How to Define Your Creative Aesthetic: Makeup as a Metaphor

Your creative identity feels blurred — how do you define your unique aesthetic?

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Because defining how you see the world—and making it clear so other people can see the world through your eyes—is everything. Your beautiful eyes. Your colorful eyes. Your dramatic eyes. Your 2016 winged eyeliner eyes. Who knows? It’s your world. We’re just living in it.

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Tip One: Define Your Range of Safety

It’s really important that you’re intentional when you’re building your creative identity. Not just “this is cute” intentional, but instantly recognizable, signature look intentional.

Start with this:

What scares you, and what feels safe to you?

You have a range. A range of safety and boldness. And just like with makeup, you can choose how far to push.

You can go natural, stick to your current audience, your current resources—your foundation. Or you can go full Grace Jones. No in-between. Okay maybe a little in-between. But you get me.

For a long time, people saw me as someone who was quiet. Reserved. Proper. Kind. (She was giving: people-pleaser.)

And that showed in how I presented myself. I didn’t wear makeup. I toned everything down. Because standing out? It didn’t feel safe. I had been bullied. Harassed. And to be honest—I thought playing small was the smartest thing I could do.

But when you do that, it’s really hard to even see the edges of your creative identity, let alone push them.

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Tip Two: Experiment Loudly with Your Creative Aesthetic (Even If You Fail)

One day, I sat with myself and thought… I love bold women. I love artists who don’t hold back. Women like Grace Jones who don’t care what people think, whose makeup and self-expression completely reject the mold.

‘I wanted to focus on her masculinity – to use what other people thought an embarrassment, and turn it to her advantage.’ Grace Jones, blue-black in black on brown, New York, 1981. © Jean-Paul Goude

So I decided to experiment.

Let’s keep the makeup metaphor going (obviously). You want to try a new look. So you do the research (because we love to research here), buy the products, sit down at the mirror…

And when you’re done? You look in the mirror like:

What did I just do?

You have two options:

1. Wipe it off. Pretend it never happened. Never try anything bold again.

2. Go outside with that broken wing liner and rock it anyway. Because guess what? You did it. You were brave. And you’ll do it again.

That’s how my eyelashes got here, by the way. They didn’t always look this good. I used to look like I was about to be swept away in a tornado. Cockeyed. Unblended. But I kept practicing. And now? Look. LOOK.

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I am very proud of myself!

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Eyes

Lips

Face

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You won’t be perfect at first. That’s not the point.

It’s the same with your creativity.

With your art.

With learning how to use a camera.

With editing.

The point is to try. Loudly. Often. And let the doing become the becoming.

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Tip Three: Know Why You’re Changing Your Creative Aesthetic

Here’s the difference between an evolution and a performance: intention.

You can go through phases. Eras. Different vibes. All of them are valid if they come from genuine curiosity and joy. That’s when the changes feel good. Alive.

But if you’re changing because your job demands it, because of social media expectations, because of some imagined standard you have to hit? Then you are on the wrong track.

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If you haven’t already watched the Makeup Pillar Personal Series, I highly encourage you to explore it. It’s the heart of all of this.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for showing up.

And this—this was Amoe’s Armoire.

Behind the curtain.

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I realized I was missing a part of myself—that expression that was completely bold and colorful. And when I didn’t care what anyone else thought about me, I went into a deep, deep depression.

My life was a mess, but eventually I got out of it. And one of the things that got me out of it was my mother reminding me who I was, by gifting me her closet. And that is the foundation of AMOE.