Prideliner, Prideshadow, and other ways to wear your Pride on your face - INTO
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Prideliner, Prideshadow, and other ways to wear your Pride on your face

Arin Waller

June is pride month for a reason: We commemorate the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising by having 30 days in the year to celebrate our culture, the accomplishments of LGBTQ+ people, and to look back at our history. 

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In History, Vexilology plays a major role, this is especially true in queer history, with the many flags used to signify sexuality and gender identity. Makeup brands are releasing palettes based on these flags, and makeup influencers are creating pride-inspired looks. Let’s dive into a bit of queer history by showing some makeup looks inspired by the different flags:

The Lesbian Flag

This look uses Glisten Cosmetics Lesbian pride eyeliner from the brand’s Pride month collection, and the artist is @fairy.freak on Instagram. Out of all the flags, the lesbian flag has my favorite color palette, and this unique take on winged eyeliner shows ferocity and boldness. 

The current version of the lesbian flag was derived from the Lipstick flag designed by Natalie McCray in 2010, it featured a less contrasting color scheme with the colors mainly having a magenta tint, and a red lipstick mark in the top left corner symbolizing lipstick lesbians, which is slang for lesbians that present femme. However, many argued that this excludes butch lesbian, so the lipmark was removed and the new design was dubbed the Pink Flag.

The current version of the orange-pink design would take shape in 2018 when Tumblr blogger Emily Gwen added orange to be more gender inclusive, with the different shades representing gender nonconformity. independence, and community, this design had 7 stripes and was later updated to the current 5-striped version.

Nonbinary Flag

The nonbinary flag using Creature Cosmetics ROT 80’s Palette and NYX Cosmetics Epic Ink Liner. The artist is @_baby__ghoul on Instagram. This one has a cool, mysterious edginess to it reminiscent of a violet petal.

The nonbinary flag was created by Kye Rowan in February of 2014. Before that, the genderqueer flag was used to represent nonbinary people under the genderqueer umbrella. That flag was designed in 2011 by Marilyn Roxie. Many non-binary people felt as though the genderqueer flag didn’t adequately represent them, and the Rowan design would become adopted as the official flag to represent those who are non-binary.  According to the creator, yellow represents people outside the cisgender binary, white being people with multiple genders, lavender being people who identify as a blend of male and female, and black for those who are agender.

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Bisexual Flag

This look for the bisexual flag is created by artist @make.up_kit on Instagram, who has done other designs based on pride flags. This one is my favorite for its simplicity and use of squiggly line patterns with the colors of the bi-flag being blended in a way that is visually pleasing. 

The bisexual flag was created in 1998 by Activist Michael Page, who explains that the flag was inspired by artist Liz Nania’s 1985 piece Biangles, which uses the same color palette as the flag.

Nania is an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights who co-organized a bisexual contingent for the 2nd National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights and designed biangles with the intent of it representing bisexuality. The design of Biangles begins with a upside-down pink triangle a symbol used in Nazi concentration camps to indicate a prisoner as gay and was later opted as a symbol of gay liberation and a blue triangle overlapping the pink triangle to create a lavender shade, the blue is believed to represent heterosexuality. 

This design, inspired by the transgender pride flag from @saint.josie, isn’t as complex as the other ones, but complexity isn’t everything; sometimes simplest things look the best. This reigns especially true when integrating the cotton-candy colors of the pride flag, being a timeless staple in the pastel-core aesthetic.

The transgender flag was designed in 1999 by trans woman and activist Monica Helms. and was first shown at a pride event in Phoenix, Arizona in 2000. Helms was friends with Michael Page, who is credited with designing the bisexual flag, to where she got the idea of creating a transgender pride flag from a conversation with him. The flag incorporates stereotypically-gendered colors in a lighter shade, with light blue representing boys and light pink being girls, in addition to the white stripe in the middle being for people who are intersex.

The original flag designed by Helms was donated in 2014 to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

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