By Morgan Yigdal/The Omniscient
You walk through the entrance of the school and immediately you are met with gasps of disgust and shock. You continue on your way and a smile makes its way on your face as the looks continue. The makeup on your neck and face move with you as you turn to look at the girl who just jumped into her boyfriend’s arms. You feel this cannot get any better.
“You’re gonna make me throw up!” shouts a girl from across the hallway and then you feel satisfied. Character day has started wonderfully.
This is what happened to junior Kayla Cotton when she showed off her makeup skills during Northwood’s 2012 spirit week last month.
“I went through dance with [my zombie makeup] and it moved with me because my neck was ‘sliced’ and it freaked my dance teacher out,” Cotton said. “She had to go on the other side of the room every time I’d go by.”
Cotton’s interest in makeup began in sixth grade.
“I just wanted to try new things,” Cotton said. “I hated who I was and I hated being a copy of everyone else. I wanted to be different so I started dying my hair and really trying to find out who I was, and then I started doing makeup and started doing crazy stuff and it went on from there.”
Cotton’s usual makeup routine takes her “barely any time at all” to get done, unless it is something she has never done before.
Cotton has done makeup for other people and events.
“I did prom makeup last year for a few people and I’ve done a wedding before,” Cotton said. “It was really fun. [A girl from my church] was getting married. I had to do her makeup and it turned out really well. They were really happy.”
Like any other person with a passion for something, Cotton has many reasons why she has a passion for makeup.
“I like doing makeup because I love the feeling when I do [makeup] on somebody else,” Cotton said. “I love how [my skills] makes them happier about who they are. You get to feel that you’ve made somebody feel more attractive and have more self-confidence.”
While wearing her makeup, Cotton has received “a lot” of different reactions about her makeup.
“People just stare a lot. People here have gotten used to me unless it’s something way different like the zombie makeup I did, but here everyone thinks it’s just me,” Cotton said. “But when I go out, I’ve had people take pictures of me like people will just be driving by and ‘click.’”
She hasn’t always had positive reactions from her fellow classmates.
“When I first came here with [my makeup] a lot of people didn’t like me… a lot of people were all ‘it’s just because you express yourself’ and because [I was] different,” Cotton said. “I just ignored it.”
Cotton wants people to have the same way of thinking as she did in her situation.
“I want people to feel like you can do whatever you want to do, be whatever you want to be, wear whatever you want to wear,” Cotton said. “[I want them to] just feel like ‘I don’t care what you say.”
Makeup is a key factor in Cotton’s life and something she says that she is going to pursue in the future.
“As soon as I graduate, I’m going to California to the Empire Academy of Makeup to become a makeup artist,” Cotton said.
–By Morgan Yigdal