Breaking beauty boundaries
Anyone who has YouTube account knows that amassing subscribers is an impressive feat. With over 240,000 subscribers, beauty vlogger and Zumba instructor Marimar Quiroa’s achievements are inspiring, and they’re made even more so by the fact that she has a condition called cystic hygroma.
The 22-year-old’s condition means that cysts grow in her head and neck area. It’s something she was born with and has undertaken numerous surgeries over her lifetime. She also has limited hearing in one ear, breathes through a hole in her neck and gets nutrition through a tube in her stomach, but Marimar won’t let any of this hold her back from achieving her goals.
A post shared by Marimar Quiroa (@makeupartistgorda66) on
Creating makeup videos via sign language, the first year makeup student (though her skills are waaay beyond) posts everything from how-tos to vlogs of her day-to-day life. Like many vloggers she gets some rude and negative comments, but mostly the responses are positive, with subscribers being inspired not only by Marimar’s makeup skills but by her confidence and amazing attitude to challenging the traditional notions of beauty.
“To me beauty means to accept yourself for who you are and to ignore what other people tell you” she signs in a video interview with Barcroft TV. “It doesn’t matter if you have a different looking face. Accept yourself for who you are.”
Miramar explains that she has found confidence the old fashioned way — through hard work and years of positive affirmations. “When I was young,” she signs, “I would talk to myself in the mirror. I’d tell myself I was beautiful. I’d encourage myself and list things that were good about me. That’s how I learned to accept myself for who I am.”
Besides learning how to nail that nude smoky eye, perhaps what we can also learn from Marimar is how to develop our inner confidence, in the same way she did.
