By: Amanda Sperber for News Deeply | Photography by: Christina Goldbaum
(Above) Forced to marry at the age of 13, Maryam Ahmed Ali managed to leave her husband and become one of Mogadishu’s most sought-after makeup artists, gaining online fame and pushing the boundaries of women’s visibility in Somalia.
Online and ‘Out of Control’
For Ali, who can be shy and subdued, makeup has been a lifeline, offering her personal expression and professional opportunity. As she continues to build her public persona, she is pushing the boundaries of the spaces women are allowed to occupy in Somali society.
As Ali tells the story of how she went from child bride to makeup star, she works on one of her regular clients, Iqliim Mohamed. After finding Ali on Snapchat, Mohamed has come to her four times to have her makeup done, mostly for weddings. This time, the 22-year-old student is preparing for a party at Somali National University. She sits in a chair grinning as Ali spends 30 minutes working. Mohamed’s face is the canvas for the makeup artist’s signature style: thick, swooping eyebrows, shimmering eyeshadow, long false eyelashes.
By tapping into social media, Ali, at just 18, has become one of Somalia’s most sought-after makeup artists, making a name for herself in a country where women are almost invisible in traditional media.
Ali opened her Instagram account in 2016, mainly to follow beauty and makeup accounts. When her father died of cancer in a hospital in Malaysia, her mother bought Ali some makeup at the airport on the way home, and she started practicing on herself.
Ali’s father would never have allowed her to wear makeup. He accepted her separation from her husband, unable to see his “little girl being tortured,” as her friend Yasmin Belfaqih describes it, but he thought makeup might make a woman narcissistic and overly flirtatious.
Finally free to experiment with lipsticks and eyeliners… Read More
