The lady in a mask: How do you know she is your Valentine when her face is covered in a face mask?

By VICTOR KALALANDA, Sunday, February 14, 2021*

This year’s Valentine’s Day coincides with arguably the most notorious upset in the beauty industry—the seemingly harmless, but deceptively so, face mask.

With mandatory use of the face mask, ladies cannot fully unleash the fury of their beauty. Picture by Victor Kalalanda (Levy Mall, Lusaka)

Wearing it has become the little idiosyncrasy of everybody in the world, but beyond that, its mandatory use might entail no Valentine at all for most men this month, and also diminished pride in the face as perhaps the most attractive aspect of physical beauty, for most women.

Given the damage the mask comes with cosmetically, women might just find a reason not to wear it on February 14 this year!

If you are a man, imagine the following scenario.

Imagine that with languid grace, what strikes you as a lovely woman walks into an aisle between supermarket shelves, as if to meet you, but to actually buy grocery items.

Gobsmacked, you decide to check her out, but with increasing difficulty, because she has been looking the other way.

When she finally turns as if to help your stealthy self complete the final and grand assessment, which at this stage is half satisfactory at body level, you come to a dead end because you cannot view and appreciate her face—it is covered in a mask.

What I have described is not just a scenario, as in a possible event, but something that happened to me and it has often meant the end of the party for most men looking for a Valentine ahead of February 14.

On the other hand, if you are a woman, did you ever imagine that a time would come when you would be unable to fully unleash the fury of your beauty, due to a mere cloth that would stop your shine?

For men and women, therefore, the face mask has created stories of varying degrees of horror, which might now spoil the joys of Valentine’s Day as a time when men and women should be romantically involved with each other, and exchange gifts as part of the annual celebration of love and affection.

So I took a tour of Lusaka to find out, from men and women, what it would be like to have a romantic holiday at a time when beauty in the world is half-covered in the face mask.

“Well, it’s really kind of hard to see a woman’s true beauty if her face is not fully showing,” says Ngosa Mukwanya. “But you can look at how she carries herself and the body morphology. It affects my hunting in the sense that you can’t fully talk to a person you can’t fully recognise.”

From Ngosa’s statement, it seems like what now becomes the focus of men’s attention when handpicking their Valentine is the body of a woman, how voluptuous it is in this case, thereby putting an end to the long dominance of facial appeal as the true measure of feminine beauty. What a downfall for the face!

What this means is that as long as the face is covered, it would be difficult to see the sense and value of TC Candle’s annual “100 Most Beautiful Faces of the Year” list.

This is because by this year’s Valentine’s Day, the concentration of beauty would have shifted to the legs, hips and butt, and the world would instead need an annual “100 Most Beautiful Legs of the Year.”

Like Ngosa, Lighton Nyirongo also shares his opinion on the facemask: “With mandatory masking up, due to COVID, it’s really hard to check out or assess girls’ faces and full appearance as most part of their face is covered. It really affects me or am sure other guys out there ‘cause you can’t tell whether or not somebody you’ve bumped into has got a pretty or beautiful face. Whether we deny it or not, beautiful face is part of the qualities most guys look out for before asking a girl out on a date. With mandatory masking up, most guys have missed out maybe on their soulmates and most girls have missed out dates and soulmates, too!”

And John Goma adds that “It has negatively affected my hunting process ‘cause I can’t even start a conversation if I can’t see her face, unless if I’m asking for directions. Some of us what attracts us first is the facial beauty, then the body type and, lastly, what she holds in her brains.”

For Brandon Bungwa, his reaction is quirky and sarcastic: “With a facemask, almost everyone is beautiful!”

Luchenga Nyimbiri sounds almost anatomical in his observation: “What I’d say is . . .  it’s kind-a-deceiving. This is because the beauty of a person is largely contributed to by the shape of the mouth, from the jawline down. From eyes and the forehead, you can’t really tell.”

With a smart suggestion, though, this is what Mainga Simoonga, a lawyer, thinks: “It doesn’t affect me as I don’t approach women I don’t know. However, for those that do, they’re deprived of the facial details needed to make a full assessment. But this isn’t an issue if someone uses social media to check them out.”

As a day for romance, indeed, the views of these men is a portrait of the emotional dimension unique to this year’s Valentine’s Day, set in a debilitating global pandemic, where wearing face masks daily is an article of faith, as far as survival is concerned.

And how is the face mask likely to affect women this Valentine?

“Wearing a mask is annoying because my makeup doesn’t last as long as it should (with it on). The whole sweating underneath it just ruins the look . . . so you’re forced to go out without it. Also ‘cause I’ve sensitive skin, I noticed that wearing the mask on a daily basis left me with some rash around my nose and lip area,” says Busiku Moobela.

And Deborah Chungu adds: “I feel frustrated to put on make-up because it all goes to the face masks and when I don’t I feel a bit insecure about the imperfections on my face that will be so visible. It’s useless to put on lipstick because it won’t be seen, so there’s no point and that frustrates me because I’m used to trying to always look my best and my face should look good.”

Olivia Nkhata thunders: “Face masks have been an obstacle to beauty, if I may call it. Imagine making up your face for a whole 30 minutes only to wear a mask before you can be appreciated!”

It is clear from these views that this year’s Valentine’s Day shall not proceed without incident, all because of a mere protective garment, which comes with an incalculable cosmetic cost that threatens to ruin Valentine’s Day for women and the men who love them.

The only way out of this malaise is for women not to wear masks, which is a fatal and absurd decision, especially that the world does not need martyrs for beauty as much as it needs the same for peace and social justice.

So women should for now wear their face mask religiously and only dare to drop the guard after the pandemic is finally past and behind us in the glorious foreseeable future that is soon to be reality.

*This article was first published in the Zambia Daily Mail. Check dateline.