Desi beauty blogger Sumi tells P Rajendran how she manages write about beauty and to study clinical psychology at the same time.
Sumithra Raghavan (hereinafter referred to as Sumi or, okay, Raghavan) has been known to lead a double life. By day, she's a graduate student of clinical psychology at Fordham University, studying the symptoms of trauma and acclimation in immigrants. By night -- or perhaps not just at night -- she runs a blog (browngrrrl.wordpress.com) that fights to provide beauty suggestions for the brown-skinned.
Here, exhibit 1, is her blogged rhapsody on eyeliner: 'Like a developmentally arrested child with a security blanket, I almost never leave home without it. I think that eyeliner does wonders for opening up and brightening the entire face. Eyeliner can be used to project an aura of elegance, mystery, rebelliousness, exoticism, and anywhere in between. Personally, I prefer liquid eyeliner. To me, nothing compares to the sexiness of a well-painted eye line'.
While waxing lyrical on artful eyelining, the subtleties of the art of waxing, or the splendors of Tiny Sniper, a contrivance specialised to deal with those difficult underlashes, Raghavan says there is more to beauty than mere self-indulgent vanity. And that is what she hopes to address in her blog.
"Makeup and fashion trends are really a reflection of the zeitgeist and speak to (certain) cultural ideas of beauty, for example, the emphasis upon fairness...I am also hoping (the blog) can promote a dialogue about a more egalitarian concept of beauty."
Raghavan was used to the generous application of make-up even at the age of five, thanks to the Bharatnatyam performances she had to give. But it was at 11 that things really took on a different hue. That was when she first exhibited vitiligo, the loss of pigment cells in certain areas, in her case around the eyes. The result of an autoimmune disorder, it has decreased over time, Raghavan says, but then she was already hooked to makeup as an art form.
"I started becoming an avid makeup consumer. I was constantly looking for makeup I could use to cover up those spots and create a seamless, blended appearance. So very, very early in my adolescence I not only learned all about what make-up... I learned the difference between concealer and cover-up, matt foundation versus gloss foundation..."
And then there was her mother, Viji.
"My mother was someone who valued looking good. She enjoyed getting her nails polished and looking attractive, not just when we went to some function but on a daily basis. So definitely, my mother had an influence on me in that way, because I never got the message that wearing makeup is a luxury or only something you do to show off. I got the message it was an acceptable way to make yourself feel attractive," Raghavan says.
But Raghavan always struggled to find the perfect make-up for her skin colour.
"Cosmetics have been traditionally geared towards white-skinned European women or really dark-skinned women of African-American or Caribbean descent," she says. "Now I know that I'm not alone in this struggle and was interested in creating a blog that spoke to these issues and provided well-researched information on what products were available for women with brownish skin tone."
She explains how makeup is different when you are planning for skin that the market does not pay sufficient attention to.
"You need to know how to find the right shade for you in terms of what brands have a better selection. Also, you need to know how to blend shades. Often, what you find yourself doing is blending a darker shade with a lighter shade to come up with something that looks natural."
"People don't want others to know they're wearing mountains of makeup. It's a challenge for women with darker skin to learn how to find the right shade that matches their skin, and knowing what colour looks good on dark skin. Certain colours, for example, a pale pink, are not going to show up if you have dark skin. An orangish hue complements brown skin quite well and looks subtle -- it maximises what your skin already has to offer and complements it." Though originally orange, on skin it shows up as a golden hue, she says.
And no, that is nothing remotely like what turmeric provides for your skin, she tells a makeup amateur. "I think turmeric tends to give a yellowish hue." Duh. But Raghavan more than forgives the silly question, going into agonies in the polite passive voice, adding, "which, to me, is not the one I would necessarily prefer to go with for a healthy facial colouring."
Even as a blogger, Raghavan admits she has some healthy competition but her rivals address issues different from those she does.
"There are a lot of beauty bloggers out there. There are also a lot of desi beauty bloggers. But many of them are not speaking about women with our skin tone. Even the blogs that are out there to address non-traditional skin colours, they tend to focus generally on African-American women or very dark-skinned Caribbean women or Latinas. There's not much out there for South Asian women," Raghavan says.
She prefers to discuss more than mere products. "I try to bring in research about changes in the cosmetic industry and the place of ethnic cosmetics in the industry. A lot of these blogs review products -- and I do that -- but I do a little bit more than that. And that is address the more cerebral aspects of beauty."
If Raghavan was deeply interested in makeup she was not about to make a career of it.
"Cosmetology is much more about the science of creating make-up... That's not where I feel my strength is. As far as makeup artistry, I truthfully don't think I possess the manual dexterity to be an excellent makeup artist. I think I have a very creative eye. I think I have an excellent sense how to use makeup, but I don't know if I can see myself being an amazing makeup artist."
Despite all her interest in beauty -- and the wealth of information she provides the makeup neophytes -- her life's work lies in research.
"I have a lot to offer in psychology and I can bring in a dialogue about beauty and an understanding of what beauty means to people -- the way it impacts the way they see themselves," she says.
Have her intellectual peers ever complained that her other interest could seem frivolous?
"Discussing makeup and beauty may seem superficial but it doesn't have to be. Makeup is a reflection of cultural climate. Makeup trends reflect that. The question of beauty itself can be a very intellectual topic... Especially when you talk about ethnic beauty products or what it means that we see an increase in ethnic beauty products. One of my goals with this blog is to demonstrate that it need not be a superficial topic."
She feels there could be deeper discussions "about society and culture, what people value, what people see as beautiful, what impact that has on the individual, how these messages are communicated..." Though she does not deal with beauty in the abstract in her blog yet, she says she is relying on cues from her readers to see what stimulates discussion.
Raghavan says her father Srinivasa Raghavan and mother came to Boston about 40 years ago and were very active in the community, among other things working to set up a Hindu temple there. But they also were not limited by the community, Raghavan says.
"They encouraged my brother (Rajesh) and (me) to talk to everyone. They were not of the mentality that we only mingle with desis," she says. "They really wanted us to understand what everyone had to offer."
Which was why they taught their daughter ballet, tap dance, jazz, Bharatnatyam and Indian folk dance.
And as with certain Indian families, education was encouraged. "But it wasn't encouraged to the exclusion of other hobbies. My parents were not the kind of people who would say, 'You should do Bharatnatyam because it will get you into college' or 'You should play soccer to get into college'. It was 'You should do these things to enrich yourself as a human'."
Her work deals with refugees and survivors of torture and how they go about adjusting to a new life. But while she does not use her other interests to address the needs of immigrants she deals with, she finds that beauty could be an important issue to such immigrant women who have reasons to feel degraded.
"There are so many women in our programme that have suffered a great deal of sexual abuse and a great deal of hurt, you know, injuries to their sense of femininity, and have grown disgusted with being a woman. They see that as an increased vulnerability or a problem. It's very difficult for them to appreciate what they (are worth). That's exactly what makes them a target." And by appreciating their own beauty they can increase their self of worth, she says.
So I think that issues of beauty are connected to... a sense of femininity."
Finally, would she have any generic beauty advice for the Indian woman?
Raghavan obliges: "Whatever colour you are, we can accentuate that and be beautiful in that colour. The idea that we need to be fair-skinned to be beautiful has become so deeply ingrained in... any dark-skinned woman, I'm hoping we can see the color that we are -- a palette on which to build beauty."
Six of her favourite blogs:
anindiansmakeupmusings is an Indian's make-up blog
indianmakeupdiva.com gives you tutorials on how to wear makeup
lipstickmasala gives 'beauty tips for desi women'
