All I wanted as a teenager was to attend a forest rave and have green hair. I felt that this would communicate to the world that, despite my shyness, there was a vaguely interesting person inside. Sadly, green hair dye and raves were in short supply in northern Sweden. So instead, I spray-painted some t-shirts with the letter T (for Techno…), dyed my mousy-blonde hair a darker shade of mousy blonde, and cut it into a bob. “You look like a mushroom,” the class bully declared, which unfortunately was true.

This makeover did little to elevate my status as a short introvert, and while my much taller girlfriends gained boyfriends and makeup skills, I was busy panicking over my seemingly incurable tendency to blush at any kind of social interaction, such as buying a bus ticket. If I had been hoping for a fresh start in the UK, I was mistaken, at least at first. My English teacher wrote a letter of introduction in which she described me as timid. This (after using a dictionary to translate it) felt like a humiliating blow, adding to my general sense of humiliation. And, my new school uniform meant that I couldn’t even wear my spray-painted T-shirts anymore.

Some salvation came with my discovery of makeup, more specifically, the type of all-covering face paste that removes any hint of natural skin. Underneath this, I could blush away to my heart’s content, while remaining an impenetrable, greenish beige. This went some way to make up for the earlier lack of green hair and raves. In hindsight, I wonder whether either would really have done much for my self-esteem. After all, looking like a small mushroom at a forest rave might not have been the best idea.

Maria Smedstad bio

https://tp.media/click?shmarker=510460&promo_id=2060&source_type=banner&type=click&campaign_id=84&trs=289294

Read the feature on issuu