Tuesday evening, Nav's loft room overlooking Brighton. I sit on the bed as she does her makeup for the night and we begin to talk about about her experiences of growing up queer in a muslim household and how she's changed in the past three years since we met.

Me:

I think we should start with your makeup evolution; I feel like we have to start with the Chadwell Heath days because obviously you were from a Muslim family.

 Nav:

Oh, so you want everything?

Me:

I just want to start by talking about how you were using makeup when it wasn’t as accessible, or conventional to use. When did you first start wearing makeup?

Nav:

Ok so I would have been in year nine at the time, which makes me around 14/ 15, and I would use this mac concealer that my mum had, I would just put that on my spots because I had really bad acne back then. I wouldn’t do anything else, I wouldn’t even set it, at the end of the day I always looked like a greaseball, but it was pretty unclockable at the time because it wasn’t too much makeup.

Me:

Had the girls in your friendship group already started wearing makeup at this point?

 Nav:

Yeah of course. And then when I came out as gay at 16 that was when my girl mates would teach me about makeup, so I learnt that I had to set makeup, and I went out and got a setting powder from Maybelline, but that cost ten quid and at the time I was like wow makeup is expensive, now I really realise how expensive makeup is!

Me:

I feel like that’s why mopping (stealing) will always be so prevalent within the queer community, because if you’re from a working class background you’re going to want to have the same products that all the drag queens on social media are using, you’re going to want to experiment- makeup becomes an important tool for self development and grappling with your identity- if you aren’t in the right economic position, makeup is only accessible through stealing.

Nav:

100 percent, because makeup is so expensive nowadays. I remember the first foundation I ever bought was W10 from Maybelline True Match, because it was the only makeup that was an affordable high-street brand that stocked my skin colour. I also had to shop for makeup in very discreet ways, when I wasn’t with my family, so it was always the most accessible brands I would buy from. But, it was a great foundation for a while.

Me:

How did you hide from your family that you were wearing makeup?

Nav:

They asked once or twice, and I always said no, eventually it stopped being mentioned.

Me:

Looking back now was it obvious?

Nav:

It was obvious to a degree, but also it was relatively subtle. It was natural, but at the same time it was still me trying to be a girl, I would wear the same makeup as my sister but I would blend it out so it was sheer. Thinking back it was a bit bait I wont lie, honestly that’s why I was surprised that they were surprised when I came out.

Me:

When did you come out, was it first year of Uni? Because you came out as gay before you came out as trans.

Nav:

I came out to my friends at 16, but I told my mum when I got to Uni. It was in October so I had already been out to the whole world in Brighton for a couple of months.

Me:

I want to talk about first year of Uni, because at this point you were still grappling with your identity and I remember you using makeup in an unconventional way.

Nav:

Yeah, so in our first year of Uni I would use the food we had in the kitchen to do my makeup. I had a cream contour kit but I was still very much learning how to properly use makeup at this point. Our friend Maria had a cocoa powder that she cooked with and I would use that to set my contour, which honestly worked, that dark chocolate colour was beautiful. I also used to use flour under my eyes as setting powder when I had nothing else. I’ve realised recently using food for makeup is a thing. She did that. 

Me:

Knowing what you know now, what’s the most important thing you learnt when you were transitioning, in regards to makeup?

Nav:

I recently found this one out

*she holds up a peach makeup revolution colour corrector*

But full coverage foundations have always been my best friend because they cover parts of my skin that I don’t want to show, like facial hair and hair growth. Shaving has become a big part of my skin care routine, and when your shaving that much you have to be really careful because you need to keep your skin hydrated. This peach concealer that Umbagary gave me- for free, because she’s a babe.

Me:

Because its not just makeup, there’s a lot of preparation that goes into it.

Nav:

Exactly, its not just makeup, skin care is just as important. What you’re eating really affects your skin, I try to eat healthy so my skin is the best it can be for makeup. Now I know that to cover open pores that result from shaving you just need a really good primer, and colour corrector. Even if you’re using full coverage foundation its always good to colour correct. The peach concealer from makeup revolution is honestly my favourite at the minute.

Me:

Where did you get most of your makeup knowledge from? Was it largely YouTube? 

Nav:

I learnt a lot from friends, especially living in Brighton, when I was still only doing drag I started living with an older drag queen, she helped me quite a bit. But now I get most of my makeup tips from Instagram artists and Youtubers: Nikita Dragun, Bretman Rock, even Jeffery Star.

