What do you do when someone buys you makeup to hide a blemish that you have no intention of covering?

With all good intentions, she came to me with sample cover up. I grew up on the darker end of the black and brown spectrum. Good cover up usually stopped at caramel, and I was somewhere between milk and dark chocolate. And now Iman and others had makeup lines that went to the darkest shades of brown.

She was so excited that she found shades that would match me. (‘She’ has no name because funny enough, there isn’t just one ‘she.’ This has happened a few times with different women in my life). She wanted to try them on me immediately. She thought she was helping me solve a problem I didn’t have resources or the know-how to solve. She thought it was a problem worth solving.

I wasn’t comfortable enough to have the awkward conversation so say no thanks. I let her make me up, marvel at the near match (at least, to parts of me). It was only a near match because the beauty of vitiligo is that it creates an infinite range of shades on your canvas. I smiled graciously, and then I went home and washed off the makeup.

I don’t know why I acquiesced. I guess my voice was underdeveloped at the time.