Sun, Jun 18, 2023 page12

• Makeup artist defies convention thanks to Internet

  • By Barbara Debout / AFP, BANGUI
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  As a child, Djibril Gueye Marvin dreamed of being a makeup artist, no easy feat in the chronically unstable Central African Republic, where he faced ridicule for doing a “girl’s job.”

  Help came from an unusual source: the makeup tutorials that have flooded YouTube over the past decade, launching influencers across the globe and generating billions of US dollars in beauty sales.

  “There is no makeup school in Bangui. Without YouTube tutorials I would not be where I am now,” said the 23-year-old, nicknamed Djibou, who lives in the country’s capital, Bangui.

  

  Djibril Gueye Marvin works with a client in his beauty salon in Bangui on Jan. 28.

  Photo: AFP

  Today, his services at a small beauty salon are highly sought after, and his TikTok account has more than 36,000 followers. Djibou is all smiles, but life has not been easy in what the UN says is the world’s second-least developed country, gripped by armed rebellion and daily violence.

  As he works on the face of a client in the cloying heat, the electricity cuts out — as it does several times a day — halting a whirling fan and cutting out the lights.

  Unphased, he moves his client toward the entrance to continue applying foundation in natural light.

  “I do what I can with what I have, but I always manage,” Djibou said.

  “He is the best,” his client added.

  Djibou charges a minimum of 10,000 CFA francs (US$16.49), although he said it is “not within everyone’s reach” in a country where the minimum wage is only 29,263 CFA francs a month.

  Getting the makeup brushes, foundations and eye-shadows he needs is also a “struggle,” Djibou said.

  “I bring my products in from France or Nigeria, you can’t do good work without good products,” he said.

  After growing up amid a brutal civil war, which broke out in 2013 when he was 13 years old, Djibou fell in love with the idea of “people being transformed, beautiful and chic.”

  The mineral-rich Central African Republic has known little peace, with decades of coups and rebellions since it gained independence from France in 1960.

  However, the 2013 coup, by mostly Muslim rebels, led to the bloodiest sectarian violence in the country’s history as mainly Christian militias sought revenge against their Muslim foes.

  “One day, my little brother, little sister and I were almost killed by a rebel on our way to school, so we all fled, to Cameroon,” Djibou said.

  Despite numerous peace agreements, armed groups and government forces backed by Russian mercenary group Wagner Group continue to clash.

  Djibou also had to battle prejudice from a traditional society in his bid to become a makeup artist, hearing a thousand times: “It is a girl’s job.”

  Yet he did not give up, and hid his makeup at his friends’ houses when he was younger.

  “If my parents found it, they would destroy it, but I just kept buying more,” Djibou said.

  “I had to study for an international business license and prove myself as a makeup artist for them to accept my job,” he added.

  Now, when he is criticized, he brushes it off.

  “I know they are a little jealous,” he said.

  Djibou shares his work, inspiration and stories about his daily life on his TikTok channel.

  With his face smeared in greenish-blue powder and gold glitter, Djibou poses in a dilapidated photography studio to show off his artistic makeup skills.

  “For my fans,” he said.

  Later, he talks about the future, in the modest room he shares with one of his sisters, where a statue of the Virgin Mary, a Bible and rosary lie among the cosmetics scattered on his night table.

  “I want to go to a makeup school abroad, but I don’t have the means,” he said.
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