The Ugly Hijabi and The Play Boy

Makeup and Faith

The next day I woke up feeling sick to my stomach. All I could think about was this dumb rating of 3. I felt like the number 3 was plastered on my forehead for the world to know. All I could think about was am I really that ugly?

I met up with Jenna for lunch and she was in a worse mood than me. She too was shocked at her rating of 3. She also confessed to me she had a crush on Ibrahim and now it was confirmed to her there was no way she could ever approach him or express any interest in him. Here we were all of us basically so close to marriage age but still looking like trolls.

That night Jenna and I had a real heart to heart conversation. All these years we were being "good" Muslim girls. We wore very modest clothes such as loose pants or long skirts and long tops that covered our bottoms and reached our knees. We didn't do our eye brows and didn't even own any makeup. But was being this level of religiousness shooting us in the foot?

We noticed that all the girls who looked nicer and wore makeup and did their brows and wore tighter clothes were actually the girls getting all the marriage proposals. We definitely assumed being religious or religious appearing would be a perk. But clearly we thought wrong. It never bothered us before that we looked like trolls next to Mariam because we thought it was obvious it would come off that we were more religious in nature. But appearing religious did not matter, you still had to look good. We quickly reached the conclusion that no matter what no one wants to be married to somebody ugly. And if we needed to do what Mariam does and use makeup as a tool then that's we needed to do.

We were grateful that although the rating of 3 hurt at least we got the reality check we needed while we were still young.

We decided with Eid and wedding season coming up we would hit up Mariam for some makeup advice and take a much needed trip to the mall.

Jenna and I made it to the mall finally. I had been waiting for this moment all week. I felt empowered like the tools to take me from a 3 to hopefully Mariam's rating of a 9 were all here and within reach.

Jenna had older sisters so she already had some products at home so she was only looking for 1 thing. I on the other hand had literally nothing and was starting from scratch. I had no makeup and my mom didn't wear any so she had none also.

But the second I hit the aisles at the store all I could feel was overwhelmed. There were so many products and my mom had only given me $30 to shop that day and I guess I didn't realize how expensive makeup was. I assumed everything would be like a $1-3 a piece but it was more like $8-10 a piece. There was no way I'd be able to get every essential I needed today but I figured I could get the basics.

Eyeliner, concealer, and lip gloss are what Mariam had said were absolute essentials. So I just picked brands at random that were within my budget and called it a day.

When I got home I was so excited. Eid was the next day so I figured I would use them brand new fresh out the package for Eid, and they'd help me be my new prettier version of me. I didn't even care about Ibrahim but the thought did come up in my mind like maybe he will see me and think to himself hm I was wrong def not a 3.