"It Feels Like Taking a Gamble": Exploring Perceptions, Practices, and Challenges of Using Makeup and Cosmetics for People with Visual Impairments

TL;DR

This study explores how visually impaired individuals perceive and practice makeup, highlighting unique challenges and opportunities for making beauty routines more accessible through analysis of online content and interviews.

Contribution

It provides novel insights into visually impaired people's makeup practices and perceptions, and identifies specific barriers for future accessibility improvements.

Findings

Visually impaired individuals develop unique makeup practices.

Challenges include lack of visual feedback and physical barriers.

Opportunities for accessible makeup tools and guidance.

Abstract

Makeup and cosmetics offer the potential for self-expression and the reshaping of social roles for visually impaired people. However, there exist barriers to conducting a beauty regime because of the reliance on visual information and color variances in makeup. We present a content analysis of 145 YouTube videos to demonstrate visually impaired individuals' unique practices before, during, and after doing makeup. Based on the makeup practices, we then conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 visually impaired people to discuss their perceptions of and challenges with the makeup process in more depth. Overall, through our findings and discussion, we present novel perceptions of makeup from visually impaired individuals (e.g., broader representations of blindness and beauty). The existing challenges provide opportunities for future research to address learning barriers, insufficient feedback, and physical and environmental barriers, making the experience of doing makeup more accessible to people with visual impairments.