Blind makeup guru Lucy Edwards proves there’s more to beauty than meets the eye…
Nineteen-year-old beauty vlogger Lucy Edwards is just like most popular self-made YouTube makeup gurus: bubbly, attractive and vivacious, with a knack for finessing a smoky eye better than most of us can butter a piece of toast.
But there’s one major distinction between the makeup expert and her fellow beauty vloggers – Edwards is legally blind. And her powerful makeup tutorial videos are about much more than just nailing a statement lip or an evening look.
“It was a way of saying, ‘I want to cope. I don’t want to just sit in bed eating ice cream anymore,'” Edwards told People magazine.
“I want to prove that I can be just as normal as when I had my sight.”
Born with the rare genetic disorder, incontinentia pigmenti, the self confessed beauty product junkie lost sight in her right eye when she was just 11 years old, before going on to lose sight in her remaining eye at age 17; a devastation that would cripple most teen girls, but not Edwards, who went on to create the YouTube channel, YesterdaysWishes, dedicated to challenging preconceptions about people living with disabilities.
Going blind has just given me a totally different view of beauty, and I just appreciate it a lot more.
“I wanted a place on the Internet that was away from the stigma of disability because there was no one with a vision impairment or disability online really just doing something that a ‘normal’ teen would do…I was just like, ‘Why don’t I be the person to start helping others?'”
Edwards’s most popular video, a smoky eye and red lip tutorial, has over 120,000 views and counting since it was launched a few weeks ago, and her channel – which now has a following of over 17,000 subscribers – is filled with video makeup inspiration on everything from creating an evening look to perfecting coloured eyeshadow.
Before losing her vision completely a couple of years ago, the beauty vlogger says putting on makeup was a favoured hobby she shared with her sister and one she wasn’t willing to let go of due to her disability.
“Going blind has just given me a totally different view of beauty, and I just appreciate it a lot more. I like it when people say I look good, and I want to keep up with it because I can’t see in the mirror, and it makes me really determined to just keep doing it and keep feeling pretty about myself – because I’m still in control that way.”
Have your say: Do you think YouTube needs more unconventional beauty vloggers?