the black lipstick project 


The only reason why I thought of wearing Black lipstick in the first place is because of one of my favorite artists, KeiyaA. She is soooo talented and  her music makes me feel so proud to be a Black femme and when I noticed that she wears black lipstick I wanted to too. As I was warming to the idea of  black lipstick (because it was a notion that I too had to warm to), I believed I saw Erykah Badu wear black lipstick. Since, I can’t find photo or    video evidence, but trust she did. So two of my icons wearing black lipstick was more than enough for me to want to wear it. I felt so drawn to the     idea of wearing/doing something that I knew wouldn’t be viewed as desirable to the masses. I feeli like I’ve spent so much of my life trying to tweak  my appearance to be desirable or palatable to men or women or white people and my black lipstick is kind of saying fuck you and fuck that. To wear  black lipstick is to thrust a middle finger up at the white-centric beauty ideals. I’m like fuck a respectability politic. I want to unsettle and confuse people with my presentation. with my black lipstick i am uninterested in mkaing someone else comfortable. maybe black lipstick will make me     smile less. the kind of smile to comfort white folks. it’ll be better for me to smile like that less. 



this project is simple: wear black lipstick and document what it looks like but also how I feel/any interactions about it/how I’m recieved
it’s impossible to know that the lipstick would be the reason why someome would treat me differently than anyone else. My skin already explains most instances where I’m treated differently LOL. this project is more for me to understand and work through some of my own ideals surrounding desirability and to directly practice doing things for myself despite knowing that it might make me appear undesirable or ugly or might make others uncomfortable or think something “bad” about me.