Indeed, there are a lot of things in my makeup bag. And while it’s so easy to talk about colors, powders, primers, and highlighters with a Zoella level of soullessness and irrelevance, makeup to me — to many of us — is not an extravagant stockpile of excessive frippery, but something which gives us power. In a world where that power is only taken from us, makeup is a tool which allows us to draw our battle lines and give so much power back to ourselves. It’s a secret language, misunderstood and disregarded by boring dudes who think makeup is "gay" or "for gays," which allows us to communicate with each other silently or with floods of Facebook messages about Kat Von D’s new matte lipstick, as evidenced by 70% of my conversations with my friend Sadhbh. (For the other 30% we talk about radical queer politics and are currently asking each other whether femme-centric spaces are doing enough to accommodate butches.)