Khadija Fazal almost had the perfect wedding day. Her dress was beautiful. She and her husband made their grand entrance in a helicopter. Contrary to the weather forecast, there wasn’t a speck of rain. But all of this is shrouded by the memory of how much she hated her make-up. “I never look at the pictures,” the 30-year-old says. “They remind me of how sad I was.”
Last month, a TikTok video went viral declaring the south Asian make-up industry “a scam”. The video responded to a prompt on the platform, one that asked people to highlight a scam “so normalised [that] we don’t realise it’s a scam any more”. “Bridal make-up,” came the reply in question. “Why are all these make-up artists charging £900 minimum?”
The video, which has been watched almost 800,000 times, has sparked a fierce debate around the cost of make-up artists and other popular industry practices. Many people complained that they felt the prices were “unjustified”, as the make-up would be washed off at the end of the day. Artists, meanwhile, have argued that the bride’s look is integral to her day and would be remembered forever in photographs. The costs, they say, are necessary.
But then there are people like Fazal, who forked out hundreds of pounds to a trusted professional, only to be left devastated by the results. “She hadn’t concealed imperfections on my face properly and my eyelash was coming off,” Fazal recalls. “All I remember is walking out and going into…
