Undergraduate / I fear looking in the mirror and not recognizing what I see. Yale supplement? [3]

Yale supplement essay

Prompt: Write about something you would like us to know about you that you have not conveyed elsewhere in your application.

I wake up late. It's a 15 minute struggle to get to school by 7:15, and God knows I refuse to do anything without eating, which uses about half my allotted get-ready time. And to me, eyelash curlers look like medieval torture devices; but that's not why I don't wear makeup.

I joke with my friends that my three biggest fears are heart disease (runs in the family), skin cancer (the most preventable cancer), and makeup. The latter usually raises the most eyebrows. Though I say it with a lingering laughter in my voice, there is without doubt validity to my statement.

I fear looking in the mirror and not recognizing what I see. What I fear more is recognizing my face with makeup and not recognizing myself without it. I fear the day when I feel exposed or empty with a bare face, when makeup is no longer about representational art.

Makeup should be about insight, giving people the ability to see the colors of your soul, to read your face the same way they can read body language. For many, foundation is a blank canvas for a masterpiece of self-reflection.

But a pimple here, a birthmark there. Make short eyelashes longer, cheekbones more defined; makeup is also a panacea to societally-induced insecurity.

Makeup cannot be my crutch. Demons can tunnel through painted faces. There are parts of myself that applying makeup would fix. I just can't risk losing acceptance of my flaws.