BEST FACE FORWARD

Krishika Bhatia explores how makeup bags across generations reflect aspiration, emotion, & quiet rebellion

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A makeup bag is rarely just a zippered pouch. For most Indian women, it is a time capsule, a social document, and a small but pointed act of self-definition. It carries more than a product; it carries proof. Proof of belonging, of aspiration, of rebellion, of trying. A half-used compact can remind one of a job interview. A borrowed lipstick might outlast a friendship. A kajal pencil passed around a hostel bathroom could trace the earliest lines of identity.

Beauty has never been just surface. Especially not here. Especially not for women navigating expectations of modesty and modernity simultaneously. What we reach for, and what we hide, is rarely just cosmetic.

SCENE 1: THE MIRROR THAT SOFTENED THE EDGES

One of my earliest beauty memories is my mother's Lakme compact-square, worn, and always within reach. It lived in her handbag beside her ID and ration card. Not a vanity item. A necessity.

I never used it, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. Long after the powder had hardened, the compact stayed in my drawer, weighted with memory. One day, I asked her why it had always been a compact, never a lipstick. “Because it felt safe,” she said. “Respectable. In our time, a compact wasn’t about seduction. It was about showing up.”