The text came through in Aisle 5. “Where are you? I’m coming to town. We’re at ACE hardware on Bundy. Ok I’m minutes out.”
How we arrived at this scene took 14 years or a few months, depending on how you’re counting.
I’ve known Jillian Dempsey for half my life. Long enough to know that she’s the first person Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kristin Stewart call when they have to step anywhere near a red carpet. Let’s stipulate that there are many problems that can’t be solved with makeup. (No, really, it’s true!) Jillian Dempsey goes after the ones that can.
So, 14 years ago.
That’s when my daughter was born and when, a few days later, Frankie was diagnosed with a benign tumor, a hemangioma. Normally harmless and temporary, hemangiomas are usually manageable. But hers was wedged in the middle of her eyelashes. First it looked like a small, pink freckle. Then a wart. Then a bad pimple. Then it was the size of a pea. Finally, when she was seven months old, she had surgery because it was occluding her vision. The surgery was a success—the hemangioma was excised. Yay! Except for a noticeable scar and a missing patch of eyelashes. Everything would have been fine if only middle school hadn’t happened. For us, the era of eye makeup was a slow, unfolding nightmare.
Frankie would get into bed at night and sob quietly for hours. She started calling herself “a freak” and “hideous.” By the time she was 12, she was researching plastic surgery. In eighth grade, she came home from school, ran into her room, and burst into tears, clutching a trusted stuffed animal. Through gulps of air, she said that when she walked into science, Aiden (her longtime crush) asked her—in front of the entire class—why she was “deformed.” Yes, Aiden is an asshole—but now we had bigger problems. Frankie barely left her room; school was a daily battle. I was utterly at a loss.
As a beauty editor for 20 years, I’d always known that lashes were my parental responsibility. My husband could teach the kids sports, politics, literature, and cooking. But I owned mascara and eyeliner (along with travel, rules of grammar, and how to drive). And once we met in the mother-daughter makeup aisle of life, Frankie and I would have a bond, one generation entrusting its wisdom to the next. But here we were, and I was useless.
Beauty comes from who you are, not what you look like—we preach that to our kids all the time. It’s the idea that as you grow older, life gives you the face you deserve. Move through the world with kindness and integrity, an open heart, and compassion: that’s what makes you beautiful.
But what if that wasn’t the whole story? What if to some people—let’s call them eighth-grade girls—beauty is also long eyelashes and well-placed eyeliner? What if beauty, the kind that sits on the surface, is the only kind that matters at the moment? Sure, that will almost certainly pass. But right now? It was as real as the scar on her eye.
I learned the hard way that the “beauty comes from within” talk would be met with the “get out of my room” eye roll.
To date, Frankie has had three surgeries. The lashes have been pulled closer together, but the scar remained, and she hated it, and by extension, herself.
Then came Jillian Dempsey.
She was launching a new product called Flyk Trick—part liquid liner, part mascara, and the kind of thing makeup people call “completely amazing.” I was invited to an afternoon of champagne, cupcakes, and eyeliner. Frankie loves products in a way that has always mystified me, so I brought her along. Moments after we walked into an event suite, Frankie stood in front of a mirror, trying the new product like a pro—winging it here, flicking it there. Jillian came over, corrected a line, smudged another. It took less than a minute.
A few days later, Jillian called. “I loved meeting Frankie,” she said. “I noticed her scar. Can I help? Look, she doesn’t need a thing—she’s a beautiful girl. This is only if she wants to.”
This was late August—and a once-in-a-generation tropical storm was headed straight for Southern California. The authorities told us: Get extra batteries! Stock up on water! And then, reminding you where you live: Bring all garden furniture inside!
Frankie and I went to the hardware store. Jillian’s text arrived while we were searching for headlamps.
We met her in the parking lot, helping her with her suitcases of makeup, and I moved into the back of my car. Frankie slid into the passenger seat, and Jillian appropriately occupied the driver’s seat.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a special way to do eyeliner? Or a 10-minute crash course in fake eyelashes? What I didn’t expect was to be sitting in my car as one of the greatest makeup artists gave my daughter a step-by-step master class for almost two hours. Jillian had brought several kits (full of products she actually bought) customized for my clearly overwhelmed daughter.
Jillian dotted, swiped, and did tiny micro-things to Frankie’s eyes. Then she leaned back to examine her progress, and every time she did, Frankie would try to catch my eye, silently saying, What is going on? I shook my head. No idea.
The sky was darkening. Slowly, those fat raindrops that foretell worse things to come started pelting the windshield. If teacher and student noticed, they gave no indication. Jillian kept drawing and smudging and Frankie kept trying not to smile.
I have written about the transformative powers of makeup for years—and every time I do I cringe a little. I never really bought into the idea that lipstick could make you feel powerful or that mascara could give you confidence. But taking a back seat to this small, detailed lesson, I saw the transformation of my daughter. It was like watching one of those time-lapse videos of a flower blooming.
“Voilà!,” Jillian said. Frankie craned the rearview mirror in her direction. She looked at herself. Then me. Then herself again.
“I mean … you can’t even see it,” she whispered. “It’s like I don’t have a scar.”
It was magic. Not the makeup—Jillian can do anything with makeup. It was Frankie. She couldn’t stop smiling. Beaming and giggling and too shy to throw her arms around Jillian, which I knew was all she wanted to do. The rain pelted the car, and I put my hand over my mouth, trying not to cry.
Because that was the day—in a stormy parking lot off Olympic Boulevard—that my daughter, for the first time, looked at herself and felt beautiful.
Danielle Pergament is a Los Angeles–based writer. The former editor of Goop, she frequently contributes to The New York Times
