Dazed Beauty: Religion & Makeup

New work for How my religion shaped my relationship with makeup by Amrou Al-Kadhi for Dazed Beauty.

Featuring Glamrou, Hafsa Qureshi, Raheem Mir and Miss Hope Springs. 

“As a Muslim boy, reaching for my mother’s make-up brush resulted in verbal scalding and a night of repenting for Allah’s mercy. Make-up on a boy, I was taught, was an unimaginable insult. Hence when I started drag at the age of 19, it felt like the ultimate transgression against my religion. It’s been a decade since meeting my queen alter-ego,and I’ve come to discover something quite surprising: that the process of applying make-up wasn’t a simple divorce from my religious heritage, but a subconscious way of holding on to it.

The Muslim act of prayer – which you’re encouraged to perform five times a day – is a deeply meditative one. Through poses and incantations, you attempt to fuse your soul with Allah, and it feels almost like an act of self-care. The precise movements and verses one undertakes to memorise for prayers offers a comforting structure. I used to find great peace in prayer, in setting aside moments where I could spiritually restore myself and take refuge from the world. This is something I get now only through make-up…” Read the whole piece on Dazed Beauty here.