Who I'm Looking Up To: Leesha
Flashback to 2010 (OMG how was that ten years ago?): I’m a freshman in high school. I finally had some adult make-up but had no idea how to wear it. Like all other girls my age, I turned to YouTube. Not knowing who’s who amongst the beauty gurus I clicked on the first video that caught my eye, a tutorial for Rainbow Eyes, and discovered Leesha.
Leesha, fka Xsparkage, has been on YouTube since 2007. Her make-up tutorials immediately caught my attention because they were so colorful and so different from the looks my mom and friends wore. She had tutorials for looks inspired by the Disney Princesses, the astrological signs, the Greek Gods, I could go on and on. Her Un-Wearable Wednesday video was life changing for me as my make-up knowledge was, at that time, limited to copying what I saw on YouTube and in magazines. She was the big sister I turned to for make-up and beauty advice. She was the first YouTuber I subscribed to and have been a loyal fan of for the last ten years.
Leesha inspires me because she is real, what you see is what you get. I never, ever feel like she is trying to hide from her viewers. One of the bravest things I thought she ever posted was a Body Confidence Try On Haul. She opened up about her struggles with her body image and her struggles with finding clothes that fit. She expressed that she felt like she couldn’t wear things because of her body shape. Her friend, fashion guru Crystal, aka @sometimesglam, inspired her to break out of her fashion comfort zone. The rules were simple: her friend added clothes to the cart and Leesha must check out. Watching her try on clothes she would never normally buy for herself and exuding confidence doing so motivated me to do the same. I remember on my next online shopping venture adding clothes to my cart that I thought would never fit me and surprised myself with some of my purchases. What I thought was daring about my clothes order wasn’t really daring at all. Nothing I purchased was funky or avant-garde. They were nice pretty pieces that I didn’t have the confidence to try on before following Leesha’s example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrsVkADxbA&t=139s
However, my new confidence didn’t change the fact that the clothes still needed to be altered to fit my body type. Make-up, on the other hand, was different. I was the canvas and the make-up was the art I created. I didn’t need to shorten the hem, taper the legs or cuff the sleeves. I picked out my colors and chose my brushes. In retrospect, it was this sense of being in complete control over how I presented myself that made me proud of my reflection in the mirror. I was happy to show-off my carefully curated work of art, i.e, my colorful, rainbow eyes.
Leesha taught me to not necessarily rely on someone else’s designs and make it work but to enjoy the process of designing for myself, even if it was as simple as a smokey eye.
