Issue #21: Because I might never be on the cover of Vogue
Because Vaseline Is Couture.
Dear Reader,
I’m guessing you didn’t attend the MET Gala this year. Same. My invite must have gotten lost in the mail.
Has your feed been inundated with Get Ready With Me (GRWM) videos of those whose MET Gala invites didn’t get lost in the mail? Same.
This week’s issue is an ode to Vogue’s YouTube channel.
You see Anna, you might have gotten my address wrong but we’re good.
The Mirror
GRWM.
In my teenage years, I carried a pink make-up bag everywhere. It was filled with items I rarely used, except during solo night photoshoots I had at home. That’s what younger siblings are for, following you around with a camera as you ‘strike a pose.’
The make-up bag was an aspiration for the person I thought I would grow up to be.
One obstacle – my sensitive skin, so sensitive my mother had to dilute shampoos to wash my hair when I was a child. Otherwise, my scalp would erupt into patches of blackened skin, like charred grass after a fire.
I’ve gotten compliments about my make-up free skin, smiling as though my sense of self-worth was SO much better than others.
“You’re so lucky you don’t care about makeup.” (Now that I think about it, is that statement really a compliment? I’ll choose to believe that it is.)
I never reply with the truth: “I’m not a saint, neither do I have an unshakeable confidence in my make-up free appearance, I’m just afraid of bursting into flames or waking up with black squares on my face in the morning.”
Inspired by Vogue’s GRWM videos, here’s a version of mine:
1. Washing my face with a Simple moisturiser (Simple is safe. They must have had me in mind when they chose the name.)
2. Then a exfoliator. Still a Simple brand, of course.
3. I lather my face with, yes, a Simple moisturiser (I wish I had taken a picture of my friend when I told her, a few years ago, that I never used anything special to moisturise my face, just Vaseline. She looked at me as though I’d just hitched a ride to the city for the first time.)
4. Sunscreen - Bioré UV AQUA Rich. (Also, a recent habit, whose importance I forget occasionally.)
5. I don’t do anything to my eyebrows because I don’t know how to, despite the many YouTube tutorials I’ve watched. One of close friends once grabbed a blank A4 paper, drew the outline of an eyebrow and handed an eye pencil to me, with a simple order to practice on it. If it had been a module, I’d have gotten a below-pass mark.
6. Then an eyeliner, that sometimes droops down my face.
7. And powder. I’m rarely lucky with these. It’s either it darkens my face, or blends in a little too well. There have been occasions where I’d step out (with a powdered face), and my mother would advise me to wear powder. I tell her its already on my face, and she looks sad.
8. Finally, I dab lip balm on my lips. Anything too colourful, and I’m back in the bedroom cleaning it up with a tissue because it doesn’t feel like me.
Experimentation isn’t always the answer, at least not in my case.
The Echo
Inspired by Vogue’s 73 Questions, but I don’t want to bore you or myself, so here’s 23!
1. Where does your name come from?
Paternal grand-aunt. But it also means Spring, and the 4th daughter.
2. What gets you out of bed?
Searching for purpose.
3. If you could tell 13-year-old you one thing, what would it be?
It’s not the end of the world.
4. What do you want to be known for?
Leaving a positive impact on the world.
5. What cause is closest to your heart?
Child beggars shouldn’t exist. It’s cruel.
6. How would you describe your personal style?
It’s still searching for a name.
7. If you had a full day off, what would you do?
Write all day. Breaks will include watching Kdramas.
8. What’s your current obsession?
Watching Resident Playbook.
9. Something you’ve always wanted to try but are scared to?
Bungee jumping.
10. What does creativity mean to you?
Life.
11. Most rewarding trip you’ve ever had?
Hajj in 2024.
12. If you could teach one topic in school, what would it be?
History — so I’ll learn too.
13. What writer blows your mind?
Pemi Aguda and Fonda Lee.
14. Something you will not be doing in 10 years?
Thinking of the past.
15. One goal you’re determined to achieve?
Living in the present.
16. Describe your childhood in three words?
Barbecues and Sleepovers.
17. What question do you get asked all the time but hate?
How old are you?
18. Favourite exercise?
Climbing up and down the stairs, max 5 times.
19. If you were a rap artist, what would your stage name be
Lil’RTY
20. What scares you most?
Displacement.
21. Question you asked once that made you feel silly?
Will there be snakes?
22. A Northern Nigerian everyone should know about?
FTY
23. One thing you'd love to master?
A foreign language.
The Grounding
Remove all the items in your handbag, what do you think each item says about you?
The Lens
Inspired by Vogue’s ‘What’s In My Bag?’
Life is full of receipts and calculators.
The Shelf
The Poem, Mirror, by Sylvia Plath.
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Before You Go
Repeat after me, Vaseline is stylish and necessary.
Vaseline. Is. Stylish. And. Necessary.
Until next week,
Spring4th.