Skip to content
Home » In My Chair: A Makeup Artist’s Perspective on Beauty by Eva DeVirgilis (Transcript)

In My Chair: A Makeup Artist’s Perspective on Beauty by Eva DeVirgilis (Transcript)

Eva DeVirgilis

Full text of In My Chair: A Makeup Artist’s Perspective on Beauty by Eva DeVirgilis at TEDxRVAWomen conference.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here: MP3 – In my chair – a makeup artists perspective on beauty by Eva DeVirgilis at TEDxRVAWomen

TRANSCRIPT: 

“I’m sorry you have to touch my face. Look at this breakout; I look disgusting.”

“I’m sorry, but I am not a pretty woman.”

“No. Thank you, but no. I look like crap.”

“The doctor says that I have to lose weight. So, sorry. This is what you got to work with.”

“I look in the mirror, and all I see is a tired mom. And I see these wrinkles, and I feel old and ugly.”

And this is what I hear every single solitary day of my life. I am a makeup artist, and these are real words from real women.

I’m also an actress, but for my past 7 years of doing makeup, I have discovered, within the first 3 seconds of sitting in my chair, almost every single woman apologizes to me for the way she looks. Doesn’t matter how young, how old, what socioeconomic background she comes from, how traditionally beautiful she is, almost every single woman apologizes and does not feel that she measures up to this new standard of beauty.

And I’m sure that maybe some of you might be able to relate to this apology thing? I see some of you nodding.

Well, it just so happens that I was actually the makeup artist for TEDx last year, and the same thing happened when these incredibly innovative women sat in my chair. They apologized.

Now, I have discovered that there is a very small group of women who don’t apologize. And these are the movers, the shakers, they’re the powerhouses.