Me:

So do you think social media has been integral to your transition?

Nav:

Oh, 100 percent. I think its been integral to many people’s transitions, it’s crazy how much influence these beauty queens have now, everyone’s shaving their eyebrows off because Jeffery Star does it.

Me:

I feel like its also important- to borrow a word you used earlier- for visibility.

 Nav:

Yeah, now that we’ve got amazing queens and queer people online, showcasing their talent, its become a much more accessible community. Before celebrities like Kim Kardashian started popularising drag makeup, you would have needed a physical drag community to know anything about drag makeup, but now you just have to google drag tutorials and everything comes up.

Because drag makeup has definitely influenced my trans makeup, I know they’re two separate things but starting off doing drag and then beginning to wear makeup every day, it helped me.

Drag helps you to create distinction within your makeup, make it bold, make it defined, fierce, use bright colours, contour, highlight. But of course on a daily basis you can’t always do that so you learn how to soften your makeup, and I’m still learning, but I’ve come a long way.

Nav:

Exactly, its tokenism. Its like the ‘pink pound’, marketers decide to go crazy with LGBT pro-marketing around Pride, but we need to be visible all year long not just for one episode or one season. Have trans people on every season of Drag Race, don’t monetise off us when it suits you and turn a blind eye the rest of the year. Its not fair.

Me:

It’s kind of strange because you didn’t see yourself where you are now three years ago, I would say. But having reached the point you’re at now, where do you see yourself going in the next three years?

Nav:

Well I definitely see a clearer picture. For now, I plan on working and saving money so I can transition further, I need money for laser and for my gender reassignment surgery and stuff like that, but I also want to give back to my community. I feel like they’ve helped me so much and the least I can do is give back to young transitioning individuals who need my help.

I was talking to my boyfriend about starting my own makeup channel because I would love to influence trans girls learning about makeup.

Me:

It would also be helpful because you’re Asian, which gives what you know, and what you can teach a whole different dimension.

Nav:

I always have to google shades of makeup, and often times there’s very limited content available for brown trans girls. I want to watch a makeup artist who is similar to me, someone who has the same problems as me with their skin. Culture massively impacts transition. We all share similar problems with transitioning but at the same time every transition is entirely different, but I’m less likely to relate to the experience of a white British trans girl and that’s fact.

Its not just that it’s a challenge to find makeup that’s the right shade for me, there are other forms of discrimination I have to be conscious of as a brown trans woman.

Me:

I know we watch it too much but it reminds me of that line at the beginning of Paris is Burning that says ‘if you’re a black man you have two strikes against you in this world, that you’re black and that you’re a man, but if you’re gay then you have three strikes against you, you’re black, you’re a man, and you’re gay’. So if you’re trans and a minority then that’s a much more implicit vulnerability.

Nav:

I’ve got a triple threat bitch, being brown, being trans, and coming from a Muslim community.  I face oppression from not only my family but from the wider community, where I’m not accepted. Then there’s the entirely different fact that I’ll face oppression simply for being brown. Even within the gay community I’ll face discrimination for being trans.

Me:

It amazing to consider how much transphobia there really is within the LGBTQ community. 

Nav:

I’ve met a lot of transphobic gay people who I just believe are insecure and are taking their hatred out on someone doing well, no tea, no shade, but I think we all need to stick together on stuff like this.

Me:

I think lastly, I want to talk about the phases you went through when you were transitioning. I don’t know if other people talk about it in the same way we talk about it but you started transitioning at 19/20, and when you came to Uni you went through a lot of stages in a short space of time.

Nav:

I feel like its not about the length of the journey its about the direction you’re going in. So which ever way you feel like life is taking you, and whatever you feel like you need to explore, explore it.

Me:

We used to joke that in the space of a year you went through all the stages a teenage girl would go through at 15, 16, 17, and 18, do you think that’s something specific to you or do you think that happens to a lot of people?

Nav:

I think it happens to a lot of trans people, 100%. But I also think I excelled at a quick pace but that’s just because I was in the right place. Being in Brighton you’re able to do that. Having the support network I’ve had I’ve just been really blessed, but also I do tend to just pick up on things really quickly, I’ve always been feminine/ effeminate and I’ve always dabbled in makeup so it would only be right for me to do this very quickly, but there have been slow moments, its just the journey that I’m embracing.