How Ulta Beauty is changing beauty norms with its new wheelchair ad

Finally, the disabled community can see itself represented in the world of beauty and fashion

A wheelchair.
(Image credit: Illustrated | bsd555/iStock, Nadiinko/iStock)

Here's a little story about my history with makeup: It's nonexistent. Growing up, I never wore makeup and I was always more afraid of the mirror than anything. In the '90s, supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Kate Moss would strut down the runway with an impeccable layer of makeup, and I began to think that things like blush and mascara weren't meant for me, a disabled teenager, because I never saw myself in commercials or fashion magazines.

Maybe that's why I never wore makeup, even when my peers became obsessed with it in junior high — that pivotal time when self-expression is all the rage. I'd see my mom's makeup in the bathroom draw and it all seemed like a foreign world to me; the closest I got to having a makeup routine came in the form of a clear peach lip gloss I used, and mostly, that was because I liked how it smelled.

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Melissa Blake

Melissa Blake is a freelance writer and blogger from Illinois. She covers disability rights and women's issues and has written for The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Glamour and Racked, among others. Read her blog, So About What I Said, and follow her on Twitter.