dared us to pursue our creativity in the most outlandish ways that our hearts desire. Whether or not you prefer a simpler look for makeup or enjoy the boldness of sharp contours and cut creases, it is largely because of the drag community that makeup became a form of self-expression.
XOXO,
Your Fashion Bestie
