Ahh, 2005. I was 16 and living through the golden era of emo rock. Teenage angst was the order of the day, and it was very much reflected in the contents of my makeup bag and wardrobe. Thankfully this was before the days when everyone had a camera phone, so there’s little evidence of my style choices from that time in my life. Any Smirnoff Ice–fuelled moments that were snapped on a friend’s four-megapixel camera were definitely not of a high-enough quality to print as a keepsake and now reside in digital heaven after MySpace lost all content uploaded before 2016 (RIP).
Even so, the memories of my makeup bag from that time remain as vivid as ever—likely because it was the first time in my life that I had truly experimented with beauty. Sure, I’d dabbled in orange-toned concealers and powders in an attempt to disguise teenage acne (spoiler—it didn’t work), but 2005 was different. It was a riot of smudged kohl eyeliner, back-combed hair and fishnet tights as I attempted to re-create the kind of unkempt cool that Kate Moss oozed at Glastonbury that summer.
Yes, I might have resided in a cosy semi-detached in suburban London where my mum still did my washing for me, but I’d be damned if that was going to stop me from scribbling “I’m not okay” (hello, My Chemical Romance) on the soles of my carefully dishevelled Converse or painting my nails black in blatant disregard of my comprehensive’s uniform code. (Disclaimer: This was basically my only act of rebellion at school. Admittedly, I was not very rock ‘n’ roll.)
