I posted this on my Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/p/CEzPqh6gTrQ/ 

It would be nice if makeup was "just for fun," but the relationship people have with beauty is often complicated and nuanced

- from the social standards attached to and propagated by the industry to the historic exclusion of BIPOC (especially deeper BIPOC) to the highly gendered terminology that is found everywhere (from marketing to labeling on websites) ... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

It has been important to me for Temptalia to be an inclusive, welcoming community; that is a long-standing point of pride for me because it is a kinder, more respectful community.

From pushing people to think beyond traditional lipstick colors & allow people to enjoy and wear--free from judgment--any lipstick color or when someone says "nobody could use that as a highlighter" and gently reminding them that it would work on another skin tone...

to calling out brands for poor naming choices (from more egregious like g*psy to exoticizing like ND Safari palette to cultural appropriation like MAC Vibe Tribe), shade ranges, psuedoscience, etc.

If we can reduce the daily micro-aggressions that marginalized people experience, this is a good, worthwhile outcome. Why would you not want to make someone, who is already going through trauma, feel worse in what they'd like to be "fun" or be an "escape"?

These are systemic issues, and we can't always have a direct, immediate impact at a high level for "big" change, but we can all make smaller adjustments to our behaviors, from the words we use to how we treat others, for improvement.

If you're someone who is "tired" or "bored" and finds it necessary to tell people to "shut up" about something you don't care about, I'd say to ask yourself why it's more important you shut down someone's feelings, why it's more important to dismiss, criticize, and invalidate

the expression of those feelings, rather than simply not engaging in a conversation that 1) you don't care about, and 2) likely doesn't impact you? It comes across as being tired of being uncomfortable--and being uncomfortable is a small price to pay if it yields actual equality.