3/31/2023 0 Comments Mutually Creative: Kelly, AKA @ratboar -- Indie Eyeshadow, #HueFixation, and More
It's a rat! It's a boar! It's @ratboar!
Similarly to @watermelonflesh, Kelly of @ratboar is someone I've known through a makeup Discord for about 4 years now. She's a real quirky person with a great love for dimensional, shifty indie eyeshadows -- which I can wholeheartedly relate to. She hates getting pinged on Discord and people who are overly judgmental about makeup, but she sure loves blursed memes and scrumptious macro shots that show off every delicious bit of sparkle. While I've followed her Instagram account for even longer than I've had my own beauty account, in just the past couple of months, she's really elevated her content so much, and that has been so incredible to witness. Out of my mutuals, I often find her makeup looks to be the most "relatably"/realistically aspirational for me, especially as my collection and interest in makeup are heading more and more into those sporkly indie multichromes. We both have a tendency to do that same ol' reliable eyeshadow shape -- a gradient of mattes in the crease with a tasty shimmer all over the lid -- just in different color combos. Over Zoom, we talked about her experience getting into indie eyeshadows, the state of the indie makeup industry, reactions she's gotten as a Korean American, and her newly-created #HueFixation open makeup collab on Instagram.
GLOWYMINO: What was your journey into the makeup world?
RATBOAR: In high school, I suddenly wanted to wear lipstick. As a goal, I was like, "I need every single color." I never wore it to school, and I never wore makeup after that until my first year of college when I walked into Ulta, and I was like, "I'm gonna buy this eyeshadow palette." It was a terrible palette. It had dusty pigmentation; it was the Ulta Beauty brand and was called "Jewel Tones." I loved the absolute shit out of it, but it was terrible. So that was my foray. It was truly just like, "I'm going to wear makeup," and I really only wore eyeshadow and eyebrows. I didn't do foundation until a year and a half into only doing straight-up eyeshadow. GM: How long ago was that dusty Ulta palette? RB: I wanna say like the start of 2017.
GM: How did you get into the indie world of eyeshadows?
RB: I don't remember how I discovered Reddit, but back in 2017, I somehow found my way to the r/makeupaddiction subreddit and r/indiemakeupandmore subreddit, and I was super interested in loose eyeshadows because, at the time, that was where you got super pigmented eyeshadows. Obviously, there were mainstream brands too, but indie brands had such unique shimmers that the mainstream brands were not doing. I really have no memory of how I found this subreddit, but I was really interested in the loose indie shadows. But I did not have a budget for any of that, so I only had a handful of those eyeshadows. I learned that I loved to use them, but they were super time-consuming. I started buying more mainstream brand stuff, and I fell out of favor with indies. Then, I wanna say, like late 2019, early 2020 is when I really was like, "Oh, I keep seeing people use Clionadh or Terra Moons. I'm going to keep an eye out, but I'm not going to buy anything." Then I wanna say Black Friday 2020 is when I purchased from them for the first time and truly dipped my toes in, and my legs are in that water. "All it takes is just that little dip, and all of a sudden, it just opens up a whole new world."
And I just recently saw actually that Glaminatrax Cosmetics, which is an Australian indie brand, just made a post talking about how people were begging them to bring certain palettes back. And they did, and they've had a hard time moving those palettes out, and it's taking up space, and the return on investment is not quite there. It's hard for them to continue bringing back old things that people want because new stuff sells better. I don't know. Like, I do love indie brands, but that is this weird juggling of FOMO and having a core line of staple products.
GM: Did you see that Kailav Beauty, formerly Musee Beauty, just announced that they were shutting down? Er, it wasn't "just announced." It was like a couple of weeks ago. [Note: it was actually January 1.] RB: It feels like it was just yesterday, honestly, GM: I was shocked at that. RB: I didn't follow them too closely ... I do think it is disappointing because they were, if I remember correctly, they were really inspired by fine art. GM: Yeah. RB: It's also hard for indie brands because I think there is a space for palettes like that, and no shade to them because I've never used any of their eyeshadows, but there wasn't that special "Thing." Even though multichromes are super expensive, I think that "Thing" is what draws in a lot of people to indie eyeshadow palettes because they have something that the mainstream brands don't. GM: Yeah. A weird time for indie brands, especially as the makeup industry right now is just super saturated. RB: Yeah, I agree. It's hard to keep up.
I love a good macro shot and being able to just see all the detail that you can see in real life, and I was wanting to somehow emulate that on the screen.
"It's always jobless, bitchless, broke men who have something to say about [my makeup] ... No happy man is in my comments saying, 'You look stupid.'"
But my family also lives in the countryside, so it's like, "Oh ... okay." It definitely wasn't hateful, but it was definitely like, I stood out a lot because I wore visible eye makeup.
GM: Do you feel any cultural discordance in that your style of eyeshadow is very much so the opposite of what is the mainstream Korean eyeshadow style? RB: For sure, for sure. It's really funny because I feel it definitely makes me look like a foreigner. Don't get me wrong; people wear visible makeup in South Korea, but not super colorful makeup. You know what I mean? Like, you can tell that someone is wearing a sparkly eyeshadow or a matte eyeshadow, but it's so subdued that it doesn't stand out. So I definitely felt like a foreigner in that regard. It's very much like, [vigorously pointing] "Look! Look!" I feel like especially old people in Korea, and maybe in other parts of Asia too -- they stare regardless. So like, especially when you're wearing something out of the ordinary. It's like [intense staring] from random-ass grannies. Like, they don't care.
"It's almost like having your own party, and everyone's showing up, and they're bringing their own charcuterie boards."
You can find Kelly on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube as @ratboar, and you can find me on Instagram as @glowymino!
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about @glowyminoI have dry skin and very dry and textured lips. I also have a medium-light skintone (somewhere in the realm of NC25-30) with strong warm yellow/olive undertones. I have a tendency to prefer a glowy, lightweight base and color cosmetics in shades of a warm undertone. Read more about me in the about page! Archives
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