Shay Ross is a model, art student and full time cryer. It’s okay to cry through that bomb makeup you just spent 3 hours doing ... ISSA LOOK!!! Follow on Instagram.

I use makeup to create art. Makeup to me isn’t about the contouring or changing anything about my face but I don’t see anything wrong with doing so. Makeup to me is very much to create in a way that I can not with other media. A face is so much more intimate than a canvas. My mum taught me what different types of makeup are for and as I grew more interested in it, I began to experiment more by using some of my own artwork as reference to create a makeup version of my paintings!

Ever since I could walk I was interested in things that were considered more feminine than masculine. I loved to go out and play with my brothers but I was drawn to “feminine” things more. Not once did my family ever discriminate against me for liking things that would have been deemed to be “only for girls” and they always ensured I was happy before anything!

I didn’t see much beauty when I was younger. I was teased and made to feel like I wasn’t important by peers at school, I felt like a flaw in the system and that made me feel angry towards most things in life. But with my family constantly letting me know that the words of others cannot define who I am, I began to find beauty within myself, and the people around me.

I could not have been matched with a better family in life, their love is the strongest form of beauty I have ever felt so far in my life and anyone like me deserves a family like them. I don’t say it enough but they are honestly my life and I would do anything for them and I find that also beautiful.