Makeup for Reducing Social Image Discrimination

“Beauty premium”, as an index to measure the first impression in social interaction, reflects the value of appearance. Appearance defects, though not life threatening as vital organ damage, make people suffering them walled in by their own worries, like being trapped in quicksand and unable to get rid of it, and the psychological depression that comes along with them is far more serious than damage to other parts. So appearance defects and extremity deficiency, congenital or acquired, are unbearable.

Department of Cosmetic Science, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology first initiates the Concealer Modification Practice course in Taiwan to offer practical skin beautification knowledge and skills on modifying facial color difference and improving scar hyperplasia and contracture in people with facial defects. Our students, who have been joining the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation program and providing non-profit concealer modification services to the public for 12 years and using cosmetics to modify facial color difference due to scars and improve facial symmetry in people with facial defects, often see amputated accident victims who are suffering mobility problems due to extremity contracture and cannot do fine eye, lip and eyebrow makeups as they wish. So the department introduces half-permanent tattoo makeup technology from South Korea and offers the Craniofacial Modeling and Makeup Practice course to develop students’ ability to color scars and facial features. The course integrates professional medical tattoo knowledge from dermatology and plastic surgery doctors and cooperates with non-profit medical teams to provide consultation and medical support for people suffering from skin problems with medical tattoo technology.

We also find a group of amputated people who have had their defective extremities exposed for years and wish to have original-looking prostheses, however such wishes are gloomy. After further investigation, we learn that these people have defects on different sites, as well as different skin color differences and scar hyperplasia, which vary greatly between individuals, and no manufacturer in Taiwan is willing to provide customized prostheses due to the non-profitable market of such a small crowd. These people send the models of their defective extremities abroad for customized prostheses, which is not only expensive but also results in failure to receive timely solutions to unfitting problems due to skin color difference and morphological difference between the prostheses and the users, as well as wearing and maintenance problems. There lack solutions to such problems as inquired references and prosthesis manufacturing information in Taiwan, so our department, with our existing Prosthetic Makeup course, initiates the program to improve students’ skills in sculpturing and modeling, attempting to enhance the long-ignored artificial prosthesis manufacturing.

Appearance differences often make people encounter unpleasantly strange eyes and gratuitous disdain, imposing stress and embarrassment on them and easily causing psychological disorders in them. Given the demand and dilemma of this vulnerable group, the department initiates the program to rebuild the image for people with facial and extremity defects to help them gain confidence. It integrates the Concealer Modification Practice course to actively enhance students’ skills and knowledge on beautifying the skin of people with facial defects, and also integrates the Prosthetic Makeup course to further explore the manufacturing and development of artistic artificial and customized prostheses, so as to develop students’ ability to internalize practice, create a social climate of equality and inclusion, reduce social image discrimination and promote good health and well-being.

So far, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology has established the Image Rebuilding Base to undertake image rebuilding businesses from Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation Taipei Rehabilitation Center, and has developed a variety of artificial prostheses such as fingerstalls for missing fingers, artificial ears and artificial noses, which have been approved by IRB in June this year. It also engages the medical system to develop processes to manufacture and wear customized artificial fingerstalls, so as to seek solutions to the failure of prostheses to be accurately customized from true feedback from users. The university intends to transfer its future development results and technologies to Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation for free to allow such results and technologies to be applied to the practice of image rebuilding for people with facial defects and encourage students to make use of their professional knowledge to build a friendly society with image equality.